It has been years of planning and executing, but the majority of the largest renovation ever at George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate is complete just in time for the nation’s 250th birthday.
“If you go in the house right now, it looks more like the house that George Washington knew the time they lived there than ever before in its history,” said Doug Bradburn, the president and CEO of George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
For the past few years, visitors have only seen sections of the first president’s home while deep foundational issues were repaired and restored.
“The house was originally built in the 1730s, made out of wood and added to kind of piecemeal over time,” Bradburn told WTOP. “It’s a complicated house. It certainly never intended to last for almost 300 years.”
Washington’s home had fallen into disrepair until the site was taken over by the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association in 1860.
They decided to make the home look like a snapshot of 1799, the last year the first president was alive.
“This was a place that was designed by George Washington. It was his intention to have it look a certain way,” Bradburn said. “And so by 1799, we see that as the fullest expression of his hopes and dreams for Mount Vernon that he was able to achieve within his lifetime.”
That includes 19th and 20th century brick pillars in the cellar that had been holding up the house as it sagged over the years. Those are being removed as they continue to refurbish the cellar, which will be opened to visitors for the first time in the coming year.
This mansion revitalization project is the largest that Mount Vernon has ever undertaken. The project closed much of the house over the past two years, holistically repairing the drainage, framing and the foundation as well as adding a new HVAC system that will help with moisture issues.
“The most difficult challenge and the one that took up much of the seven-year planning process was how we were going to hold the house in place,” said Thomas Reinhart, the director of preservation at Mount Vernon.
The bottommost part of the wall frame had to be replaced without moving the house.
What they used were steel beams that weighed equal to the presidential mansion that allowed them to cantilever the house.
“They were literally balancing those steel beams on a center point to keep the house exactly level and exactly in space,” Reinhart said about the engineering marvel.
Not only are they tasked with renewing this house, they are also undertaking the renovation using period accurate methods and materials.
“It may look like we’re actually taking steps backwards by using linseed oil paint and using materials and techniques that were that were used to actually build the house in the 18th century,” Reinhart said. “But we’re finding through an assessment of the process of preservation over the last 170 years, that those were the most effective ways to deal with this house and to make it the most healthy and to give it the best chance of surviving indefinitely.”
Restoration specialists also took the time to make certain rooms in the home more historically accurate.
“The bedchamber is really the pièce de résistance,” Bradburn said about the Washingtons’ bedroom.
What once was white walls is now richly decorative wallpaper. The new baby blue wallpaper with flower and bird themes was found in another house in New Jersey. The original owner of that home had purchased wallpaper from the same dealer as the Washingtons.
“There’s a good chance that this was very like the paper that would have been in here,” Reinhart said.
The original bed and French writing desk of Martha Washington is in the room as well.
While a majority of this monumental project wrapped in December, work on Mount Vernon truly never ends for Reinhart and other preservationists. Already talk of repainting and refurbishing the “New Room” is underway.
“To work in preservation at Mount Vernon is an honor,” Reinhart said. “I’m not going to pull any punch — It’s the most important house in America, and it’s the home of arguably the most important person in the history of this country. So, to be asked to care for it is a great honor.”
