George Washington's Gardener Slept Here

Using Letters, Records and Timber Samples, Preservationists Rebuild House 'as Old as Our Country'

A stack of leather-bound gardening books sat on a simple wooden desk in the middle of a small room. Two broad-brimmed hats, one for winter and one for summer, hung on pegs in the corner. In the bedroom, a pair of shoes lay at the foot of the bed, as if the gardener had just stepped out of them.

With the restoration of a two-story pine structure used by one of George Washington's gardeners, William Spence, Mount Vernon is again complete nearly 209 years after the first president died.

The gardener's house, built around the spring of 1776 and glimpsed yesterday as another spring approached, is the last of 16 original 18th-century structures to be restored on the historic estate on the banks of the Potomac River in Virginia.

Piecing together letters, plantation records and samplings of timber from the house, preservationists were able to reconstruct a building that was part of a major expansion at Mount Vernon before Washington left to command the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War.

Originally an infirmary for slaves, the gardener's house, like all historic structures at Mount Vernon, was restored to look as it did upon Washington's death in 1799. It will open to the public March 21, completing a decades-long renewal of the historic site that included the 2006 opening of a new visitors center, museum and education center. Mount Vernon attracts 1 million visitors a year.

Preservationists said the gardener's house was surprisingly intact.

"The chimney was still there," said Dennis J. Pogue, preservation director for the nonprofit Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, which owns and maintains the estate. "The fireplace was still there. We found things like evidence where shelves had been. That is not a big discovery, but in a project like this, that's exactly what we're looking for."

Visitors will be able to peek into three rooms on the bottom floor, where the gardener probably lived, entertained guests and worked in his study. The barren second floor will be available for researchers but off-limits to visitors.

"We were able to peel back the layers and see so many things," said Jordan H. Poole, Mount Vernon's restoration manager. "To think, this building is as old as our country."

It also is one of relatively few surviving 18th-century support structures at an American plantation.

The restoration began three years ago with a forensic investigation. The date of the building was confirmed through a dendrochronological, or tree ring, sampling, which determined that the structure was built from trees cut down in 1775 and 1776.

A 1775 letter to George Washington from a nephew, Lawrence Washington, indicated the building's initial use as a hospital.