The President's House Project

THE PRESIDENT’S HOUSE PROJECT

The President’s House is the site where the first two United States presidents, George Washington and John Adams, served their terms of office. Historically complex and architecturally challenging project, the site was dedicated on December 10, 2010. The ROZ Group served as Owner’s Representative and Project Director, managing all aspects of the construction, community engagement, and strategic marketing and communications for the project. Additionally, we had oversight of historical content. A joint project between the City of Philadelphia and Independence National Historical Park (National Park Service); the ROZ Group oversaw the interest of both entities while reporting to the Mayor’s Office of the City of Philadelphia. The extremely sensitive issues or slavery and race was the focal point of this site which featured the unfortunate truth of George Washington’s illegal enslavement of at least nine persons of African descent. It was our charge to manage heated and opposing viewpoints about such an installation in the nation’s most historic mile, a site that had rarely addressed slavery in such a hard-hitting way. The site also provided us with opportunity to manage the results of a due-diligence archeological dig that surprisingly uncovered the actual structural remains of the 18th century structure. This factor required that we re-design the project in order to accommodate these authentic finds into the visitor experience.

For more information about The President House site, please visit www.phila.gov/presidentshouse