Fleshing Out a Founding Father

"He's our most challenging visitor," says Rees. "It is hard to make Washington cool, and they don't want to pretend they are interested."

Rees said he thinks the new facilities, particularly the education center, have enough bells and whistles to keep such a visitor engaged. Among them, he cites:

· A laboratory that is designed to look like a set from the popular television show "CSI," showing how forensic detectives re-created the face of Washington at various stages of his life. There are foam castings of body parts -- a few heads, arms, legs and hands -- on the stainless steel counters.

· A section on Washington's childhood that features an animated cartoon figure that could be a "Peanuts" refugee. It moves across the gallery wall pointing out highlights of the young Washington's life.

· One film gives a fast-paced history of the battles, including those at Trenton, N.J., and Yorktown, Va. To cap off the action, as a cannon booms, the seats in the theater vibrate. And snow -- a mixture of water and soap bubbles -- falls as Washington leads his army across the frozen Delaware. It may leave a light dusting on visitors' clothes.

· Washington's dentures -- probably the most popular artifact at Mount Vernon -- are given a display worthy of the Hope Diamond. This section includes a timeline of Washington's dental problems and his letters of complaint to his dentists.

There are also more serious exhibits that are not aimed at eighth-graders.

Special treatment is given to the famous 1785 terra-cotta bust by legendary French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon, based on an actual plaster cast of Washington's face. It's on a tall pedestal so that visitors will have a sense of what it was like to face the 6-foot-3 Virginian.

The museum component is 6,000 square feet of decorative arts, books and manuscripts. It shows off Washington's dinner plates, the ones he used for his lavish 4 p.m. Thursday dinners in Philadelphia, often with members of Congress at the table. The visitor will learn that the Washingtons loved to entertain. They had 677 overnight guests in one year. There's also a case with his traveling razor and a handwritten manuscript from a speech he delivered in 1783 at Newburgh, N.Y., when he quelled a plot by disgruntled Army officers to overthrow Congress.

Washington's last will and testament, an original on loan from the Fairfax County Circuit Court, is housed in this area, with its instructions that the slaves would be free when Martha Washington died.

There is a section dedicated to what the organizers call "The Dilemma of Slavery." It is stripped down, less decorative than some of the other galleries but animated by the personal stories of the slaves of Mount Vernon, who at one point numbered 316. A tape recites the names of the slaves and their jobs.

Throughout the new buildings, there are paintings from important American museums. The Metropolitan Museum of Art lent four portraits, including a 12-foot-wide canvas of Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. A special gallery, installed until next August, is dedicated to the friendship of the two generals.