WHEN VISITORS to Stratford Hall tour the famous Westmoreland County mansion in months and years to come, they'll see rooms of the historic Lee family home restored to four very different periods.

That's by design, so different rooms in the house can be used to tell the stories of Lees there through the ages, from Thomas to Light Horse Harry to Robert E. himself.

And two rooms at the end of the tour will be returned as closely to the way architect Fiske Kimball restored them in the 1930s and 1940s for the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, and used to tell the story of the association's role in preserving the home.

Judy Hynson, director of research and collections at Stratford Hall, said the restoration work is part of a plan that's been in the works for years.

Plans call for it to be finished in 2007, which dovetails nicely with the Yorktown anniversary celebration that's expected to bring hordes of visitors to the Old Dominion.

Hynson said the Lee Heritage Interpretive Plan of Stratford is pointedly simple.

Rooms in the stately brick manor home will be restored to four different periods in the history of the Lee family home.

As visitors enter each of the restored rooms--on a path that will resemble a figure eight when all the restoration is completed--they'll learn about the house's history and its Lee inhabitants during that particular period.

They'll start in Stratford's Great Hall, which has been taken as closely as possible back to its state in 1750, when it was owned by the influential Thomas Lee, who is thought to have built the home in the 1730s.

Hynson said a panel of experts on historic interior details is being used to research the renovation details, and the Great Hall work should be finished by year's end.

Last week, special crews were brought in to install a huge, 75-pound glass chandelier that experts said is much more likely to have adorned the room than a brass one which had previously hung there.