Bermuda National Trust has been given a major award from the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) for its restoration of Verdmont Museum.

SATW, which held its annual conference in Bermuda in 2001 - bringing more than 400 visitors to the Island - gave the National Trust a Phoenix Award.

The award is reserved for organisations which enhance conservation and is in recognition of the efforts of the National Trust in restoring Verdmont from the 1950s.

The house was built in 1710 and has a superb collection of original cedar furniture made by local craftsmen dating from between 1700 and 1820. National Trust director Amanda Outerbridge said: "We are very grateful to SATW. It is an honour and an inspiration. The Trust has worked for more than 50 years to create the museum you now see at Verdmont.

"It has required enormous expertise and dedication. The property stands as a real tribute to Bermuda's history of accomplishments in architecture and the decorative arts."

Verdmont, which is in Smiths Parish, has four great chimneys offering fireplaces in all eight rooms.

It contains portraits from the 18th century of ship-owner and Collector of Customs Thomas Smith, and his four daughters and wife. They were painted by John Green, a loyalist judge and portrait painter from Philadelphia.

In the mid-19th century, the house and its 50 acres passed through descendants of Elizabeth Smith and her husband Colonel Henry Trott, who sold it to a gentleman farmer Rupert Spencer. Spencer's great niece Lillian Joell was the last person living in the house, which she never modernised, choosing to live without electricity and plumbing. In 1951, she sold it to the Bermuda Historical Monuments Trust, the forerunner of the Bermuda National Trust.