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.