Concerned citizens urged the preservation of the Wesleyan Chapel, leading Congress to establish Women's Rights National Historical Park in 1980, and the federal government purchased the former chapel in 1985. Very little of the original structure remained, and no drawings or photos of the original chapel were known, yet it was the site of the First Woman's Rights Convention. In 1987, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Park Service held an international competition for a design to protect and highlight the surviving historic elements, and the winning design included the water wall and lawn. The National Park Service then removed 140 years of alterations, remodeling, and subdivisions to restore the chapel to a single, contemplative building. In 2010, it determined that the best way to protect the historic wood, bricks, and plaster from weather was to enclose them within a new structure as close in spirit to the original as possible.