Groundwork Magazine features Lincoln Cottage

President Lincoln's Cottage was built in 1842 by a prominent Washington banker and was sold, along with 256 acres, to the federal government in 1851 to establish a veterans' retirement home. The Lincoln family moved to the Cottage in June of 1862, which is located just three miles north of the White House, to escape the heat, congestion and noise of wartime Washington. Designated as a National Monument in 2000, President Lincoln's Cottage served as the Lincoln family residence for a quarter of his presidency and is the most significant historic site directly associated with his presidency, aside from the White House. The landscape design was unique in that all plant material, hardscape, walkways, brickwork, grading and irrigation contiguous to the Cottage had to be appropriate for the Civil War period during which Lincoln inhabited the Cottage and/or cause minimal disruption to the historic landscape. All jobsite excavations—including every tree pit and footer—were subject to review by an archeologist/historian, which created unforeseen delays and necessitated work be done out of sequence to move the project along.

The preservation and restoration of the exterior of President Lincoln's Cottage was completed in April of 2005 by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private, non-profit organization, and the interior preservation of the Cottage and renovation of the Robert H. Smith Visitor Education Center was completed prior to the site's opening in February of 2008 (with some additional landscape work completed in spring 2008).

The nearly $897,000.00 installation included curb and gutter, sidewalks (exposed aggregate, stabilized gravel and brick paver), asphalt trails, cobble gutter pans, granite clad concrete walls, granite steps, irrigation, low voltage lighting and landscape that included numerous 4-10" caliper deciduous trees and 20-foot evergreens, seed, sod and statuary.