Early History
George Washington Parke Custis, builder of Arlington House, was the grandson of Martha Washington and the foster son of George Washington. When Martha Dandridge Custis became the wife of Col. George Washington she was a widow with two children, Martha Parke Custis and John Parke Custis. Martha Parke Custis died in her teens without having been married, but John Parke Custis married Eleanor Calvert of Maryland in 1774, and upon his death at the close of the Revolutionary War left four children. The death of John Parke Custis was a shock, not only to his mother, Mrs. Washington, but to General Washington as well, as he is reported to have remarked to the grieving mother at the deathbed, “I adopt the two youngest children as my own.” Their names were Eleanor Parke Custis (Nellie) and George Washington Parke Custis. They were reared at Mount Vernon and are often referred to as the “Children of Mount Vernon.”
In 1802, the year his grandmother, Mrs. Washington, died, George Washington Parke Custis began building Arlington House on the estate of 1,100 acres which his father had purchased from the Alexander family in 1778. He named the estate “Arlington” and the home “Arlington House” in honor of the ancestral homestead of the Custis family on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. The house was to receive the legacy of his grandmother—furniture and pictures, plate and china from Mount Vernon, and more precious still, personal effects of Washington. Two years later, at the age of 23, he was married to Mary Lee Fitzhugh of Chatham.
Portrait of Robert E. Lee, about 1850
(G. Louvrie)
It is believed that Mr. Custis designed and supervised the original building and that its remodeling about 1820 was under the direction of the architect, George Hadfield. The foundation stone and timber came from the estate. The bricks with which the house was built were burned from native clay by slaves.
Arlington
The extent of the front of the Mansion, with its two wings, is 140 feet. The wings are identical, except that in the north wing the space corresponding to the state dining room in the south wing was divided into small rooms for the temporary accommodation of Mr. and Mrs. Custis while the house was being built and was never changed. The central portion is divided by a wide central hall. A large formal drawing room with two fine marble fireplaces lies south of this hall, while to the north of it can be seen the family dining room and family parlor separated by a north and south partition broken by three graceful arches. The second story is also divided by a central hall on either side of which there are two bedrooms and accompanying dressing rooms. A small room used as a linen closet is at the end of this hall. The third floor was used only for storage purposes and remained an unfinished attic. The grand portico facing the Potomac, with its eight massive Doric columns, was modeled after the Temple of Theseus at Athens. At the rear, two outhouses used as servants’ quarters, smokehouse, workroom, and summer kitchen form a courtyard.
The family dining room