Concentrated research and documentation of the site started in 1999.  The major structural restoration of the main house and kitchen began in June 2004.   The Bush Hill Tourism Trust Inc. has been working with advisors from the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation of Virginia, the University of Florida’s Preservation Institute: Caribbean, the Society of the Cincinnati and local architects, historians and archaeologists. For many years Barbadians believed from anecdotal evidence that a house in a different location had been the house lived in by George and Lawrence, although historians had demonstrated otherwise and suspected that Bush Hill House was the correct dwelling.

Acting on a request from the U.S.- based Society of the Cincinnati in the 1980’s, the first step was verification that Bush Hill was indeed the house which George and Lawrence Washington rented in 1751.  Extensive research by historians Michael Chandler, Warren Alleyne, Peter Campbell, Dr. Henry Fraser and National Trust personnel put together the historical jigsaw puzzle. They produced conclusive proof from old records, Deeds, Garrison maps and George Washington’s own Diaries, that Bush Hill House, built as a family plantation house circa 1719 by William Cogan, was indeed the correct house.Built on the edge of an escarpment overlooking Carlisle Bay, with a lush “gully” or ravine on its northern side, the building is a two-story Georgian style structure in a T-shape, that has not had its’ footprint appreciably altered since its original construction.

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