Once the wartime refuge of President Abraham Lincoln, the house sits ghostlike now in a scenic setting as it awaits restoration as a new national monument and tourist destination.
For months now, a cadre of experts has combed the exterior and empty interior to determine how the so-called Lincoln Cottage looked when the president and his family spent their summers there during one of the most turbulent eras in American history.
Roughly 95 percent of this detective work has been completed, according to Jim Vaughan, vice president of historic sites for the non-profit National Trust for Historic Preservation. He estimates the restoration will take three to four years and cost about $10 million; $2 million already has been raised in private funds through the Save America’s Treasures Program chaired by First Lady Laura Bush.
The Illinois congressional delegation recently asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for his support so the site will be fully operational, with interpretive programs and exhibitions about the Civil War chief executive, in time for the bicentennial celebration of Lincoln’s birth in 2009.
Since the 1840s, the structure has survived a crazy-quilt history as a prominent banker’s retreat, a dormitory and medical center for military veterans, a presidential hideaway and, in recent years, an office building.
Located on the 320-acre grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home, which Congress established in 1851, the house is one of the nation’s earliest surviving Gothic Revival structures. From the 1840s to the 1880s, the style flourished and featured such architectural embellishments as peaked roofs, bracketed gables and lattice-trimmed verandas.
For First Lady Mary Lincoln, a high-strung and emotional personality, the cottage offered a sanctuary from the daily pressures of the White House and the suspicions that dogged her every move. “I seem to be a scapegoat for both North and South,” she once confided to her sister Emilie.
Coming from a Kentucky family that mostly sided with the Confederate South, Mrs. Lincoln was rumored to be a Rebel spy and flayed for spending top dollar to refurbish the White House during her first year there. Not until 1864, however, did the Lincolns receive funds to redo the presidential cottage.
In describing the restoration, George Skarmeas, the project’s principal architect, compared the job of recapturing the Lincoln era to solving a medical puzzle with MRIs and blood tests.
“We have to step back from our assumptions and examine the visual signs–for example, the layers of paint and finishes inside–before we can make decisions on how to restore the building,” said Skarmeas. “The evidence is everywhere, but hidden under layers of paint and wallpaper.”
Hasty conclusions must be avoided to achieve authenticity, Skarmeas added.
“Who can say that 10 years from now someone will find photographs actually showing Lincoln in his upstairs bedroom,” Skarmeas said. “Early photos of the house’s exterior remain scarce and undated, while none has been found yet showing the interior when the Lincolns were there.”
In its quest for authenticity, the National Trust for Historic Preservation announced last May that the legendary copper beech tree, which was cut down earlier in the year after it seemed to be dying, could not have sheltered Lincoln and his son Tad as some historical accounts had claimed. According to tree experts, it was no more than 110 to 130 years old.
At the entrance of the cottage, a memorial plaque with obvious patina informs visitors that the cottage was built in 1811 and served as the summer White House for Lincoln as well as Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Chester Alan Arthur. It makes no mention of the two other chief executives who stayed there–James Buchanan in 1858 and James Garfield in 1881.
“The giant is Lincoln, and he is the focal point of the restoration,” Skarmeas said. “The idea is to create a tourist Mecca with authentically restored rooms and interactive exhibits highlighting Lincoln’s life and presidency.”
Skarmeas is the director of historic preservation for The Hillier Group Architects, a firm based in Princeton, N.J. Among its other preservation and restoration projects: the U.S. Supreme Court; St. Louis Public Library; Wingspread, the Frank Lloyd Wright house of Herbert Johnson in Racine, Wis.; and Oldfields, the Lilly family estate that is now part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art.
Monumental living
During a stay at the cottage in 1862, Lincoln completed the final draft of the Emancipation Proclamation, the landmark document proclaiming that slaves who were living within areas “in rebellion against the United States” would be free on or after Jan. 1, 1863.
Before moving to Washington in 1861, the Lincolns lived for 17 years in a Springfield house, which is now a national historic site. Most of their original furniture was purchased by the tenant who later moved to Chicago, where the pieces apparently were lost in the 1871 fire.
Fortunately, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper had published detailed sketches and a description of the furnishings in the Springfield house. By contrast, however, only undated photographs have been found of the Lincoln cottage’s exterior.
During the Civil War, the District of Columbia faced repeated threats from Confederate military forces in nearby Maryland and Virginia.
The stuccoed Lincoln cottage overlooks the parklike setting of what was formerly called the U.S. Soldiers’ and Airmen’s Home, which is 3 miles directly north of the Capitol. The complex boasts a rich assortment of 19th Century buildings along its winding roads with such features as marble exteriors, turrets and a clock tower.
Inside the house, workers have removed partitions, doors and fixtures that were obviously later additions: the window air conditioners, the protruding pipes of the old sprinkler system and ceiling fans.
Among the specialists participating in the restoration is Frank Welsh of Bryn Mawr, Pa. Relying on microscopic analysis, he has examined fragments of paint and plaster to determine more precisely the decorative scheme of the cottage when the Lincolns were there.
Comfort and sanctuary
By the time the Lincolns brought wagonloads of furniture, clothes and toys, the cottage already had been updated with a furnace and gas lighting, according to Gail Winkler. Her firm, LCA Associates of Philadelphia, has worked extensively on re-creating the interiors of many historic properties.
A former Chicagoan with a doctorate in the history of design, Winkler underscored the cottage’s appeal to Mrs. Lincoln.
“It was similar to the size and scale of their Illinois house,” Winkler said. “Living there was more like the old days when she was her husband’s political sounding board. In the White House, the president’s time was taken up with other people and she felt thrust aside.”
Mrs. Lincoln’s leading role in upgrading the decor of the White House and the summer cottage also reflected a major cultural change.
“By the 1830s, women had taken charge of the purchases for the interiors of their houses,” noted Winkler, who grew up in Chicago’s South Shore and graduated from Hyde Park High School. “In the 18th Century, men did the purchasing because women could not make contracts.”
Another factor, she continued, was the creation of furniture showrooms in larger cities that were separate operations from the factories where the furniture was made. By the 1860s, a generation of women had become seasoned shoppers for their homes.
Winkler conceded that the restoration job was complex but there were clues in documents on how the First Lady had redecorated the cottage in 1864.
Based on invoices submitted to the commissioner of public buildings, the Lincolns spent $3,000 to refurbish the nine-room cottage, a modest amount compared to the nearly $30,000 they used to redo the 31-room White House.
According to Winkler, who has worked on historical properties throughout the Midwest, the government paid for wallpapering eight rooms of the cottage. The invoice mentions “gilt border” and “gilt paper.” The Lincolns no doubt purchased mostly American and English products. At the time, French wallpaper, which came in smaller rolls, was the most expensive and desirable.
What furniture the Lincolns brought from the White House to the cottage, said Winkler, remains a mystery. However, an 1864 bill indicated that the local decorating firm of John Alexander hung two large mirrors and three paintings
The First Lady also ordered expensive window blinds with ornamental designs. She bought seven sets of bedroom curtains at a price Winkler said indicated they were machinemade. Other purchases included five sets of parlor curtains, floor matting made from coconut fibers and striped carpeting for the stairs.
Still to come, however, is any heavy-duty reconstruction on the house.
“We are still looking for what we call its original fabric–the walls, the finishes, the doors and so on,” said Skarmeas.
A series of workshops has been held with experts on Lincoln and the Civil War, focusing on the events that must be covered in any interpretive program for the house.
The reason for this, explained Skarmeas, is that the cottage is the only property outside the family’s home base in Springfield where Lincoln had a private environment.
“It was a place,” he added, “that they tried to make their home more than the White House.”
