Capitol Improvements

Seeing Va.'s Statehouse in a New Light

In Richmond, George Washington takes center stage in the rotunda of the Virginia Capitol, which recently reopened to tours after a years-long renovation. (Photos By Sue Kovach Shuman -- The Washington Post)

It might be as close to royalty as I'll ever get.

The day after Queen Elizabeth II addressed a special joint session of Virginia's General Assembly in Richmond, I found the throne upon which she had briefly perched in the House of Delegates. It was marked by a piece of paper with the letters "HRH" on it.

Talk about a seat of power. I tried to look as regal as possible, then plopped down on the seat as well.

Okay, so it wasn't a throne, just a silk-upholstered chair. And maybe she didn't sit on exactly that one; no one knew. Still, it was a highlight of my visit to the renovated State Capitol, which reopened for tours May 1.

Work on restoring and expanding the Thomas Jefferson-designed building -- in Capitol Square, a gently sloping hill that includes monuments to Stonewall Jackson, Edgar Allan Poe and other famous Virginians -- began in 2004. The 1785 building has had facelifts before, and in 1904 wings were added to give both the Senate and House new, larger chambers. The just-completed $104.5 million project involved a major overhaul, including an update of the century-old plumbing and electrical systems. It also expanded the building's size by a third with an underground addition that includes a visitors center and reception and committee meeting rooms.

During the renovation, pieces of the past kept resurfacing: a bricked-up fireplace, an elevator cage, decorative panels that had been painted over. "This building is an eyewitness to history," says Mark Greenough, a historian who supervises tours of the Capitol. "This is a place where history is remembered -- and still being made."

He says the most dramatic change is Mr. Jefferson's Room, near the white-columned South Portico. Once a maze of six offices, it's now "a grand, glorious salon with an enormous portrait of Jefferson and his model of the Capitol more than two centuries ago."

Across the hall in the old Senate chamber is an oil painting of the battle of Yorktown, as well as a work depicting Virginia's first English settlers that Greenough says had been largely ignored for 100 years while it was hanging elsewhere in the Capitol. The new Senate's gray walls have been painted baby-chick yellow; besides brightening walls, lots of natural light was brought in.

A week after the reopening, 3,800 people had taken tours of the place, making it one of the city's hottest tickets. Guides cover the highlights in the structure and its history, though you can explore on your own when the tour is done.

You can skip the tour altogether, but then you may not learn that Virginia's General Assembly is the oldest legislative body in the Western Hemisphere. It was called the House of Burgesses and met in Jamestown from 1619 to 1699, then moved to Williamsburg, then to Richmond. John Marshall presided over the treason trial of Aaron Burr in 1807, and both the Confederate and Virginia legislatures met in the current building during the Civil War.

A life-size marble likeness of George Washington sits in the rotunda, with a statue of Robert E. Lee nearby in the old House. The chamber is quiet, and its desks are small, seemingly more suited to the children who are drawn to the glass-cased mace. The silver-and-gold object (a replica, as the original was sold to finance the American Revolution) is carried to the new House chambers at the start of a session. In 1870 the floor above collapsed, killing 62 and injuring 250. A bronze plaque commemorates the disaster.

The collapse is spelled out in greater detail in the visitors center, which has the requisite gift shop (state-shaped cookie cutters: $1.95) and an exhibit tracing the building's history. Meriwether's Cafe, a Capitol mainstay for decades, is near an atrium with glass-sided elevators.

I didn't get to sample the cafe's famous roasted-red-pepper-and-cabbage soup. Then again, neither did the queen.