REPORTER: “Is it weird for you to see all this new building around your mansion?”
GEORGE WASHINGTON, puzzled: “What building is that, sir?”
For a century and more, it was about the house.
A Mt. Vernon spokeswoman: “It kind of evolved into a decorative arts tour.”
Wallpaper and bed linens.
And George Washington?
The man of whom historian Peter Henriques wrote: “If ever a man deserved secular immortality and eternal remembrance from a grateful nation, that man was George Washington”?
Well, we were left with the white-mopped guy on the dollar bill whose grim lips hid wooden teeth and who slept–beside the largely anonymous Martha–in the house when he wasn’t busy fathering a country.
That was about it.
Meanwhile, playwright Edward Albee borrowed their names for his charmer, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” Sample dialogue:
Martha: “You make me puke.”
George: “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, Martha.”
Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, a noted Virginia contemporary who would later beget Robert E. en route to the poorhouse, gave us this upon the great man’s passing:
“First in war, first in peace and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”
Some years later, noting the habitual futility of the baseball Senators, a scribe redefined Washington:
“First in war, first in peace and last in the American League.”
Unkindest cut: “Washington’s Birthday” as a holiday disappeared and in 1971 was merged with Lincoln’s once-celebrated birthday into “Presidents’ Day,” thus lumping greatness with the likes of Franklin Pierce.
In other words, while George Washington withered into something between a caricature and a punch line, Mt. Vernon became the weakest link in a high school spring-break experience that included the Capitol, the White House, the Air and Space Museum, and hotel pillow fights.
That was already changing a little. New books (notably last year’s David McCullough epic, “1776”) stirred interest among those who still read books, reviving Washington’s legacy as warrior, innovator and leader. So have a couple of movies, including “The Crossing,” a 1999 made-for-TV job focusing on that Delaware River maneuver and starring Jeff (“Dumb and Dumber”) Daniels that’s said to be better than you’d expect.
But now …
What’s officially called “George Washington’s Mt. Vernon Estate & Gardens” will on Friday unveil a major change of mission. They haven’t changed the name, but here’s a suggestion:
“The George Washington Show, Starring George Washington, With Wife Martha, the United States of America and Its Predecessor Identities, Assorted Slaves and Redcoats and Special Guest Star–Mt. Vernon, the House.”
It’s actually exciting. In other words, it’s not about chintz anymore. It’s about George–easily in time for his 275th birthday (Feb. 22, if you’ve forgotten).
It’s about movie theaters with chairs that rrrrummble.
And it’s about the teeth, which, by the way, were not wooden. They’re tooth, mostly animal.
“They’re pretty amazing too,” says Jim Rees, Mt. Vernon executive director, “because you can’t imagine putting them in your mouth and wearing them.”
They’re on display in their own gallery (“like the Hope Diamond,” notes spokeswoman Stephanie Brown). Other stuff here to be seen and pondered: a sword, wine cups, clothing, buttons, manuscripts, snuff boxes–all manner of things George Washington and all the genuine articles, most of which have been stashed away in private collections and Mt. Vernon storage for just about ever.
That’s only part of the story, and it’s the story that’s the key here.
Everyone knows Lincoln. Composer Aaron Copland serenaded him in a musical portrait (“Abe Lincoln was a quiet and a melancholy man . . . “), Raymond Massey parlayed him into a career, schoolchildren presumably still recite his Gettysburg speech, and there may be no more inspiring work of art in this country than the capital’s Lincoln Memorial, especially at night.
Washington, by contrast, remains an expressionless dandy with a white wig (he didn’t wear one, by the way–it just looks like one).
There’s a famous painting by Grant (“American Gothic”) Wood that shows Washington confessing his cherry-tree crime–a child’s body with the Gilbert Stuart dollar-bill head.
“It drives me crazy,” says Rees, “how he is used in a comic fashion.”
Washington’s monument in the capital is basically a tall but generic obelisk. It could just as easily be the Millard Fillmore Monument.
Why so much Abe and so little George?
“One word–photography,” says Rees. “The Lincoln pictures are so soulful and dramatic and compelling.”
Washington did leave an image–of perfection, which doesn’t lend itself to speculation or screenplays. He never told a lie. His troops seem to have loved him. He was elected to the presidency twice by unanimous vote–and there were no charges of tinkering. There was no scandal, personal or otherwise. He lived well. He paid his taxes. He died at home, at 67, in bed, of natural causes.
He wrote no autobiography, leaving only an unhelpful diary (“Washington’s diary is what the temperature was that day,” says Brown), letters to his wife (which, as was the custom, Martha burned), unsoulful papers and some correspondence to friends that’s open to interpretation (including an apparent love-letter to a woman delivered shortly before his marriage to Martha).
For more than a century, we were essentially left with the Stuart portrait in every American classroom and wallet, the cherry-tree story and Washington’s Birthday.
(Quick: Give me one quote by George Washington. See?)
Now the birthday is gone, the portraits are rarely seen in classrooms, even the dollar bill is under attack by coin fans–and history in schools isn’t what it used to be, says Rees, in part because mandated tests emphasize other things.
“The kid coming today doesn’t know George Washington enough to appreciate the mansion, much less all the other things around the mansion,” he says. “It’s a different visitor.”
Responding to that challenge, Rees and his design team have revolutionized the Mt. Vernon Experience.
It has become a very different place than you remember, no longer just a house and gift shop. If a kid doesn’t come out of here knowing George Washington, he should forfeit his iPod forever.
New is the Ford Orientation Center, courtesy of the car company fund. Greeting visitors are bronze sculptures of George, Martha and the two grandchildren they raised at Mt. Vernon after the death of Martha’s son from a previous marriage–and how’s that for an opening salvo of stuff you never knew?
With the help of a new film, visitors will be introduced to George Washington the Human Being. And that’s a theme that carries right through the next series of theaters and galleries in the–again, new–Donald W. Reynolds Museum and Education Center, courtesy of the late media entrepreneur’s fund.
“He’s a really complex, fascinating person,” says Rees, “one of those rare people who kind of gets better the more you know.”
We learn the Father of Our Country was one of the best dancers around. He was an expert horseman. He owned and operated the country’s largest distillery. He introduced the mule to American farming. He was 6-foot-2 at a time when most everybody else wasn’t. (John Adams was 5-7.) His battle experiences, inflated by the, um, media, made him world-famous in his mid-20s.
He messed up. He wasn’t perfect. Troops in his command as a British officer were defeated by the French at Ft. Necessity just before the French and Indian War. (An actual piece of the fort is on display in the museum.) He had his doubts about things . . .
You will not see a Dancing George, but there are magical things here. Example:
The 1785 bust of Washington by Frenchman Antoine Houdon, based on a life mask of the man, is universally considered the most accurate likeness. No portraits from life exist of the younger George. Using modern forensics and whatever physical evidence exists (including clothing and those miserable teeth), scientists and artists have created what they believe are on-the-money (as it were) wax George Washingtons at ages 19, 45 (on horseback) and 57, being sworn in as president.
The Houdon Bust is also here. So is one whose eyes follow you.
Five movie theaters. Five. There’s this one show . . . didn’t get to see it, but:
“We take you through [the battles at Boston, Trenton and Yorktown] through the use of multiple projectors,” says Brown. “When the cannons roar, the seats rumble. When you’re crossing the Delaware River, the snow will fall on you . . .”
This comes largely from the imagination of one Dennis Earl Moore, whose production company brought us such IMAX wonders as “Flyers” and “Living Planet.”
Close to dead-on?
“We tried to get it as accurate as we can, but the 18th Century is highly interpretive,” Moore says. “You could put five historians in a room and they might have a slightly different version–but I think [Rees] and everyone made an intense effort to get all those views and distill them.”
So what we have here in this new facility is a combination of multimedia, illustrated storyboards and hundreds of artifacts all intended to liberate George Washington and his times from their frozen-icon/parody status into something approaching flesh and blood and heart and intelligence and welcome hints of imperfection.
But just as Downstate Springfield’s still-new Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum is given poignant legitimacy and context by historic buildings nearby, this George Washington installation needs–and has, and values–Mt. Vernon, the house, along with his tomb and Martha’s a short stroll away.
Adding an exposition center to grounds that hadn’t changed much in more than a century wasn’t, pardon the expression, a slam-dunk. Once funding was procured (more than $100 million, none of it government money), there still were fears about the impact of diddling with the integrity of the property.
“A year and a half ago, when people were just seeing a hole, they were concerned about that,” concedes Rees. What they couldn’t see is that the hole would contain much of the new structure; except for the entryway and some other points of access, much of the construction is underground, covered by pasture that will be home to sheep.
“Even the square footage that’s above ground is tucked low behind trees,” Rees says. “That concern has not evaporated, but it has certainly lessened to a tremendous degree.
“I hope the person who remembers everything fondly from 40 years ago will think we certainly have done no harm to anything they enjoyed 40 years ago.”
The house still rules the land and still looks terrific. The dining room where the siege of Yorktown was planned, where Washington learned of his first election to the presidency and where he lay in state, is as it was. The key to the Bastille–a gift from his friend Lafayette–is still in the foyer. The bedrooms–yes, Washington slept here–are as he would remember them. The view across the Potomac from the porch is as graceful and green as it was 2 1/2 centuries ago …
To those who worry about the Disneyfication of Mt. Vernon, they needn’t. Call it tasteful recognition of reality.
“Even scholars,” says Rees, “the ones who 10 years ago would’ve called this sacrilege, many of them have come around to the understanding that an 8th-grade boy learns in a certain way that’s not the same as the biography they’re writing.
“They’ve said, `All power to you. Nothing else seems to be working, so good luck.’ “
It was drizzling on this visit. George Washington, in full finery, took cover beneath a museum overhang that, though effective, to this costumed interpreter didn’t actually exist.
“I had to stop here to meet Gen. Rochambeau to final out the plans for the siege at Yorktown,” said the president-to-be, explaining his presence on the grounds. His horse? “Down by the stable. You know, I circumnavigate my farm every day …”
But the new buildings, General. Certainly you see . . .
“I’ll tell you one thing, sir. There is always construction going on here on our farm. We are doing our best to make things decent to the eye but as practical as possible.”
He’d be OK with this. No lie.
He deserved it.
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IF YOU GO
GETTING THERE
Mt. Vernon is about 15 miles south of Washington’s Reagan National Airport and about 8 miles south of downtown Alexandria, Va., either drive a breeze by way of the beautiful George Washington Memorial Parkway. (It’s also a nice bike ride; you can shorten it by parking your car in lots along the parkway.)
Flights between both Chicago airports and Reagan National (most convenient airport to the capital’s attractions) are frequent and competitively priced, with recent round-trip fares priced as low as $142 (subject to change). Another option to the capital, if you don’t mind spending 17-plus hours (each way) on a train: Amtrak’s Capital Limited, $146 round-trip from Chicago’s Union Station.
Mt. Vernon is also reachable from Washington via public transportation (Metro/bus combination), and by bus tour through Gray Line (www.grayline.com), summer only, and Tourmobile (www.tourmobile.com).
For those considering a visit to Colonial Williamsburg as well: It’s about a two-hour drive, mostly by interstate.
STAYING THERE
Both the capital and Alexandria (with its lively Old Town restaurant district)–linked to each other by Metro trains–are convenient to Mt. Vernon and Washington’s sights, with hotels in all price ranges. Note that Washington hotel prices tend to drop, sometimes precipitously, on weekends.
VISITING MT. VERNON
The mansion and museum complex is open daily 8 a.m.-5 p.m. April through August, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. March, September and October, and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. November through February. Tickets are $13 for adults, $6 for kids 6-11 and free to toddlers.
As you might imagine, springtime draws lots of school groups, which can mean long lines, especially for mansion tours. For those who like to linger and leisurely enjoy all there is to see, winter is ideal. Aside from the main floor and porch areas, the mansion is unsuitable for persons with disabilities; the gardens and new museum galleries are all fully accessible.
INFORMATION
For 24-hour recorded information, call George Washington’s Mt. Vernon at 703-780-2000 (an operator is on duty during normal business hours for other info); www.mountvernon.org.
–Alan Solomon
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asolomon@tribune.com
