Huntley: A Mason Family Country House. Tony P. Wrenn

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       Tony P. Wrenn

      Huntley: A Mason Family Country House

      Published by Good Press, 2021

       [email protected]

      EAN 4064066140489

Table of Contents

       PREFACE

       ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

       INTRODUCTION

       CHAPTER I

       CHAPTER II

       CHAPTER III

       CHAPTER IV

       SUMMARY

       APPENDIX A

       APPENDIX B

       LIST OF SOURCES

PREFACE

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      I first visited Huntley in May, 1969 in the company of Edith Sprouse, Joyce Wilkinson, and Tony Wrenn. Neither I nor anyone else on the staff of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission had ever seen or heard of the house, and my Fairfax guides were anxious that their "discovery" be brought to our attention. Having assumed that anything of interest in that section of Fairfax County had long been swept away for housing developments, I was in no way prepared when suddenly we rounded a corner and looked up to see a curious geometric structure sitting placidly among its outbuildings against a wooded hillside, aloof from its plebian neighbors. A quick scanning of composition and details dissipated any skepticism I may have had: here, on the outskirts of the capital city was a genuine Federal villa!

      After being graciously escorted throughout the house by the owners, we all agreed that Huntley was, without question, one of Virginia's undiscovered architectural treasures. Since next to nothing was known either of its history or the development of its design, we concluded that the house deserved the most detailed study. All assumed that a house of such intriguing individuality had to have a story behind it.

      Through the far-sighted patronage of the Fairfax County Government and the meticulous research of Tony Wrenn, this story has now been pieced together. The text which follows provides a history and descriptive analysis worthy of this distinguished Virginia landmark.

      Calder Loth

       Architectural Historian

       Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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      This study was undertaken at the request of the Fairfax County History Commission in 1969, when Mrs. William E. Wilkinson was chairman, and in cooperation with the Fairfax County Division of Planning.

      Colonel and Mrs. Ransom Amlong, owners of Huntley and their son Bill answered the author's numerous questions and gave him free rein to wander through the house and site. Edith Moore Sprouse provided frequent research leads and both E. Blaine Cliver, restoration architect, and Calder Loth, architectural historian with the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, provided architectural analysis. William Edmund Barrett provided most of the architectural photography. A major source of material concerning Thomson F. Mason was a collection of his papers, lent to the Alexandria Library by William Francis Smith for our use. Other leads were provided by Mrs. Earl Alcorn, Mrs. Sherrard Elliot, Miss Patricia Carey of the Fairfax County Public Library and Miss Margaret Calhoun of the Alexandria Library. Mrs. Hugh Cox provided valuable material on T. F. Mason in Alexandria.

      Acknowledgment is also due to those who read and made suggestions concerning the final draft of this report, among them Dr. John Porter Bloom, Patricia Williams, John Gott, Mrs. Ross Netherton, Julia Weston, and several others already named above.

      T.P.W.

       September, 1971

      

Figure 1. Huntley, viewed from the southwest, including root cellar and necessary. November 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.

INTRODUCTION

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      It is difficult to understand how a house whose history is closely connected to the well-known Mason family has existed, practically without notice or mention, for one hundred and fifty years. This fact is all the more puzzling when the structure is as architecturally important as "Huntley."

      Several possible explanations come to mind:

      * Though near a major highway, the house is isolated on its hillside site.

      * Because the structure has been somewhat altered, close inspection is necessary before its architectural merits can be fully recognized.

      * The house was a country or secondary home for a member of the Mason family who, though important in his own right, was overshadowed by his more illustrious father, Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall", and by his grandfather, George Mason IV of "Gunston Hall."

      * No one has written in detail about the house before and there is little secondary material available concerning it.

Kate Mason Rowland's Life of George Mason, published in 1892,[1] gives one of the few references to Huntley found by the author in secondary sources. In an appendix titled "Land described in George Mason's will, and now owned by his descendent's," she notes:

      It was incorrectly stated in one of the earlier volumes that "Lexington" was the only one of the Mason places in Virginia now in the family. The writer had overlooked "Okeley" in Fairfax County, about six miles from Alexandria. The farms of "Okeley" and "Huntley" were both parts of the estate bequeathed by George Mason to his son Thomson Mason of "Hollin Hall." A double ditch⁵⁰ is still to be seen on the southern border of these two places, extending several miles from East to West, with a broad space about thirty feet wide separating the two ditches. These mark the line between the lands of George Mason and George Washington, as they were in the lives of those gentlemen. In General Washington's will he refers "to the back line or outer boundary of the tract between Thomson Mason and myself ... now double ditching with a post-and-rail fence thereon," etc. And he mentions in another place "the new double ditch" in connection with the boundary line between "Mt. Vernon" and the Mason property. In adding to his estate he had purchased land at one time from George