Posted on Sun, Feb. 17, 2008

IF YOU GO

Lincoln's presidential retreat reopens

By Frank Greve

MCCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON --

After Presidents Day celebrations, the sprawling Gothic Revival cottage where President Lincoln and his wife spent more than a quarter of his presidency will open to the public for the first time.

Its pale-brown stucco exterior, with green shutters and dark-brown trim, looks as unassuming as any 34-room summer cottage can, despite a seven-year, $16 million restoration. But the place is likely to be Washington's next niche tourist attraction.

For Lincoln and his family, the Lincoln Cottage, as it's now called, was the 19th-century equivalent of Camp David. Three miles north of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, it's 300 feet higher than the swamp-level White House. That made it breezier and as much as 7 degrees cooler, said Frank Milligan, the cottage's director.

From 1862 until his death in 1865, Lincoln commuted 45 minutes each way daily by horse or carriage from June well into fall. The cottage, built in 1842 for Washington banker George Riggs, enabled Lincoln to escape to read, think and relax.

Several presidents after Lincoln also used the cottage before it spent the 20th century as an administrative building for a military retirees' home. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private network of national history conservers, rescued it in 1999. The trust chipped away 23 coats of paint, restored the building and its grounds, and created a visitors center with parking.

The cottage's restored public rooms, which have 12-foot ceilings and good bones, now feature sophisticated but unobtrusive audio-visual aids. The rooms remain unfurnished, except for one or two period chairs and desks that serve as props for Lincoln storytelling.

When the Lincolns first summered at the cottage, taking 19 carriages' worth of furnishings and baggage, they were grieving their son Willie's death at age 12 from what was thought to have been typhoid fever.

"When we are in sorrow, quiet is very necessary to us," Mary Todd Lincoln wrote of the period. In that quiet, the president often read under the trees on the nearly 300-acre grounds. In the evenings, Lincoln relaxed in his slippers, often with Shakespeare for company, and often with friends.

Poet Walt Whitman, who lived nearby, reported that Mary Todd Lincoln rode to town "dressed in complete black, with a long crape veil," even in 1863. However, in a letter to her friend, Fanny Eames, during the first summer, she wrote: "We are truly delighted with this retreat. The drives & walks around here are delightful, & each day brings its visitors."

Now it will again.

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