This latter feature appears to be a change made in 1942 since photographs of the house in 1885 and 1936 show the siding on the dormers laid parallel to the ground.
_Enclosures._ A post and rail fence stands at the edge of the front lawn and, together with a line of hemlocks growing immediately inside the fence, forms a screen between the house and the entrance road leading in from the Little River Turnpike. In the rear, a semicircular screen of boxwood frames the lawn.
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION--INTERIOR.
_Central Block._ The central block of the house, comprising the portion which was built first (possibly as early as 1760), is laid out on the traditional pattern used by many colonial Virginia homes--a central hallway with one or two rooms on each side, with chimneys at each end serving fireplaces in each room. In the case of Green Spring Farm, a narrow (4-foot 6-inch-wide) central hallway runs straight through from the front door to an opposing rear door. Floor boards are of random width (5 to 6 inches), and walls are paneled 3 feet 6 inches up from the floor, with wallpaper above. Doorways open off the central hallway into a library (east side) and a dining room (west side).
Prior to 1942, the rear portion of the center hallway contained stairways to the second floor and to the bas.e.m.e.nt, while still allowing access to the rear door. In 1942, however, the stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt was shifted to the west (new kitchen) wing, which was built at that time; and the stairway to the second floor was shifted into the library.[91]
In the library, at the rear of the room a narrow (2-foot 6-inch-wide) stairway rises from the corner nearest the hallway to the second floor hallway above (figure 13). This stairway extends over the hall doorway and, together with a panel-and-spindle part.i.tion, forms a covered entryway into the room. A small closet utilizes the s.p.a.ce underneath the stairs.
The present library is a designed room, created in 1942 by Walter Macomber. The design utilizes the full width of the house and thus replaces two rooms (approximately 12 by 12 feet) which originally had comprised the first area east of the central hallway. This original room design had had a fireplace in each of these two rooms, and in 1942 both were replaced. The one serving the rear room was taken out entirely as the doorway into the living room wing was cut through at that point. The one in the former front room was replaced by another fireplace, specially designed by Mr. Macomber, and built of materials from a late eighteenth century tavern near Peace Cross, Maryland.[92]
Built into the east wall of the library on each side of the fireplace are identical cabinets, the lower parts of which are enclosed and the upper parts are open shelves. The overmantel area is wallpapered, as are the portions of the room"s wall occupied by the window facing the front yard and the wall between the library and central hallway. Open shelving for books occupies part of this latter wall, to a height of eight feet.
The entire room has a cornice molding of stained wood, matching the paneling used for the stairs, the fireplace, and the built-in cabinets flanking the fireplace. Across the central hallway, the present dining room was designed and created in 1942. As in the case of the library, brick interior walls separating two smaller rooms (approximately 12 by 12 feet) were removed to allow the dining room to utilize the full width (25 feet) of the house. The fireplace serving the rear of the original rooms was replaced by a doorway into the new kitchen wing through a butler"s pantry. The fireplace serving the front of the original rooms was retained in the present dining room. Beside this fireplace and extending to the front wall is a b.u.t.terfly cupboard specially designed for that location. Chair rail, baseboard, and door trim in the room are thought to be original; but the ceiling cornice was added in 1942 and consists of double-ogee design over beaded plasterboard which is typical of the period of the house.[93] A cupboard by the doorway to the butler"s pantry is of modern design and was installed as an added convenience in the dining room.
The doors to the central hallway and to the butler"s pantry are thought to have been originally on the second floor of the house.[94]
The hallway door has six panels, with beaded edges and quarter-round molding in the panels. A fillet molding (4-1/2 inches) surrounds the doorway frame. The door has been drastically trimmed to fit the frame.
The door to the butler"s pantry has four panels but with a flat raised panel and no quarter-round molding at the panel edges--a style typical of the later nineteenth century.
The second floor of the central block of the house originally was laid out identically with the first floor--that is, two rooms on each side of a central hallway. In the 1942 renovation, this same room arrangement was retained for the west side of the central hall (above the dining room), while on the east side of the hall a single bedroom (12 by 25 feet) was created using the full depth of the house. In this bedroom, cabinets with louvered double doors were installed on each side of the fireplace and painted white to match the fireplace mantel.
This fireplace is one of the features retained from the original house and has a mantel which is plain except for a denticulated molding.
Chair rail, also thought to be original, is installed on all exposed areas of wall in the room.
Across the central hallway, the two bedrooms retain the same basic design of the original house. Both are approximately 11 by 11 feet and have random-width flooring and chair rail on two sides of the room.
The original fireplaces have been retained in these rooms. In the front room, the fireplace mantel is entirely plain; in the rear room, the mantel has two supporting columns and has three diamond shapes carved in the wood. Both rooms have built-in cabinets, shelves, and closets, some of which were installed in 1942 and some which were added in 1960. Also added in 1942 is the door connecting the front bedroom with the staircase from the first floor of the west wing.
Through the pa.s.sageway at the head of these stairs, there is access to the second floor of the west wing.
The third floor (or attic) is entered by a stairway in the central staircase. At the head of this stairway is a hallway connecting bedrooms in the east and west ends of the house and providing access to closets at the rear of the house and a small bathroom (7 by 7 feet) at the front of the house. The bathroom has a dormer window to the front of the house, and each of the bedrooms has a dormer window to the front and a window in the gable end wall. The gable end windows are set in plaster arches, flanked in each case by a 4-foot-high candle shelf. Both bedrooms have built-in closets, cupboards, and shelves. Bedroom walls have plain plaster finish and plain wooden baseboards, no cornices, and no chair rail.
_East Wing._ The east wing of the house presently includes the living room and a sunporch. The floor level of this wing is 1 foot 8 inches lower than the floor level of the central block; and the connecting doorway has three steps, with double doors at the top step.
The date when the east wing was built is not certain, but it is probable that the basic structure comprising the wing was constructed around 1840 and thereafter used as a kitchen or combination kitchen-dining room until the renovation of the house in 1942.
Photographs taken about 1900 and in 1936 show this wing with a door opening to the front of the house at ground level. The floor of the old kitchen was laid with cobblestones, and the east end of the room had a great hearth and Dutch oven. Food was cooked here and taken up the stairs into the main part of the house. Many other household ch.o.r.es (such as soapmaking) were performed here.[95]
When the house was renovated in 1942, the cobblestone floor of the room was overlaid with wooden flooring and pine wainscotting was added to the walls. On the north side, looking out onto the semicircular lawn, a picture window was installed. On the south side of the room, the outside door was replaced with a window similar to the one already in that side (figure 9). The large hearth and fireplace were replaced with a smaller one similar to what had been installed in the library (with the unusual wooden lintel).
According to the renovator, the paneling for the doorway connecting the living room and library came from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The overmantel and paneling around the living room fireplace and over the doorway connecting the living room and sunporch came from a tavern near Peace Cross, Maryland, where it had been used as shuttering.[96]
The architraves around the fireplace and pilasters were designed by the renovator from materials obtained in Pennsylvania.[97] The cornice in the living room is of cypress wood.
Entrance to the sunporch from the living room is through a doorway trimmed in material from an old building in Pennsylvania.
Wrought iron H hinges are used on the built-in cabinets in the east wall (next to the fireplace). The sunporch door has wrought iron hinges and a bra.s.s box lock.
The sunporch, added to the east wing in 1942, is frame construction on a concrete slab floor. When built, it was a screened porch, but later was converted to gla.s.s window panels to accommodate plants and pet animals in all seasons.
On the second floor of the east wing is a bedroom and bathroom suite, entered from the central block of the house on the second floor level.
Dormer windows are on the north (rear) and south (front) sides of the bedroom, and the bathroom has a dormer window on the north side. The bedroom has built-in closets, shelves, and cupboards, the hardware of which is wrought iron. Doors have box locks and small bra.s.s door k.n.o.bs. Two steps are built into the doorway connecting the east wing with the central block of the house on the second floor level.
_West Wing._ The west wing of the house was added in 1942, and was designed by the renovator, Walter Macomber.
The first floor contains a modern kitchen, a butler"s pantry, and a staircase containing stairways to the bas.e.m.e.nt and to the second floor, together with storage closets. An exterior door in the end wall provides direct access to the outside.
The second floor of the west wing contains a bedroom and bathroom suite similar in layout to the suite on the second floor of the east wing. The bedroom contains built-in closets, shelves, and cupboards, and wrought iron hardware (thumb latches and H and L hinges).
_Bas.e.m.e.nt._ The bas.e.m.e.nt is beneath the central block of the house, and its design is basically unchanged from the original except for the concrete footings and steel columns placed there in 1960 to strengthen the deteriorating brick interior wall. The bas.e.m.e.nt was not extended underneath either of the two wings of the house when they were constructed.
Entrance to the bas.e.m.e.nt originally was by a stairway located at the end of the central hallway, where also was located the stairway to the second floor and attic. In 1942, however, the stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt was shifted to a new staircase located in the new west wing of the house, where it is at the present time. The bas.e.m.e.nt currently contains gas heating equipment for the house, a water heater, and storage s.p.a.ce.
ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION: THE MANSION HOUSE
[85] Mrs. Michael Straight, interview December 1969. Certain pieces of the garden sculpture are from Peking, China. Others include "Frog Girl" by Willi Soukop.
[86] _Alexandria Gazette_, November 6, 1839.
[87] John Mosby Beattie, interview April 17, 1969.
[88] David Condon, AIA; interview December 11, 1969. The earlier room layout of the central block of the house had two rooms, each about 12 by 12 feet, on each side of the central hallway which ran through the house widthwise. Each of these four rooms had its own fireplace located in the end wall. This pattern was duplicated in the four rooms on the second floor.
A somewhat unusual feature of this building was that the joists for the first and second floors ran lengthwise rather than across the house. They were anch.o.r.ed in the brick outer wall and in a brick bearing wall running the width of the house in the bas.e.m.e.nt and extending up to the second floor. In 1960, it was found that this wall was crumbling and in danger of allowing the second-floor joists to pull out of their sockets. The installation of a series of steel columns holding up a steel beam had the effect of taking all bearing weight off this original segment of brick wall.
[89] _Ibid._ The location of this masonry wall in the bas.e.m.e.nt and its extension upward to the second floor made it possible for the original house to have the floor joists set lengthwise with the house instead of front-to-back. The joists were thus anch.o.r.ed in the outside walls at each end of the house and in the center wall running midway through the house.
[90] Walter Macomber, interview held July 16, 1968, at Green Spring Farm. Mr. Macomber"s description of these shingles is as follows: "This shingle is something I helped develop for Williamsburg. We never did use it extensively, but it was made ... in Richmond [by] a man named Hendricks.... It"s made of concrete reinforced with two or three wires to the length of it."
[91] _Ibid._ This stairway was also reversed when it was moved into the library. As it originally stood in the hallway, the stairway ran upward from front to rear of the house, and a stairway to the bas.e.m.e.nt was constructed underneath so as to run down to the bas.e.m.e.nt from the rear to the front of the house.
A second stairway between the first and second floors was also installed in a new staircase constructed in the new kitchen (west) wing built in 1942.
[92] _Ibid._ Transcript of Mr. Macomber"s description of the library is as follows:
_Mr. Macomber_: Now this room--the library--is a designed room.
_Mr. Netherton_: By you, do you mean?
_Mr. Macomber_: Yes.
_Mrs. Netherton_: Do you know what the room was before?
_Mr. Macomber_: Well, it was really plain.
_Mrs. Netherton_: Is this an Adam mantelpiece?
_Mr. Macomber_: You could call this an Adam mantel, although it"s not truly. It"s a mantel of about 1790....
This wood came from an old tavern near Peace Cross in Maryland. The building was torn down to make way for a large shopping center. This is all designed. This is a design of my own with the little dovetails which are a little affectation of mine. [Pointing to the entryway between the library and central hall.] At least part of this stair was original. The newel post and the bal.u.s.ters and the paneling under the first run of the stair are original, and the sheathing from that point up into the hall is a design, and was made right on the job by our carpenters.