I walk down four stone steps to the dingy basement. The bricks are old and worn, the whitewash on the walls faded, and it smells like dirt.
“You just walked down the same steps as Nicholas Cage,” the tour guide announces when I reach the bottom.
My siblings and I look at each other with giddy excitement.
On our trip to Mount Vernon in December, our family splurged on a special tour. A behind-the-scenes look at the locations of National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.
Book of Secrets takes place in locations across the world. One of them is Mount Vernon, where Benjamin Gates crashes the president’s birthday party. Since director Jon Turteltaub filmed on location whenever possible, they came to Mount Vernon.
It’s a short scene, only three minutes of the total two-hour-plus movie. But filming itself took several weeks, as our tour guide explained.
The tour started on the lawn outside the house, overlooking the Potomac River. They filmed the party scene there after hours without closing the estate to visitors.
Then we proceeded to the coolest part of the tour- the house basement.
The basement is only open to special tours, like the one we took. The ceilings are low and the lights are dim. But it was amazing to see such an unknown part of the house.
Our guide told us they did most of the basement filming on a reconstructed set in Hollywood to preserve the actual location. However, they wanted to use some of the real basement for the movie. So the shot of Nicholas Cage walking down the stairs to the basement was filmed at Mount Vernon itself.
Another real thing you see in the movie? The carved cornerstone that opens the secret passageway. The real stone that inspired it stays in the museum, but a replica is in the basement, bearing the seal of George Washington’s grandfather.
After the basement, we went on to the ice house, where Nicholas Cage comes up the hill to the party. Here our guide told us about 18th century ice cream methods and the Washingtons favorite flavors- oyster and garlic Parmesan.
The tour continued past where Washington’s dog kennels most likely were and down to the wharf. Then came the second best part of the tour.
We walked along the river until we were below the house, looking up at it from the bottom of the hill. The opposite view most visitors see, bringing a new perspective to the house.
Our guide was wonderful, answering questions and chatting with us as we walked. He made the tour interesting while sharing both movie and historical facts.
My favorite part had to be the basement, but it’s a wonderful tour overall. If you like National Treasure and behind-the-scenes looks, it’s well worth the money. (You can learn more about the tour on the Mount Vernon website.)
Then you can follow it up by watching National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets with the family like we did.
That concluded our second trip with the entire family to Mount Vernon using our annual passes. What will we see next? Stick around to find out.
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