Renovations are under way at the Old Government House Museum with plans to reopen the upstairs next year for the first time since Hurricane Irma.
“I would say that the upper floor is very different than it was,” said Museum Board Member Jillian Dunlop. “It was a set of bedrooms — a five-room set of bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms. And now we’ve seen the opportunity to make those very historically documented rooms, and that’s what we’re working to do.”
The ground floor, meanwhile, reopened to visitors on Tuesday following a Septemer closure as its interior received a deep cleaning and its cement walls were repaired.
“A lot of the cement work in the old days was done with salt water,” Ms. Dunlop told the Beacon at the museum on Tuesday. “We didn’t have enough [fresh] water. And that doesn’t mean that it lasts a long time: It’s not very durable.”
Along with the cleaning and wall repair, parts of the downstairs flooring were “adjusted,” and the garden patio was power-washed, she explained.
The work could not occur with visitors present, necessitating a closure from Sept. 4-27, according to Museum Director Diane Drayton.
Old Government House Museum Board Members Jillian Dunlop (left) and Ermin Penn — seen in the doorway to the garden through the house’s dining room — converse while tour guide Nilsa Wheatley leads a tour out of frame. (Photo: RUSHTON SKINNER)
2017 hurricanes
The museum sustained heavy damage in the 2017 hurricanes, but the ground floor and gardens reopened in December 2020 and consistently accommodated visitors until the temporary closure last month.
The fees paid by those visitors — along with private event rentals — help pay for museum maintenance, according to Museum Guide Nilsa Wheatley.
With His Majesty’s Prison Museum on Main Street the only other official museum left functioning in the territory after the 2017 hurricanes, Board Member Ermin Penn said the Old Government House is an important part of the territory’s history.
“[The museum’s] whole intention, as we understand it, is to exhibit the history of English and British rule in the Virgin Islands. That’s really its function. And it’s a very significant function,” she said. “Because without knowing our constitutional history, there’s really no reality to the Virgin Islands. Because the whole socio-economy evolves from that constitutional reality. In terms of functionality, I think the average visitor finds it very interesting.”
As she spoke, a couple meandered in through the museum’s front doors and began browsing the exhibits.
Upstairs
Since the museum sees only a trickle of tourists in the slow season, Ms. Dunlop said she and a small construction team are working as fast as they can to complete the upstairs renovation with an eye toward holding a grand reopening in mid-2025.
“It’s very constructional to start with, and then we’re into the décor, but the construction work has to be done first,” Ms. Dunlop said. “And the restrictions on finance have to be looked at; how much the construction has cost. And then we see what we’ve got left for the décor.”
Ms. Dunlop has donated some of that décor herself.
“What you’re looking at really is a 1920s-to-30s building,” she said. “And I’ve tried to do that. I’m trying to bring elements of 1920s to 30s in the décor upstairs.”
Though parts of the house date back to 1886, the exhibits also include items that are much older.
“One of the things that you see in your tour are [pottery] shards that we found on the property,” Ms. Penn said. “And these shards go back to the 18th Century.”
Such artefacts, she said, are an important part of the Old Government House Museum, which first opened in 2003.
Old Government House Museum Board Members Jillian Dunlop (left) and Ermin Penn and Museum Guide Nilsa Wheatley discuss who created this work of art. (Photo: RUSHTON SKINNER)
Under construction
Ms. Dunlop said the second floor is being renovated to reflect a deeper history than what was left by the last sitting governor to live in the house in 1997.
But it’s not an easy job. Most of the upstairs, she explained, sustained heavy damage in the 2017 hurricanes.
“There were broken floors upstairs, broken ceilings, all sorts of things,” Ms. Dunlop said, adding, “They were obvious, but we just haven’t had the money to get on with them, really.”
The final post-hurricane remedial works will also include the exterior façade, according to the board member.
“We’ve got a legacy amount, which we’re hoping to spend on redecorating the outside,” she said. “I think the outside could look better than it does now. … We’ve got an estimate being made up at the moment, and quite soon that will be done.”
