Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home
Historic house in Virginia, United States
Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home
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Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home in 2022
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Location | 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Virginia |
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Coordinates | 38°48′35″N 77°2′44″W / 38.80972°N 77.04556°W / 38.80972; -77.04556 |
Area | less than one acre |
Built | 1795 |
Architectural style | Federal |
NRHP reference No. | 86001228 [1] |
VLR No. | 100-0082 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | June 05, 1986 |
Designated VLR | December 17, 1985 [2] |
The Potts-Fitzhugh House (also called the Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home ) is a historic house at 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Virginia . It served in the early 1800s as the home of Anne Hill Carter Lee and her family, including Robert E. Lee . It should not be confused with the Lee–Fendall House , which is located at 614 Oronoco Street.
Location and description
The home is in Old Town Alexandria . [3] The intersection of North Washington Street and Oronoco Street in Alexandria is called "Lee Corner" because several properties in the area were owned by the extended Lee family . [4] It is across the street from the Lee–Fendall House , which operates as a museum and garden. [5]
The home is in the Federal and Georgian styles ; it is made of brick with white trim [5] and sits on a half-acre lot. [3] It has 6 bedrooms and 4.5 bathrooms; it is 8,145 square feet. [4]
A historical marker is outside the home. [4]
History
It first owner was John Potts, Jr., who built the house in 1795. [3] [6] The house was built simultaneously with its neighboring structure at 609 Oronoco Street, which became the Hallowell School ( Benjamin Hallowell tutored Robert E. Lee as he prepared to enter West Point .) [7] Potts was the Secretary of the Potomac Canal Company under George Washington , the company's president. [8] Washington dined at the house. [8] [4] The second owner was William Henry Fitzhugh . [4] The Marquis de Lafayette visited in 1824 during his visit to the United States . [4]
The home was rented by Fitzhugh to his relative, Henry Lee III ("Light-Horse Harry"), in 1811, at a time when Alexandria was still part of the District of Columbia . [4] [6] After being beaten in the 1812 Baltimore riots , Lee left the country and moved to the Caribbean, leaving his wife Anne Hill Carter Lee to raise their children (including Robert E. Lee ). [4] [6] The family lived at the home until 1816, and in 1820, the now-widowed Anne moved back into the home with her children. [6] The house was the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee, who was born at the family's Stratford Hall plantation in Montross, Virginia , and lived at the Potts-Fitzhugh House until he left for West Point in 1825. [4] Lee later became a Confederate general . [5] [4]
Notable later residents includes Royd Sayer, the head of the Bureau of Mines under Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Ada Hitchcock MacLeish, who helped create the United Nations with her husband Archibald MacLeish , a poet and Librarian of Congress . [8]
The home is on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register . [5] [4] It was added to both registers in 1979. [6]
The home was operated as a museum from 1967 to 2000, [3] when the Lee-Jackson Foundation, the nonprofit that operated the museum, sold the site to Mark Kington, a managing director at a venture capital firm, and his wife Ann. [4] [5] [3] It then again became a residence. [4] It was sold again in July 2020 for $4.7 million, and was then offered for sale again in 2021. [4]
The home is among the oldest extant homes in Alexandria; a handful of other structures are older, namely the Ramsay House (built 1695–1751) (today, the Alexandria Visitor Center), Carlyle House (1753), Murray-Dick-Fawcett House (1775), Benjamin Dulany House (1784-1785), Colonel Michael Swope House (1784-1786), Fairfax-Moore-Montague House (mid-1780s), and the Lee-Fendall House (1785). [9]
References
- ↑ "National Register Information System" . National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service . March 13, 2009.
- ↑ "Virginia Landmarks Register" . Virginia Department of Historic Resources . Retrieved 2013-05-12 .
- 1 2 3 4 5 After Two Years on the Market, Robert E. Lee's Boyhood Home Sells for $4.7 Million , Alexandria Living (July 24, 2020).
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Gillian Brockell, Robert E. Lee's childhood home is up for sale. The $5.9 million listing doesn’t mention him at all. , Washington Post (October 30, 2021).
- 1 2 3 4 5 "Robert E. Lee's Childhood Home Is Sold" . The New York Times . 12 March 2000 . Retrieved 15 December 2015 .
- 1 2 3 4 5 The Virginia Landmarks Register , Virginia Department of Historic Resources (1999), p. 27.
- ↑ Potts-Fitzhugh House, 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, Independent City, VA , Library of Congress.
- 1 2 3 Michael Neibauer, Robert E. Lee's boyhood home in Alexandria sells , Washington Business Journal (July 19, 2020).
- ↑ Sara Dingmann, Alexandria’s 10 Oldest Homes: Historic figures, ghost stories, preservation efforts and more. , Alexandria Living (May 12, 2021).
External links
Media related to Robert E. Lee Boyhood Home (Potts-Fitzhugh House) at Wikimedia Commons
- Potts-Fitzhugh House, 607 Oronoco Street, Alexandria, VA at the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS)
38°48.578′N 77°02.716′W / 38.809633°N 77.045267°W / 38.809633; -77.045267