GLOUCESTER, Va. — The Rosewell Mansion took 13 years to build - with its 33 rooms and 17 fireplaces.
"It was 12,500 square feet and at the time it was built, it was the largest home in Virginia," says Elizabeth Judd, executive director of the Rosewell Foundation.
That was all before a fire in 1916 consumed most of the home. This is where the Rosewell Foundation steps in: "we are going to be having masons staying here from the UK for 9 months and they will be working on the structure of Rosewell, preserving it using the original bricks, strengthening it and keeping it in the same manner which it was built."
The goal is to halt any further structural decay. That project is set to start in 2020.
Happening now is an update to the inside of the visitor's center with the addition of an education center that mixes the old of the ruins with the new technology of the 21st century.
Judd notes, "we want to bring in technology where students can use iPads and build Rosewell to what it used to look like before the fire onto holograms."
The center will hold artifacts found in the ruins to give a better look into what life was like when the building stood tall. "We have years and years of artifacts that have been uncovered by archaeologists that have been sitting in boxes, sitting in bins and for the first time we want to bring that out to the public."
When it comes to an opening date for the education center, Judd is coordinating her calendars, "Im hoping that in a year, at the same time we start a preservation and conservation out at the ruins, it'll all sync together."
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