ARCHITECTURAL HISTORY AND DESCRIPTION: THE MANSION HOUSE
Mrs. Michael Straight, interview December 1969. Certain pieces of the garden sculpture are from Peking, China. Others include “Frog Girl” by Willi Soukop.
Alexandria Gazette, November 6, 1839.
John Mosby Beattie, interview April 17, 1969.
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 anchored in the brick outer wall and in a brick bearing wall running the width of the house in the basement 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.
Ibid. The location of this masonry wall in the basement 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 anchored in the outside walls at each end of the house and in the center wall running midway through the house.
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.”
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 basement was constructed underneath so as to run down to the basement 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.
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 balusters 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.
Mrs. Netherton: Did you lengthen these windows to the floor?
Mr. Macomber: They were this way when we got the house, but they had been changed some time prior to 1942.
Mrs. Netherton: The cupboard was part of the design, was it not?
Mr. Macomber: Yes, it was, and I think this is one of the panels that came from Pennsylvania.... [Also] the paneled jamb from the library down into the living room came from this old building in Lancaster County [Pennsylvania]. And also the trim around the opening.
The renovator’s description of the dining room included the following comments:
Mr. Macomber: The mantel is a mantel of the period, and I’m quite sure it was in this room. The butterfly cupboard beside it is a design that was added to the room, and designed and built and installed for this particular location. The dining room, being a small room, we planned the recess beside the fireplace for the sideboard and also to give a little more space in the room and in the pantry. The chair rail I’m sure is original and the door trim, but the cornice I installed. The base is original, in most cases, I believe the doors are original, although the bottom rail has been cut off on this to such a degree, it looks as though it might have been for another opening. And that’s true on the door into the library.
Ibid.
Ibid. Mr. Macomber’s recollection is that “I’m quite sure it came from the second floor because it’s the same as the door into the nursery room....” As to the door into the hallway, he notes that it originally had been painted dark blue-green.
Michael and Belinda Straight, interview of December 8, 1968. John Mosby Beattie recalls when animal fat was cooked in the fireplace of the old kitchen to make soap.
Walter Macomber, interview July 16, 1969.
Ibid. According to local tradition, the tavern near Peace Cross originally was a residence, then a tavern, a gambling house, and a bawdy house. While a gambling house, it was robbed, and shots were fired after the fleeing burglar. One of the shots went into the shutters, and the hole made by this shot is still visible in the portion of the shutter used as paneling in the living room.
Tobey House Approach, Green Spring Farm
Tobey House, Patio and Fountain
Tobey House, Interior
Figure 14. Photos by Robert Lautman, c. 1960