Rooms being restored at Maggie Walker home

Maggie L. Walker installed an elevator in her Richmond home in 1928. But yesterday, workers moved furniture the old-fashioned way -- using the stairs.

The elevator was off-limits.

Too bad for the moving crew, which had to hoist three 200-pound wardrobes to the second floor of the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site yesterday as the temperature hovered near 100 degrees.

But the elevator that Walker installed in her home in 1928 is now considered historic itself. Instead of using the mechanical hoist, the four men from Bonsai Fine Arts Inc. in Glen Burnie, Md., bundled up each piece of furniture in blankets and shrink-wrap. Then they muscled the pieces one by one up two narrow staircases.

A total of 50 pieces went upstairs to furnish three second-floor rooms in the house, where Walker, the first black female bank president in the United States, lived from 1904 until 1932.

Not all the pieces were as heavy as the three wardrobes, which the movers estimated at 200 to 300 pounds each, but six dressers and a safe came close. Other items included two beds, a wheelchair, Walker's trunk from before she married Armstead Walker Jr. in 1886, his trunk from before he married her, a high chair, a baby swing, tables, chairs and even a shovel.

Furnishings were restored to two bedrooms used by Walker's son Melvin and a caretaker.

The third room, where the elevator is located, was a bedroom for Melvin Walker's children until they moved out in1928. After that, it became a storage room, which is how it appears now.

Maggie Walker, born in 1864, was the first black woman to charter a bank and later became chairman of the board of Consolidated Bank and Trust Company after her St. Luke Penny Savings Bank merged with two other Richmond banks. Late in life, health problems caused her to use a wheelchair, so she installed an elevator in her house to be able to reach the second floor. She died in 1934.

Her house opened to the public as a national park site in 1985.

The three rooms being furnished are the last of the house's 28 rooms left for restoration. Yesterday was the first of three phases of work to completely furnish the rooms with their original pieces, said curator Klydie Thomas. "You won't see perfume bottles and things like that," she said, "but you will see 50 more pieces of furniture."

Using the elevator wasn't an option for the move, she said.

"It's not inspected, so it's not something we would use," she said. Besides, it's part of the historic fabric of the house.

"We want to make sure we keep the integrity of the house, the structure and furniture," she said. "Imagine us taking 50 things up that historic elevator. It would be a bit more wear and tear than we like."

Contact Katherine Calos at (804) 649-6433 or .