george washington, builder--8/17/26

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Today's selection -- from George Washington's Eye by Joseph Manca. George Washington was deeply involved in the expansion and design of his Mount Vernon Mansion House:

“We have many fewer documents concerning the building from 1757 to 1759 than we do for the 1770s expansion, and no useful remarks by early observers concerning the authorship of the building's design. While Washington was away from the estate, neighbor and friend George William Fairfax looked into the progress of the expansion. Fairfax talked to the builder, John Patterson, and offered ‘to assist Mr Patterson with my advice if wanted.’ On 5 August 1758, Fairfax wrote to Washington: 

“I have scarcely time to acquaint you, That I was Yesterday at Mount Vernon to Visit Mr Patterson, who consulted me about taking up the upper Floors, as you gave him no orders about chem, whereupon I had them clean'd in order to View them the better, and found most of them very uneaven and several defective planks, upon which I made Patterson calculate the difference of Expence between New laying them & intire new, which you'l see is too trifling to hesitate a moment provided you choose either. Undoubtedly they may do with a little plaining, but that cant bring them even, or make them of a piece with the rest of the House. If you prefer a new Floor, there must be new Doors also, So that we beg you'l consider this matter and lett us have your directions–This word reminds me of breaking one of yours, which we hope youl pardon, But it was upon seeing full imploy for the joiners, and that it would take too much of their time That I took the liberty to hire a hand to paint the House, which is suffering for want of it–I think the Chimneys above are to much contracted, and would be better were they inlarged. For if you remember they are taken in, but whether to prevent Smoaking or for a Stove you perhaps can best tell, and the only one that can direct us.

“A little over a week later, Patterson wrote to Washington, referring to the ‘Plan’ the colonel had devised but also noting that he made a decision about the placement of the stairs to the garret. We can deduce from these documents that Washington designed the additions himself but that some lesser decisions were made by those on the spot (John Patterson, William George Fairfax). Washington left the ‘directions’ and a ‘Plan’ and was the ‘only one’ who could decide large matters. 

Mount Vernon with the Washington family on the terrace, a 1796 portrait by Benjamin Henry Latrobe

“We have even more certain indications of Washington's design of the 1770s expansion. Washington's voluminous correspondence about the house includes mention of carpenters, stucco workers, and painters, yet there is no letter, record of payment, or other notice of any outside architect. In one of the few letters by him on this topic, he stated to Cary on 6 October 1773 that he was ‘under a necessity of making some Repairs to, and alteration in my House.’ Similarly, he told Bryan Fairfax on 4 July 1774, ‘I am very much engaged in raising one of the additions to my house, which I think (perhaps it is fancy) goes on better whilst I am present, than in my absence from the workmen.' Much later, in May 1798, Washington wrote to Sally

Fairfax, who had left Belvoir and the Virginia colony for England in 1774, that "I made considerable additions to my dwelling house, & alterations in my Offices, & Gardens.' While these statements seem to support the attribution of the design to him, they are hardly conclusive. Still, a number of observers during and after Washington's lifetime suggested or dearly proclaimed his authorship of the expanded mansion.

“Martha's grandson George Washington Parke Custis (b. 1781) spent his childhood at Mount Vernon, where George and Martha raised him. Custis wrote of George Washington that ‘all the embellishments of the house and grounds are owing to his creative hand,' and noted his responsibility for the ‘elegant and tasteful arrangement of his house and grounds.’ The great man, Custis claimed, served as ‘his own architect and builder, laying off everything himself–the buildings, gardens, and grounds all arose co ornament and usefulness under his fostering hand." When English merchant Robert Hunter Jr. visited the estate on 17 November 1785, he noted: 

“He has about 4000 acres, well cultivated and superintends the whole himself. Indeed, his greatest pride now is to be thought the first farmer in America. He is quite a Cincinnatus, and often works with his men himself: strips off his coat and labors like a common man. The General has a great turn for mechanics. It's astonishing with what niceness he directs everything in the building way, condescending even to measure the things himself, that all may be perfectly uniform. The style of the house is very elegant, something like the Prince de Conde's at Chantille near Paris, only not quite so large. But it's a pity he did not build a new one at once, as it has cost him nearly as much repairing his old one. His improvements, I'm told, are very great within the last year.

“Thomas Lee Shippen, visiting from Philadelphia in 1790, wrote to relatives, calling attention to the ‘taste and industry of our Washington,' relating George's aesthetic contribution and his ‘industry’ in bringing the house to completion. More direct was the opinion of Baron Friedrich von Steuben, who passed by Mount Vernon in 1780. The baron spent a good deal of time conversing with Washington and understood him to be the architect. Commenting on the ‘external appearance’ of the mansion house, the baron said that if ‘Washington were not a better general than he was an architect the affairs of American would be in a very bad condition.’ Pierre-Étienne Du Ponceau, the baron's aide-de-camp, heard the remark and recorded it in 1837.

“After Washington's death, some visitors expressed an awareness of his authorship of Mount Vernon. Thomas P. Cope, a Philadelphia merchant who wrote a lengthy diary of his travels and activities, visited Mount Vernon in 1802: ‘The building & style of finishing is quite plain. There are few architectural ornaments about it. Considering that it is the produce of patchwork, it preserves more uniformity than is common in like cases. It was an old family residence, & the General has from time to time made such additions & improvements as occasion required. Yet on the whole it is a slight building, neither is the furniture uncommonly rich or elegant. It has rather a comfortable, substantial appearance, not void of fashion or taste.’ Similarly, artist William Birch, who visited Mount Vernon in 1803, wrote in his Country Seats of the United States (1808): ‘The additions of a piazza to the water front, and of a drawing room, are proofs of the legitimacy of the General's taste.’ Gen. Andrew Jackson attributed the design to Washington, writing in November 1815 that at Mount Vernon ‘stands the venerable dwelling of the patriarch of our Liberties, corresponding in its style, with the plain and simple taste of him who planned it.’ Scottish visitor John Duncan (Travels [1823]) noted that ‘some partial alterations were made on the house by the General, but report says that he subsequently regretted that he did not entirely rebuild it.’ Even more helpful is the description in 1822 by tourist Charles Ruggles. In a letter to his sister, he criticized the design and suggested that the architecture could be ascribed to Washington himself: 

“Mount Vernon is by nature a most beautiful place. The house is of wood–old, plain, and has rather a gothic appearance. It was built by Laurence Washington. The General added to it a piazza of more modern fashion than the original building, and two wings which have nothing to distinguish them from farmhouse architecture. A stranger is struck with the plainness, and I may add, the stiffness of appearance by which the whole is characterized. It would perhaps be unfair to judge of General Washingtons taste by what we now see, because he did not originally build the house; and because its appearance may be changed since his death. The changes which have taken place are, however, chiefly produced by decay–few from purposed alterations: and on the whole one would be led to think that the General paid no great regard to ornament and that in whatever he attempted in that way he was unsuccessful.

“Finally, the last major pre-Civil War piece of writing on Mount Vernon, Benson Lossing's Mount Vernon and its Associations (1859), published later as The Home of Washington (1870), claimed that ‘Washington was his own architect, and drew every plan and specification for the workmen with his own hand.'”