The Gothic-Revival style cottage was built in 1842 for George Riggs (of Riggs National Bank). Modest even by 19th-century standards, there is little to distinguish the house architecturally ~ its significance marked instead by its place in history. The real story begins in 1851, when the Riggs estate was purchased by the Federal government, the land intended as the site for a new soldiers' retirement home, and the cottage itself to serve as a presidential retreat (akin to Camp David today). While President Buchanan used it infrequently, Lincoln made it his sanctuary. Perched high on a hill overlooking the city, the house provided the president a place to escape the summer heat of Washington, and the frenetic pace of its society. It was there that Lincoln made many important, gut-wrenching decisions regarding the war, and wrote most of the Emancipation Proclamation. Following Lincoln's assassination, Presidents Hayes and Arthur occupied the house, but none to the degree of their predecessor.
Over the years, the cottage was used by the Soldiers' Home for various purposes, and evidence of its presidential occupants was slowly lost to time. Wisely, when the National Trust for Historic Preservation began restorations in 2000, it was decided not to fully furnish the house as there are few records to indicate how the interiors would have looked. But somehow in its sparseness, the house seems full of history.
(a few more bits here)