mr. lanphire: Going Lanphier (1727–1813), a house joiner and carpenter from Alexandria, had first done interior carpentry for GW in 1759, when the Mount Vernon mansion house was “raised” from 1½ to 2½ stories (General Ledger A description begins General Ledger A, 1750–1772. Library of Congress, George Washington Papers, Series 5, Financial Papers. description ends , folio 58). GW had now hired Lanphier to work on extending both ends of the house, which would add a downstairs library and upstairs master bedroom on the south end and a two-story room on the north end later referred to as the Banquet Hall. The south end, built first, was not completed until after GW had left Mount Vernon to serve in the Revolution. On 10 Dec. 1775 Lund Washington wrote to GW that the south addition was almost done, adding, “we have been trying to Cure the [new] Chimney from smokeg. & I am in hopes [I] have done it, after doing & undoing twenty times” (ViMtvL). Because of his service in the Revolutionary War, GW did not see the south end or the unfinished north end until the fall of 1781.