Cottage where Lincoln cooled his heels opens

WASHINGTON -- In the insufferably muggy, pre-air-conditioned summers of the 1860s, Abraham Lincoln and his family sought refuge in a 34-room Gothic Revival "cottage" on a breezy knoll 3 miles north of the White House.

The Lincolns spent three summers in the home, situated on the sprawling grounds of the nation's first facility built to house disabled veterans. But despite its historical significance — it is here that Lincoln devised Civil War strategies and crafted his emancipation policy — the house had been mostly ignored by posterity, until now.

On Monday, Presidents Day, it opens to the public as President Lincoln's Cottage at the Soldiers' Home after a $15 million refurbishment that includes the creation of a four-gallery visitors center. The seven-year restoration was initiated by the National Trust for Historic Preservation with public and private money.

Over the years, the house has variously been used as a hospital, a club and office space on the grounds of what is now the 270-acre Armed Forces Retirement Home. And though administrators knew of its significance, the structure sat in relative obscurity because of a lack of money for restoration, says National Trust president Richard Moe.

Moe, who calls it "one of the great undiscovered places in Washington," first learned about the house in 1996. "A friend brought me out here and I was just blown away," he said during a recent tour of the facility. Lincoln "really valued this place. He really saw it as a refuge. And incredibly, nothing (in Washington) tells the story of the Lincoln presidency. So that's the gap we're trying to fill."

Restorers encountered a building that was structurally sound and had original moldings and other woodwork, but it "was filled with decades of piping and wiring and stuff," director Frank Milligan says. Not to mention 23 layers of paint.

Built in 1842 as a summer residence for a prominent Washington businessman, it was later used as a retreat by several presidents, beginning with James Buchanan in 1857. The Lincolns had 19 wagonloads of furniture and belongings carted up from the White House during the summers of 1862-64. The president last visited on the day before his assassination in April 1865.