>> who is julia gardner? >> who is julia gardner, richard norton-smith called madonna of the period. julia gardner is a -- she's a young woman from long island, new york, from east happenpton from where in fact ania harrison ad gone to school. she is from a very well-known, longstanding new york family, deep in the 17th century they owned gardner's island and family still owns gardner's island and her father was a new york state senator. they were in washington frequently for the social seasons. and she was well known at the white house and was well known to the daughters of the tylers was even known to come over not just for the parties but do things like quiet games of whisk. so the family knew her quite well. she was quite beautiful and quite rambunctious and was very well educated both here and in europe. so it made her quite -- quite a troubling woman to be around. >> and she quickly caught the widow president's eye. >> she quickly caught the widow president's eyes. this moved shockingly quickly. >> when

he came down here once before he retired from the presidency, brought with him julia gardner. they were married. she said the hand of god and nature have been kind to my sherwood forest, but i can improve upon it. which she did. she had a look around the ceilings. she had moldings imported from italy. she had the mantel pieces brought in from italy and the knocker on the front door has -- you have to look hard to see it, it has sherwood forest on it but it's been meticulously polished through the years and that was one of her contributions to the house. julia and her mother were very, very close and we are exceedingly fortunate to have many letters written between julia and her mother from this plantation. in the hot summer weather. this house is only one room wide because want the breezes to go from the north to the south and from the south to the north. and so they would sit in the hall quite frequently and she sat in the open doorway that led to the south porch and wrote letters to her mother. and quite frequently she commented on the president, who kept his feet on the ban