Enchanted by Mount Vernon

What happens when you spend your nights locked inside George Washington's mansion—alone? As restoration manager at Mount Vernon, Jordan Poole had keys to America's most sacred home. But preserving history meant confronting its ghosts—both literal and buried. Unexplained footsteps in empty hallways. A disconnected phone line that still calls from Washington's tomb. Civil War signatures hidden beneath paint, left by soldiers who would die at Andersonville. Between the institutional politics and preservation battles, Poole unearthed the untold stories: the enslaved healer's fire that once burned in what became the Gardener's House. The penciled claim—"Nathan's House"—hidden on a piece of trim by a freed man who dared to call Mount Vernon home. The Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, wielding quiet power for over 150 years while Washington's elite dined under a Tiffany-blue tent. Part memoir, part meditation on memory and preservation, Enchanted by Mount Vernon reveals what lies beneath the surface of America's most visited historic home—and asks what we choose to remember, what we're forced to forget, and what refuses to stay buried.