FAUQUIER-LOUDOUN
“In Colonel Mosby’s Shadow:
Gardens and Homes in the Middleburg Countryside”
Sponsored by Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club with
Leesburg Garden Club
Sunday, April 20, 1 to 5 p.m.
Monday, April 21, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Chair:
Susan Wallace (Mrs. Fraser)
Hedgewood Farm
Box 26
Lincoln, VA 20160
Telephone (540) 338-3514
susan@hedgewoodfarm.com
Co-Chair:
Martha Chapman (Mrs. Henry O. III)
Cotland
6340 Rock Hill Road
The Plains, VA 20198
Telephone (540) 253-7726
Cotland53@aol.com
Leesburg Garden Club Representative:
Peggy Rust (Mrs. John)
Murray Hill
42910 Edwards Ferry Road
Leesburg, VA 20176
FULL TICKET: $35, includes admission to all five properties; single-site admission $15. Children 13 and older, full price; ages 6-12, half price. Children 5 and under, free admission. On tour days, tickets will be available at our headquarters: The Hill School Dornin Science Center, 1753 The Plains Rd., Middleburg, VA, as well as at individual homes. Children younger than age 17 must be accompanied by an adult. Our beautiful country roads are very narrow in places. We suggest for the safety and convenience of all, that tour patrons follow the route designed by the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club.
ADVANCE TICKET SALES: Advance
price: $30. Advance tickets may be purchased by mail (through April
8) by sending a check payable to FLGC with a stamped self-addressed legal
size envelope to:
Daphne Cheatham (Mrs. John H. III), Middleton, P.O.Box 324, Middleburg,
VA 20118, (540) 253-5120.
Advance tickets may also be purchased at the Information Centers listed below
(through April 8). For an additional charge, advance tickets may be
purchased with a credit card by accessing www.VAGardenweek.org,
from late January until the day before the tour.
INFORMATION CENTERS:
The Pink Box
12 North Madison Street
Middleburg, VA 20117
(540) 687-8888
Warrenton Fauquier Visitor’s Center
33 N. Calhoun St.
Warrenton, VA 20186
(800) 820 1021 or (540) 341 0988
www.visitfauquier.com
Loudoun Convention and Visitor’s Center
222 Catoctin Circle, SE Suite 100
Leesburg, VA 20175
(800) 752-6118 or (703) 771-2170 ext.11
www.visitloudoun.org
LUNCH: Boxed lunches at $12 each are available for Monday,
April 21. Lunches must be ordered and paid for in advance. Orders will
be taken until April 14, and lunches may be picked up between 10 a.m. and
2 p.m. on tour day at the Hill School Dornin Science Center in Middleburg. Please
send a check for the number of lunches to: Daphne Cheatham (Mrs.
John H. III), Middleton, P.O. Box 324, Middleburg, VA 20118.
In addition, there are several restaurants in the area. More information
will be available on tour days.
ALL PROPERTIES ARE LOCATED WITHIN THE MOSBY HERITAGE AREA
IMPORTANT TRANSPORTATION INFORMATION:
WE REGRET THAT NO MOTOR COACHES OR BUSES CAN BE ACCOMMODATED,
due to narrow, winding roads. Please use caution when entering and
exiting a property. Follow directional signs. This tour requires
considerable walking and is not suitable for handicapped persons. For
your comfort and safety, please wear flat comfortable shoes. Parking
is available at The Hill School Dornin Center in Middleburg and the homes
have parking on-site.
Please, no high heels, smoking, cell phones, cameras or strollers inside
houses. Babes in arms are welcome, but no backpacks, please.
DIRECTIONS TO TOUR HEADQUARTERS
AT THE HILL SCHOOL DORNIN SCIENCE CENTER
IN MIDDLEBURG:
From the North, East or West, follow your map for directions to Middleburg, VA or MapQuest to the address below. In Middleburg take Rt. 50 West through the light then take the 2nd left on The Plains Rd. (Rt. 626), go 0.6 mi. to the Science Center on the left.
From the South, take “The Plains” exit off of Hwy. 66, at the stop sign in The Plains take a right on Hwy. 55, then a left on Rt. 626, The Plains Rd. Just before arriving in Middleburg, take a right to the Hill School Dornin Science Center.
THE HILL SCHOOL DORNIN SCIENCE CENTER, 1753 The Plains
Road. A resurrected hay barn at the southern edge of the 137-acre
Hill School campus serves as the center of student activities for the Robert
T. Dornin Natural Science Center. Named in honor of a former Hill School teacher
and active environmentalist, the facility combines opportunities for the study
of natural and agricultural landscape features.
Raised beds hold student gardening projects and a colonial-style herb
garden. The lower portion of the garden features a native perennial propagation
area, tree nursery and apple orchard. The surrounding arboretum was conceived
and planned by Garden Club of Virginia member and nationally recognized “plants
woman” Polly Rowley. The arboretum features a comprehensive collection
of indigenous Northern Virginia Piedmont trees and woody shrubs grouped in
groves, orchards, copses and natural hedge rows.
COON TREE RIDGE FARM, 6110 Coon Tree Road. A
winding driveway leads you past barns and fenced paddocks to this cabin,
newly renovated with additions to create a primary residence. Relocated by
the owners from Lafayette, Indiana, the log cabin totaled 900 square feet
and was used as a hunt box until 2005 when they moved to this area permanently. The
additions were built to resemble an old “add on” to the farm
house, in keeping with the Virginia tradition but with surprises. The house
showcases a serious collection of American Folk Art which the owners have
been assembling for the past 25 years. The newly created Virginia farmhouse/part
log cabin, completed with stucco, stone, wood siding and green tin roof,
is loaded with charm inside and out.
Well-proportioned rooms have large windows framing the pastoral scenes.
Peaceful, inviting garden rooms invite you outside with beautiful stone walls,
terraces and a working fireplace. Changes incorporated by the homeowners
include gardens inspired from living in the Chicago area, with tall grasses
swaying in the wind to capture the prairie feel; a log cabin playhouse erected
for grandchildren; an old tractor shed turned into a potting shed; and a recently
added pool and stone pool house.
LEE HALL, 6370 Herringdon Rd. This three-story,
1818 Virginia farmhouse has been expertly restored and is surrounded by lovely
gardens, charming outbuildings and a beautiful sycamore-lined driveway. Owners
Chris Ohrstrom, a specialist in early American decorative arts, and his wife,
Lilla, a sculptor, have dismantled, moved and reconstructed ten period buildings
on the 160-acre farm. They have created a compound that includes an1840s
dairy, an 1835 smokehouse, two post-and-beam barns, and a privy where one
of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s sons is said to have hidden from
Union soldiers.
Interiors of the L-shaped clapboard residence are re-painted in the
original early 19th century colors using paints and pigments hand-ground by
Mr. Ohrstrom. Floors are covered with boldly patterned Brussels carpeting. Hand-blocked
wall papers, from Mr. Ohrstrom’s Adelphia Paper Hangings Company, grace
many walls. In the living room, two dozen reproductions of exotic 1790s
views of the Orient by Thomas and William Daniell are glued to the walls to
create a picturesque print room. The dining room offers a prime example
of what is known as the “Piedmont Directoire” style of decoration.
You will discover Mrs. Ohrstrom’s lovely tiles in the kitchen’s
custom backsplash and her beautiful sculptures gracing the gardens. All architectural
and interior design work was done by the Ohrstroms themselves. The landscape
design is a collaboration with their neighbor Dana Westring. Mr. and
Mrs. Christopher Ohrstrom, owners.
ROUNDAWAY FARM, 2575 Five Points Rd. Built
by owners, Col. and Mrs. Newton, and completed in 1991, this house seems
to have been here forever. The front façade is in the Federal
Colonial style. Floors in the center section are of local black walnut,
while floors in the additions are of character-grade oak. The dining
room features a faux-painted, “waxed-pine” fireplace by renowned
English artist Malcolm Robson. The many paintings and sculptures in
the home reflect the owners’ eclectic taste, ranging from 19th century
English Sporting art to Victorian, as well as French paintings and lithographs
created by living and local artists. The living room ceiling is of
heart pine and paneling in the library is sugar pine.
The gardens have been extensively enlarged since the time the house
was first shown during the 1996 Historic Garden Week. Dwarf Korean boxwood
circling the front courtyard is of the Justin Brower variety. Mrs. Newton
created the garden designs with the assistance of landscape designer Susan
Fallon Shipp. A large topiary garden with an impressive European Hornbeam
arch is the primary entry to several garden rooms. A perennial garden,
with crape myrtles and grasses, surrounds the swimming pool; a natural garden
with stone table and stools contains summer flowering plants and rhododendrons;
a “Long Garden” emulates the undulations of the Piedmont hills;
and the picket-fenced rose, foxglove and hollyhock garden is decorated with
bird houses and feeders. The stable, which is also on tour, is horseshoe-shaped;
notice the antique weather vane on the roof. Col. and Mrs. Robert W.
Newton, owners.
PEAKEWOOD PHARM, 2380 Atoka Road. The name “pharm” already
suggests something out of the ordinary! Thanks to a successful pharmaceutical
business, Lou and Bill Kennedy transformed in only two years a traditional
rural setting into the perfect horse farm. At a fork in the driveway,
a bronze fox by local artist and Garden Club of Virginia member, Eve Prime
Fout, greets visitors. To the right is the house and to the left, you
can catch a glimpse of the outdoor horse arena. The charming, relatively
new stone farmhouse reflects the warmth and interests of its owners and is
filled with French antiques and racehorse paintings. The residence
is the perfect backdrop for creative and tasteful additions such as cascading
pools with vanishing edges, an outdoor dining room with a millstone table
and an outdoor fire pit.
Beautiful native trees grace the back gardens such as Zelkovas, Sweetbay
magnolias and Weeping Willows, and a boxwood parterre greets visitors in the
front. A charming picket-fenced herb, vegetable and cutting flower garden
is plentiful in summer months. The Kennedy daughters, well-known equestrians,
care for their horses in an amazing 12-stall, log-bank barn, with logs more
than 100 years old. Part of the upper-floor hayloft houses a lovely apartment
with scenic views of the Bull Run Mountains and the outdoor arena. Numerous
buildings are scattered on the farm, including a seven-stall barn with a stone-paved
center aisle, guest house, farm manager’s dwelling, a stream and pond. Mr.
and Mrs. William Kennedy, owners.
Fauquier-Loudoun—Rockburn Farm
ROCKBURN FARM, 2224 Crenshaw Rd. Past two
stone pillars, a stately old linden tree welcomes you to the historic fieldstone
manor house of Rockburn Farm. Originally constructed in 1728 by the
Glascock family, the house was rebuilt in 1828 after a fire. Rockburn
was designed as a “two-over-two,” center-hall structure with
fireplaces in each room. An old millstone with the original date was
used as the front doorstep, now at the back of the house. In 1930,
Hubert Phipps from Long Island, New York, acquired the property from the
Crenshaws (Glascock heirs). Guided by noted local architect Billy
Dew, Phipps made numerous additions to the house, most notably a ballroom
built to host the Piedmont Hunt Ball. The current owners, Mr. and Mrs. Donald
Glickman, returned the ground-level rooms to their historical proportions,
thus enhancing the elegance of the reception area while maintaining an atmosphere
of gracious comfort.
During the Civil War, Confederate cavalry leader Col. John Singleton
Mosby was gravely wounded and brought surreptitiously at night by ox cart and
remained on the farm to be nursed back to health. The Glascock family
cemetery is on the 132-acre estate, as well as many structures such as four
tenant houses, an old log outbuilding, and several horse barns and sheds. Beautifully
proportioned rooms, with large-paned antique windows, look out onto a formal
walled garden filled with surprises: a goldfish pool, espalier pear and apple
trees, old brick stairways, boxwood parterre, fragrant climbing rose bushes,
a pond with an antique “folly,” and many magnificent old hardwood
trees. Mr. and Mrs. Donald Glickman, owners.
OTHER PLACES OF INTEREST:
HISTORIC GOOSE CREEK BRIDGE. Rt. 50 between Middleburg and Upperville. The bridge spanning the Goose Creek just off Rt. 50, four miles west of Middleburg, was built in 1801. The Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club has owned it since 1974 and has overseen its ongoing preservation. The bridge is often the site of special events, movie productions and local gatherings.
THE CALEB RECTOR HOUSE. 1461 Rectors Lane, just off Rt. 50 at Atoka Rd. This historic area, c.1800, known as Rectors Crossroads, has been a center of local events for 200 years. Especially active during 1860-65, the home was the site of Col. John Singleton Mosby’s organization of his 43rd Battalion of Virginia Calvary and the location of encampment of Confederate Gen. J.E.B. Stuart on the eve of his advance toward Gettysburg. The house was purchased by Col. and Mrs. Robert Newton who restored the structure which today is the headquarters of the Atoka Preservation Society and the Mosby Heritage Area Association.
OATLANDS. 5.5 mi. south of Leesburg on Rt. 15. This Greek Revival mansion, c. 1805, with exquisite terraced gardens, was once the center of a thriving 3,400-acre plantation. The north wall and the boxwood hedging on the lower terraces of the garden were restored by The Garden Club of Virginia in the early 1990s with funding from Historic Garden Week tours. Daily tours, admission fee, (703) 777-3174.
DODONA MANOR. Dodona Manor, a National Historic Landmark located in Leesburg, was the home of Gen. George C. Marshall from 1941-59. Built in the first half of the 19th century, the house and the surrounding four acres are tangible reminders of a way of life that is quickly disappearing in what is now one of the fastest growing counties in the nation. Funds from The Garden Club of Virginia’s Historic Garden Week were used to create the master plan for the restoration of the gardens. Visit Dodona Manor’s website at www.georgemarshall.org.