One topic is conspicuously absent from the current tour of Virginia’s historic governor’s mansion — slavery.

The Executive Mansion that dates to 1813 reopened to visitors Friday for the first time since the pandemic began, with guides focusing on a wide-ranging variety of 47 pieces of art now decorating the first floor as well as the silver and rugs.

But there was no longer any mention of the enslaved people who lived and worked in the mansion located on the grounds of the State Capitol before freedom came when Union forces captured the Confederate’s capital city at the end of the Civil War in 1865.

Nor were visitors escorted to a small brick building on the side of the mansion where those workers lived, cooked and did the laundry during the first 50 years, according to VPM News, which broke the story.

The new Republican occupants, Glenn A. Youngkin, wife Suzanne and their children, have made a u-turn on the effort to tell a more complete story about one of the oldest governor’s residences in the country.

Before moving in, documents indicate the Youngkins considered turning the enslaved workers’ quarters into an exercise room or yoga studio or a hangout for their teens, but dropped that idea and have apparently left the building empty, VPM noted in its report.

Mrs. Youngkin said the committee that oversees the mansion’s décor is considering creating a virtual tour of the house and grounds that would include that building.

Under Gov. Youngkin’s most recent Democratic predecessors, the mansion had begun the process of joining Maymont, Monticello and other historic residences in Virginia and across the country in incorporating into tours information about those who labored unnoticed.

Free and enslaved people, who constituted a major share of skilled tradesmen at the time, molded the bricks and participated in the construction of Virginia’s capitol building and the mansion.

Governors then had enslaved people brought from across the state to handle the cleaning, preparing of meals and other chores needed to keep the state’s top elected official and family members comfortable.

Telling the story of the enslaved at the mansion is relatively new. Like the Youngkins, most previous governors and their families used the former dwelling of the enslaved for exercise, to house guests, as storage space or as a family room.

Gov. Terry McAuliffe and First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe were among the first to call attention to the mansion’s links to slavery. They posted plaques in a garden featuring letters from some of the workers describing the harsh conditions and challenges they faced.

The role of the enslaved became most noticeable during the tenure of Gov. Ralph S. Northam and First Lady Pamela Northam, who sought to incorporate in tours information about the enslaved workers, particularly after the governor was caught up in a scandal over a photo in his medical school yearbook that allegedly showed him wearing blackface, though he later denied the photo was of him.

As part of revamping the mansion tours, a committee found descendants of enslaved workers and began crafting plans for a virtual and in-person tour that would include oral histories of the enslaved. The old kitchen in the building where the enslaved lived and worked also was renovated and period pieces put on display.

During the Northam era, the committee also hired Kelly Fanto Deetz as a part-time historian and archeologist to develop a school curriculum and student tours. Ms. Deetz resigned after the Youngkins arrived and after all the artifacts in the building that doubled as her office were cleared out as the Youngkins prepared to move in.