President and Mrs. Eisenhower chose wool carpeting in a gold color for much of their home. Interestingly, it was not installed wall-to-wall. Instead, the hardwood flooring was left exposed along the perimeter as if the carpet was an area rug. The gold color coordinated with the cream-colored wall paint in the living room, entrance hall, main stairs, second floor hallways, and back stairs.
The Eisenhower Home opened to the public in 1980. Prior to opening, park staff had the historic carpeting in the hallways and stairways removed and replaced with high quality beige wool carpeting. Unfortunately, gold carpeting was not a commercially available color at that time. Most of the carpet in the Eisenhower Home is over 36 years old. Over three million visitors have walked on it! As you can imagine, it now needs replacement to address both safety and aesthetic problems.
Eisenhower National Historic Site successfully competed for funding from the National Park Service’s Recreation Fee Regional 20% Fund to replace all of the reproduction carpeting. The replacement carpet will be high quality and custom-dyed to match the historic gold color. Visitors will experience a more accurate representation of how the carpeting looked during the Eisenhower era.
To move furnishings and install the new carpeting the National Park Service is announcing the following closures for the site. Temporary closures will be on weekdays only: February 21 – 24; February 27; and March 20 –24.
The Eisenhower National Historic Site, starting in March, will be open daily with shuttle buses leaving the Gettysburg National Military Park Museum and Visitor Center at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. Admission is $9.00 for adults and $5.00 for youth ages 6 -12; children age 5 and under are admitted free. Advance reservations are available and highly recommended for groups. Reservations can be made by calling 877-874-2478.
Eisenhower National Historic Site preserves and interprets the home and farms of the Eisenhower family as a fitting and enduring memorial to the life, work, and times of General Dwight David Eisenhower, 34th president of the United States, and to the events of far-reaching importance that occurred on the property. Learn more at www.nps.gov/eise.
SOURCE: Eisenhower Site Press Release
