President Garfield had a home in Mentor Ohio. When I was a child we were suppose to go on a field trip and visit the area, but due to weather the trip was cancelled and they never rescheduled it. I was always disappointed I never got to see it. I always told myself that someday I would take myself to see it, but it seem like it never happened due to one reason or another.
I think that happens a lot to people when they live in an area and there is something famous there that they can see whenever they want to. They always figured someday they will do it and never do get to see it. Well I moved from the area never having seen it. When I would come back to visit, there were way too many other places I wanted to show my kids first and I kept on putting it off. Also for awhile it wasn't available to see due to renovations. In the end I was glad they did the renovations they did and the way the place was made into such a historical place.
This time since I was spending so much time in the area I made up my mind I would visit it and finally did get to see it. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about James A Garfield
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield
And here's the National Park's information
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Garfield_National_Historic_Site
Here are my images of it.
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| 'Lawnfield' home of President James A. Garfield, Mentor Ohio |
These portraits were hanging in the house. I know the picture isn't the best but it was all that I got of what they looked like.
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| President James A. Garfield and his wife Lucertia |
Apparently Garfield loved coming to this home and wanted to spend as much time here as he could.
During his 1880 campaign he would do a lot from this front porch.
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| Lawfield's front porch from which President Garfield conducted his 1880 campaign |
After we saw the famous front porch we went inside. Most of my pictures of the downstairs rooms did not take except for the rooms that had a lot of sunlight coming through the windows. So I'm only including some of the better images.
What I really liked was the way they tried to have everything as authentic as possible and most of the furniture in the house was the actual pieces owned and used by James and his wife Lucretia
This was the parlor where the family spent most of their time.
This was up in Lucretia's bedroom. I thought that stain-glass window was so pretty and could see why she had it there.
This is the main dining area. I guess what surprised me was how small it was. Usually Presidents do a lot of entertaining before getting to be Presidents and normally the dining room area is usually one of the larger rooms in the house.
I really liked this fireplace and the plates and tile that were around it. From what I understood Lucretia hand painted them I thought they were very pretty and she was quite talented.
Here's the fireplace
After Garfield died, Lucretia decided to build a library to hold all of his books and important papers. She was the first to set the precedence for a Presidential library, a practice that is continued on till today.
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| President's Garfield - Presidential library at Lawfield, Mentor Ohio |
I did like this bust of him and it made it feel like he was still in the room, even though the room wasn't there when he lived there.
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| President's Garfield - Presidential library at Lawfield, Mentor Ohio |
This was the presidents study. I was surprised at how modest it was when you consider how important decisions were discussed and made there.
This was his bedroom. I guess when you're the president you keep odd hours and its good to have a bedroom all to yourself.
On the grounds there were two interesting buildings with plaques that explained them
This was the one for the Windmill and how water was supplied to the house.
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| The windmill at Lawnfield |
The other interesting one was this one. I had never seen anything like this before.
Its a gasholder building. This was what was used to heat the house.
I am including the floor plan from Wikipedia
Lawnfield - first floor plan 1885 obtained from wikipedia
Lawnfield second floor plan - 1885 obtained from wikipedia
( 11-2-2014 -I'm getting a lot of views of this post and realize I didn't include the front of the house so I'm editing it now.)
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| The front of Lawfield |
I am glad I finally did take the time to see the place and do recommend a visit to it.
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