New take on 'George slept here'

"We like to say that Washington not only slept on Barbados, he woke up here," says Penny Hyman, who directed the film as well as the restoration of the Georgian house and grounds where the brothers stayed. Located in the Garrison historic district, George Washington House represents the only foreign place Washington was ever to visit and offers new insights into his early life.

"It was a pivotal moment for him," said Jack D. Warren Jr., editor of "The Papers of George Washington" and executive director of the Society of the Cincinnati. "George had never been more than 200 miles from his birthplace, and the death of his father had consigned him to a provincial planter's life. Suddenly welcomed into the homes of Barbados's elite families, he saw possibilities for himself. His resolve to get ahead began here."

The downstairs rooms of George Washington House show the simplicity of the 18th-century residence rented by the brothers from Captain Richard Crofton for 15 pounds a month. Sunlight dapples the pine floors and tropical breezes ruffle the mosquito netting on the canopied beds, evoking an atmosphere far different from that of their Virginia home.

Upstairs, a museum recalls the historic context of Washington's visit when sugar was more valuable than gold. "The Williamsburg of George's youth might have had 12 houses and a church," Adrian Loveridge reminds guests of his hotel Peach and Quiet as he leads them through the museum.

Dr. Karl Watson, a professor at the University of the West Indies and member of the Barbados National Trust, suggests, "We mustn't get carried away by size; Barbados enriched the Treasury, pure and simple. George went from an undeveloped country to a cosmopolitan one, a step up the ladder for him. When he returned to America, influential men wanted to hear about his trip."