President Lincoln’s Cottage Is Opening to the Public, Sure Wasn’t Cheap

There’s a new house museum on the block. If by “block” I mean “east coast.”

It’s Lincoln’s Cottage at the Soldiers’ Home, the home where President Lincoln vacationed for a total of about 13 months during his presidency.

(Thanks for the slideshow and heads up, New York Times)

The house is about three miles north of downtown D.C., and Lincoln often commuted during his stay.

Here’s what’s weird–nobody can confirm if Lincoln actually stayed there. In fact, he could have stayed down the street, according to the NYT article.

Also strange–those preserving the home did not exactly recreate the home. It’s restored, yet sparse. The little that is there is not an attempt to recreate the home as Lincoln would have had it. This is unusual.

Oh, and by the way–the project cost $15 million, including a visitor’s center in a nearby structure.

Note to those of you playing along at home: that is a lot of money.

I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Let’s pretend that the pending restoration budget for the Wren’s Nest $210,000 (it very well could be). That is not $15 million. No friends, it is just shy of 1.5% of $15 million.

Granted, they more or less started from scratch and, I’m sure, left no stone unturned. Obviously, we do not have that much work to do. But oh my.

Luckily, the good people at the Lincoln Cottage have put their Preservation Journal online so you may follow their work.

Their website gives also plenty of information about the cottage and grounds, plus they’ve maintained an impressive blog that I will thoroughly enjoy reading tomorrow. Goodness.