Eisenhower Farm One, House, Emmitsburg Road (U.S. 15), Eisenhower National Historic Site, Gettysburg, Adams County, PA

Significance: Mamie (nee Doud) and Dwight D. Eisenhower purchased the property in january 1951 and in the late winter and early spring of 1953 began consultations with an architect, an interior designer, a construction contractor, and a landscape designer. The architect, Milton S. Osborne, headed the Department of Architecture at Pennsylvania State University; the interior decorator, Elisabeth Draper, had previously worked with the Eisenhowers redecorating the Colubmia University presidents' house; the builder and longtime Eisenhower friend, Charles "Charlie" Hook Tompkins, owned the Washington, DC-based Charles H. Tompkins Company. A second architect, George S. Brock, also became involved with the project around the same time as did Horace Peaslee, a Tompkins Co. construction foreman with extensive design experience.

The Eisenhowers' intention was that the original farmhouse be rehabilitated and expanded while preserving as much of the structure as possible. However, rot in the logs underlying the main portion of the house prompted the recommendation to raze the structure and replace it, possibly in a different location on the site. Still wishing to retain the character and siting of the existing house, the Eisenhowers decided that the newer solid masonry kitchen addition would remain and be renovated while the older brick-clad log house and other wood frame appendices would be demolished and replaced. A handful of components salvaged from the demolished building would be incorporated into the reconstructed home.

The kitchen addition was extensively renovated, with only its masonry walls on three sides and some wood floor and roof framing left in place. The bake oven remained and was integrated into a new traditional fireplace at the south end of the first floor den. Some timbers from the demolished house were reused either as rough-hewn faux timber framing and mantle for the den fireplace or milled into wood paneling and shelving used in the den. Virtually all of the balance of the house was newly built in 1954-55 with the intention of the designers being that it would appear as though it had grown by accretion over time, much like the original house.
Survey number: HABS PA-5372-B
Building/structure dates: 1954-1955 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1845 Initial Construction
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 67000017