By AMY SANCETTA
The Associated Press

MENTOR, Ohio -- James A. Garfield -- farmer, scholar, college president, orator, soldier, congressman, lawyer and the 20th president of the United States -- is showing off again.

After a four-year, $11.8 million renovation of the James A. Garfield National Historic Site, the home where he led his famous ''front-porch campaign'' for the presidency in 1880 has been restored to its Victorian grandeur and reopened to the public.

A tour should start at the visitor's center and its exhibit in the former carriage house. Here you can learn about the life of Mr. Garfield, from his youth as a farmer and Erie Canal mule-team driver to his ascent to the presidency. A 20-minute film shown in the room that once housed Mr. Garfield's horses is worth watching.

Lawnfield, the grand gray and red main house, had humble beginnings, not unlike its famous occupant.

The last president born in a log cabin and the first to have his mother see him inaugurated, Mr. Garfield bought the nine-room farmhouse near the shores of Lake Erie in 1876. To accommodate his wife, Lucretia, and their five children, Mr. Garfield added 11 rooms.

After his election to the presidency in 1880, and his death less than a year later from an assassin's bullet at age 49, Lucretia added a library and vault, the predecessor to the presidential libraries so popular today.

Mr. Garfield's desk from his nine terms as a U.S. congressman sits in the library, as well as the floral wreath sent to his funeral by Queen Victoria.

Mr. Garfield's home has been restored to the period of 1880-1904 by the Western Reserve Historical Society and the National Park Service.

Since the house was occupied by Garfield descendants until 1936, 80 percent of the artifacts are original pieces. Mr. Garfield's great-grandson, Jim Garfield, is the groundskeeper.

Mr. Garfield set up a campaign office behind his house from which he wrote letters and sent out telegraph messages. The office remains much as it appeared in 1880. A train stop was established at the rear of the property, and thousands of constituents took the train to Lawnfield for the chance to speak to their candidate who was on the front porch.

Sunlight filtering through the stained glass windows of the first-floor dining room falls upon 16 ceramic tiles encircling the fireplace. The tiles are decorated with birds and flowers thought to have been painted by Lucretia and the children.

There are two other Garfield sites worth a visit.The humble log cabin where he was born can be seen in nearby Moreland Hills. The James A. Garfield Monument in historic Lake View Cemetery is an impressive 180-foot tower built of Ohio sandstone. The centerpiece is a marble statue of Mr. Garfield that stands in the circular Memorial Hall amid marble and Venetian glass mosaics of his life and death.

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