Dumbarton House

The Dumbarton name turns up in a number of places in Georgetown and it has a Scottish connection. In 1703 a tall red-haired Scotsman, Ninian Beall was granted nearly 800 acres in Maryland by the Assembly for his efforts in helping protect the colonists against the Indians. He decided to call the land, some of which now makes up Georgetown, the Rock of Dumbarton, after an area near his home in Scotland. Dumbarton Oaks, nearby in Georgetown, is a research library, museum and garden run by the Trustees for Harvard University.

Dumbarton House, Washington DC

Dumbarton House is a historic house museum that is also the headquarters for the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America. In 1799 Samuel Jackson built the Federal style house, which was then sold to Joseph Nourse, one of America’s first career civil servants, in 1804.  The next owner Charles Carroll hosted Dolley Madison for a short time when the British marched on Washington in 1814.

Later in 1915, the house had to be moved about 100 feet north because of the building of the Dumbarton Bridge and connecting it to the street in Georgetown.  Dumbarton House was opened as a museum to the public in 1932.

The current entrance to the house has been created by joining the separate kitchen to the front east side of the house. There’s a front desk and some displays with information about the early owners of the house.

Tours are self-guided and the first floor rooms are beautifully furnished with period pieces. This includes a 1791 Charles Wilson Peale painting of Navy Secretary’s Benjamin Stoddard’s three children. The setting was not far away in Georgetown and in the background is the Potomac River and what is now called Roosevelt Island. It’s one of the earlier artistic depictions of Georgetown. There’s a handout available at the front desk with more information about the furnishings and the staff is very helpful with answering questions about the house and its history.

The upstairs rooms are used for exhibit space. One is dedicated to the history of the Colonial Dames, and currently there is one on the War of 1812 with a dress that belonged to Dolley Madison and in another room artwork of several generations of the Nourse family.

The architects in the Federal period had an interest in circles and ovals and this idea shows up on the back side of Dumbarton House. The rooms on the back side of the house actually bow out. This is plainly obvious when looking at the back side of the house from the yard where the brick walls clearly curve out on both sides of the symmetrical design.

Dumbarton House holds numerous public programs during the year which can be viewed at the official website.

If you don’t live there or close by, visiting Georgetown requires making a little extra effort, but exploring has its own rewards.

Links:  Dumbarton House

           National Society of the Colonial Dames of America

Gunston Hall

If you have the time to visit some of the other historic houses near Mount Vernon, one place that deserves a visit along with Woodlawn and the Pope-Leighey House is Gunston Hall. It’s the home of one of the lesser known Founding Fathers, George Mason.

Gunston Hall

He served in the Virginia House of Burgesses and House of Delegates through the 1760’s and 70’s.  He wrote drafts for the Virginia Declaration of Rights and the Virginia Constitution, both adopted in 1776, which were the first such documents in the colonies.  He was also a delegate to the Federal Convention at Philadelphia in 1787 that created the Constitution, and was one of its most frequent speakers. But in the end he refused to support the Constitution when it was adopted, in part because it didn’t include a “Declaration of Rights”. The Bill of Rights adopted by the first Congress in 1791 is based on Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights.

In 1755 at age 30, Mason decided to build a house for his growing family. To help create something special, he brought two craftsmen, who were indentured servants, from England, William Buckland and William Bernard Sears. As architect and master carver they brought knowledge of the latest styles from London and created something unique in the design of Gunston Hall.

When you first arrive at the property there is a good sized visitor center where you can watch a short film about George Mason and see some exhibits about Mason’s career and his life at Gunston Hall. Then it’s a short walk to do the tour at the house. From the outside the house has a relatively simple design, but it’s when you get inside that you realize it’s a special place.

The tour begins at the large twelve foot-wide Central Passage, which links the land side door to the door that opens to the riverfront. Conservators have used a bright yellow and gray period wallpaper design with a Roman-like architectural design that shows the early American’s interest in classical design.  The tour then goes into the rooms that would have been used as the parlor and formal dining room. The “Palladian” room has a rich red wallpaper and intricate woodcarving around the built-in wall cabinets and fireplace. The “Chinese” room has a kind of Asian motif in the carving on the far wall and is thought to be unique in Colonial houses in America. The walls and trim are painted in a rich yellow color. On the other side of the Central Passage are the Little Parlor, used by the family and by Mason himself as an office. And next to it is the Chamber, the bedroom used by George and his wife. Upstairs there are six good-sized bed chambers and two smaller rooms that would have been used by his children and any guests.

On the river side of the house is a boxwood alley, running along the path that leads out towards the Potomac. These were planted during Mason’s life and aren’t trimmed much for fear of damaging these very old plants.

There are also a number of recreated outbuildings including a kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, laundry and schoolhouse. And there is also information about the slaves that would have worked on the plantation; by 1780 Mason owned nearly 100 slaves working on four nearby farms.

There are numerous public programs held throughout the year which can be found at the Gunston Hall information-rich website.

Links: Official website for Gunston Hall

          Short YouTube video about George Mason

Woodlawn Plantation

Woodlawn, Alexandria, Virginia

There are a number of historic homes in the D.C. area, the most famous of which is Mount Vernon. And, nearby GW’s crib in Alexandria are several other historic homes including Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House. They both sit on the same property, so visiting them is sort of a package deal and makes it one of the more unusual historic and architectural house museum properties in the country. This post will be about Woodlawn and I’ll discuss the FLW (Frank Lloyd Wright) house in the next.

   
The Woodlawn property was owned by George Washington and in his will he gave 2000 acres and money to build a mansion to Major Lawrence Lewis and Eleanor (Nelly) Parke Custis, his nephew and step- granddaughter. Lewis and Nelly were married in 1799 and the house was completed in 1805. Washington had asked he first architect of the U.S. Capitol, William Thornton to design the mansion which has both elements of Georgian and Federal styles. 

   
The mansion’s most distinctive design features are the two wings connected by hyphens (connecting hallways) coming out from each side of the core block of the house. The wings originally housed the kitchen and plantation office. Originally the hyphens were simple covered walkways, but renovations in the early 20th century raised the hyphens by half a story to create more rooms. The visitor entrance and gift shop are housed in the left (north) hyphen as you approach the house from the parking lot.

   
Inside, the main block of the house is decorated with period furniture. The formal parlor and dining room are on the south side of the central hall and Thornton designed the parlor with a higher ceiling for proper acoustics; it is referred to as the Music Room. The tour takes visitors up the main staircase, which makes a beautiful oval shape when looking down from second floor. The Marquis de Lafayette stayed in the house on his return visit to the U.S. in 1824 and a travelling desk that belonged to him is set up in one of the upstairs bedrooms. There’s a lot of good information about the architecture online here in Woodlawn's National Historic Landmark Nomination paperwork.
   
Some 90 slaves would have worked on the property during the Lewis’s time, but when Quakers bought the property in 1847, they wanted to show that abolition wouldn’t destroy the Southern economy and that successful farms could be run without slave labor. Whites and free blacks, some former slaves from Mount Vernon, owned and worked the plots at Woodlawn and a Quaker meeting and school used part of the house. The article here points to research done about Woodlawn during the Civil War indicating that the farmers formed their own militia to protect against raiders from both armies.
   
After several other owners, The National Trust for Historic Preservation leased Woodlawn in 1951 and then in 1957 purchased it. The mansion was opened for tours in 1952 making it the National Trust’s first historic house museum. The National Trust is now working with an organization called Arcadia (their website is here) that is using some of Woodlawn’s land for a sustainable food and farming project. Visitors can see the garden from the driveway when pulling into the property.
   
The tour guide was very knowledgeable and the tour was about 45 minutes. Both houses are open for tours Friday through Monday from 12 noon to 4pm. The cost for touring both Woodlawn and the Pope-Leighey House is $15 and the official website for both houses is here. You can see more photos of Woodlawn online here and here.
   
The two other closest historic sites are Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall, George Mason’s home. You could certainly visit Woodlawn & Pope Leighey and Gunston Hall in the same day and really half a day if you pushed it. And at Woodlawn you are less than ten miles south of historic Alexandria with lots of historic sites and places to eat.

Links: Official website for Woodlawn & Frank Lloyd Wright's Pope-Leighey House
          Woodlawn National Historic Landmark Nomination
          Arcadia website
          National Trust article about Woodlawn
          Architects Design blog photos of Woodlawn
          Colinspics photos of Woodlawn