Chapter IV. The Architect of Huntley 41

The Architectural Plan 41 Area Architects, circa 1820 42 George Hadfield 42 Similarities to the Work of Hadfield 43 Summary 47 Appendix A Some Mason Houses in Northern Virginia 50 Appendix B Chain of Title 53 List of Sources 55

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure Page 1. Huntley, viewed from southwest, including root cellar and necessary, 1969 viii 2. Huntley house and barn complex, viewed from south, 1947 8 3. Detail, _Map of Eastern Virginia and Vicinity of Washington_, 1862 12 4. Plat of Huntley division, 1868 14 5. Detail, Hopkins, _Atlas of Fifteen Miles around Washington_, 1879 18 6. Rear facade, c. 1890 19 7. Rear facade, c. 1900 20 8. Hindenburg disaster, Lakehurst, New Jersey 22 9. Front view, 1969 26 10. Rear view, 1969 26 11. Mantel, central first floor room, 1969 28 12. Mantel, north room first floor, 1969 28 13. Detail, exterior door, north facade, 1969 30 14. Detail, interior of entrance door, south facade, 1969 30 15. Detail, window and door, central first floor room, 1969 30 16. Necessary and tenant house from the icehouse, 1969 32 17. Necessary, rear or west facade, 1969 32 18. Necessary, door detail, 1969 34 19. Necessary, interior detail, 1969 34 20. Icehouse, detail, dome and opening, 1969 36 21. Icehouse door to root cellar, 1969 36 22. Root cellar entrance to icehouse, 1969 36 23. Dairy and spring house, viewed from southeast, 1969 38 24. Architect George Hadfield's ground plan exhibit at Royal Academy, 1780-82 40 25. Hadfield's design, bed chamber story plan 40 26. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) showing portico designed by Hadfield 44 27. Analostan, now demolished, possibly Hadfield designed 44 28. Front elevation, Huntley, 1946 47 29. Rear elevation, Huntley, 1946 48 30. Basement floor plan, 1946 48 31. First floor plan, 1946 49 32. Second floor plan, 1946 49

PREFACE

I first visited Huntley in May, 1969 in the company of Edith Sprouse, Joyce Wilkinson, and Tony Wrenn. Neither I nor anyone else on the staff of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission had ever seen or heard of the house, and my Fairfax guides were anxious that their "discovery" be brought to our attention. Having assumed that anything of interest in that section of Fairfax County had long been swept away for housing developments, I was in no way prepared when suddenly we rounded a corner and looked up to see a curious geometric structure sitting placidly among its outbuildings against a wooded hillside, aloof from its plebian neighbors. A quick scanning of composition and details dissipated any skepticism I may have had: here, on the outskirts of the capital city was a genuine Federal villa!

After being graciously escorted throughout the house by the owners, we all agreed that Huntley was, without question, one of Virginia's undiscovered architectural treasures. Since next to nothing was known either of its history or the development of its design, we concluded that the house deserved the most detailed study. All assumed that a house of such intriguing individuality had to have a story behind it.

Through the far-sighted patronage of the Fairfax County Government and the meticulous research of Tony Wrenn, this story has now been pieced together. The text which follows provides a history and descriptive analysis worthy of this distinguished Virginia landmark.

Calder Loth Architectural Historian Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This study was undertaken at the request of the Fairfax County History Commission in 1969, when Mrs. William E. Wilkinson was chairman, and in cooperation with the Fairfax County Division of Planning.

Colonel and Mrs. Ransom Amlong, owners of Huntley and their son Bill answered the author's numerous questions and gave him free rein to wander through the house and site. Edith Moore Sprouse provided frequent research leads and both E. Blaine Cliver, restoration architect, and Calder Loth, architectural historian with the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, provided architectural analysis. William Edmund Barrett provided most of the architectural photography. A major source of material concerning Thomson F. Mason was a collection of his papers, lent to the Alexandria Library by William Francis Smith for our use. Other leads were provided by Mrs. Earl Alcorn, Mrs. Sherrard Elliot, Miss Patricia Carey of the Fairfax County Public Library and Miss Margaret Calhoun of the Alexandria Library. Mrs. Hugh Cox provided valuable material on T. F. Mason in Alexandria.

Acknowledgment is also due to those who read and made suggestions concerning the final draft of this report, among them Dr. John Porter Bloom, Patricia Williams, John Gott, Mrs. Ross Netherton, Julia Weston, and several others already named above.

T.P.W. September, 1971

INTRODUCTION

It is difficult to understand how a house whose history is closely connected to the well-known Mason family has existed, practically without notice or mention, for one hundred and fifty years. This fact is all the more puzzling when the structure is as architecturally important as "Huntley."

Several possible explanations come to mind:

* Though near a major highway, the house is isolated on its hillside site.

* Because the structure has been somewhat altered, close inspection is necessary before its architectural merits can be fully recognized.

* The house was a country or secondary home for a member of the Mason family who, though important in his own right, was overshadowed by his more illustrious father, Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall", and by his grandfather, George Mason IV of "Gunston Hall."

* No one has written in detail about the house before and there is little secondary material available concerning it.

Kate Mason Rowland's _Life of George Mason_, published in 1892,[1] gives one of the few references to Huntley found by the author in secondary sources. In an appendix titled "Land described in George Mason's will, and now owned by his descendent's," she notes:

It was incorrectly stated in one of the earlier volumes that "Lexington" was the only one of the Mason places in Virginia now in the family. The writer had overlooked "Okeley" in Fairfax County, about six miles from Alexandria. The farms of "Okeley" and "Huntley" were both parts of the estate bequeathed by George Mason to his son Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall." A double ditch[50] is still to be seen on the southern border of these two places, extending several miles from East to West, with a broad space about thirty feet wide separating the two ditches. These mark the line between the lands of George Mason and George Washington, as they were in the lives of those gentlemen. In General Washington's will he refers "to the back line or outer boundary of the tract between Thomson Mason and myself ... now double ditching with a post-and-rail fence thereon," etc. And he mentions in another place "the new double ditch" in connection with the boundary line between "Mt. Vernon" and the Mason property. In adding to his estate he had purchased land at one time from George Mason. And among the Washington papers preserved in the Lewis and Washington families, and recently sold to autograph collectors, are three letters of George Mason, on the subject of the bounds between the Washington and Mason plantations, one written in 1768, the others in 1769. Washington adds a memorandum to the former, saying that "the lines to which this letter has reference were settled by and between Colonel Mason and myself the 19th of April, 1769, as will appear ... by a survey thereof made on that day in his presence, and with his approbation." "Huntley" owned by Judge Thomson F. Mason of "Colross," son of Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall," passed out of the family some years ago ...

Another mention is in Edith Moore Sprouse's _Potomac Sampler_, published in 1961.[2] She identifies Huntley as "a part of the estate of George Mason of Gunston Hall ... on a tract of land which bordered Washington's on the north and stretched from the Potomac to Kings Highway."

The following study of the Huntley complex combines the work of architects, architectural historians and historians in reading and interpreting the structures. At some future date, efforts of archaeologists will probably be rewarded with further information about the complex at various stages of development.

Introduction Notes

[Footnote 1: Kate Mason Rowland, =The Life of George Mason= (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1892), p. 472]

[Footnote 2: Edith Moore Sprouse, =Potomac Sampler= (Alexandria: privately printed, 1961).]