White Estate temporarily closing for eight-month remodeling project

August 04, 2014 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Ansel Oliver/ANN

The estate of Seventh-day Adventist Church co-founder Ellen G. White is scheduled for an eight-month remodeling project that will offer an enhanced visitor center.

The Ellen G. White Estate will temporarily close on August 15 and reopen in mid-April for a remodeling project that will offer an enhanced visitor center. The estate is located on the lower level of the Adventist Church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. Image by Ansel Oliver/ANN

Starting August 15, the Ellen G. White Estate will be unavailable for tours and research at its location on the lower level at the Adventist Church’s world headquarters in Silver Spring, Maryland, United States. The estate is scheduled to reopen in mid-April.

During the eight-month closure, regularly scheduled tours of the Church’s headquarters will still be offered, and researchers can visit one of the estate’s 23 regional centers located throughout the world.

The estate currently features a research library, many of White’s original manuscripts, memorabilia, and art specifically created for the estate. Leaders said the redesign will offer more interactive displays and exhibits.

“We want people to have an enhanced museum experience and come away from it knowing something they didn’t already know about Ellen White,” said estate director James Nix. “We also hope it will motivate people to read more of her writings,” he said of White, who is still widely published nearly 100 years after her death in 1915.

During the closure, estate employees will work in other areas of the Church’s headquarters.

Upon re-opening, the estate will offer a tour that teaches visitors about the beginnings of the Church, exhibits and a timeline of White’s life, information about her overseas missionary experiences in Europe and Australia, and a mural will have a narration in five languages.

One exhibit will highlight her ministry as a writer. Nix said the display will include copies of White’s book “Steps to Christ” in more than 100 languages. Also, a room will be recreated to demonstrate how numerous Adventists in former Communist countries translated her books in secret to avoid detection by police who often listened for typewriters.

The renovation project was contracted to Flip TV, a production company based in nearby Laurel, Maryland.

“We’re very honored to be involved in this because we know the meaning of what this visitor center will be to the world church,” said Clayton Nunes, Flip TV’s creative director.

The final stop on the tour will feature a small chapel with a video that challenges visitors to be a part White’s mission of spreading the gospel.

“We’re also hoping people see themselves as part of this movement that God sent a messenger to,” Nix said. “She was a real blessing to this church.”

For more information about the estate, visit whiteestate.org.