The house where Abraham Lincoln wrote a draft of the Emancipation Proclamation and retreated often from the bustle of a wartime White House is to open in February after an eight-year, $15 million renovation.

The house, a 34-room Gothic revival mansion on the grounds of the sprawling Armed Forces Retirement Home, is also known as the Soldiers’ Home but will be called President Lincoln’s Cottage. It was here, with his wife and son Tad, that Lincoln spent nearly a quarter of his presidency.

“This will not be a traditional house museum, but rather it will tell the story of Lincoln,” said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. “We are not just preserving Lincoln’s place, but we are also going to preserve Lincoln’s ideas.”