The historic final home of Edgar Allan Poe, located in the Bronx, New York, will receive its first full renovation beginning next spring, the Associated Press reported. The one-and-a-half story cottage, the last house remaining from the bucolic village of Fordham, will undergo a quarter-million-dollar facelift, including restoration of the shingles, shutters, paint, and plaster. The work is expected to last one year.
In 1846, Poe moved to the cottage in hopes that the country air would aid his ailing wife, Virginia, who was suffering from tuberculosis. She died at the home the following year. Poe wrote several notable works while living at the cottage, including "Annabel Lee" and "The Bells."
Now situated in a park on Grand Concourse, the home was moved 450 feet from its original location in 1913 to make way for Kingsbridge Road, but has otherwise remained historically intact. The Bronx County Historical Society, which has managed the site since 1975, recreated the feel of Poe's life in the cottage with period furnishings and other housewares. The site, one of four Poe home museums in the United States, receives thousands of visitors annually.
Along with the cottage renovations, the site will also be enhanced with the addition of a $4.2 million dollar visitors center, construction of which is already underway. The center was designed by architect Toshiko Mori to evoke Poe's "The Raven," with dark gray shingles and a V-shaped roof reminiscent of a bird in flight.
