Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, Virginia

by Ross De Witt Netherton; Nan Netherton

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 (4½ 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 passageway 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 46 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 chores (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 brass box lock.