Huntley Part 5

[Footnote 43: G.M. Hopkins, =Atlas of Fifteen Miles Around Was.h.i.+ngton=.

(Philadelphia: G.M. Hopkins, 1879), p. 71.]

[Footnote 44: =Alexandria Gazette=, May 14, 1892. A Pierson property is shown adjacent to "Huntley" on the 1879 Hopkins map.]

[Footnote 45: =Alexandria Gazette=, March 3, 1911. The =Fairfax Herald=, March 10, 1911, also carried an obituary. The March 4, 1911, =Alexandria Gazette=, noted that the funeral took place "from the residence this afternoon ... conducted by Rev. J.M. Nourse. The remains were interred in Presbyterian Cemetery in this City." The Harrison plot is in the third section to the left from the entrance. Stones bear no epitaphs, only names and dates of birth and death.]

[Footnote 46: Deed Book J, No. 7, p. 22, April 5, 1911, Fairfax County, Virginia.]

[Footnote 47: =Alexandria Gazette=, "Northern Virginia Industrial Edition," January 1, 1930, Section C, p. 8.]

[Footnote 48: Deed Book 515, p. 60, September 1, 1946, Fairfax County, Virginia. See also Deed Book 515, p. 64, August 21, 1953. A survey of the area is shown on pps. 62-63. The plat is marked "Farm and Mansion House Area," and shows the "House," "Tenant House," and "Barn."]

[Footnote 49: According to the records of the American Inst.i.tute of Architects, Mr. Pitt died January 18, 1969.]

[Footnote 50: Deed Book 694, p. 400, June 11, 1949, Fairfax County, Virginia. Col. Amlong is a retired U.S. Army officer.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 9. Huntley, front view. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 10. Huntley, rear view. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]

CHAPTER III

AN ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION[51]

The buildings currently comprising the Huntley complex include the mansion house, the tenant house, the storage and necessary house, the ice house, the root cellar and the spring house.

The Dwelling or Mansion House

Huntley, the mansion house, is of brick construction. The brick is laid in common, or American, bond, with five courses of stretchers to one of headers. Average brick size is eight and three-eights inches by four inches by two and one-quarter inches thick.[52] "The brickwork does not seem to have been laid ornamentally, but this is not strange for a building of the early part of the nineteenth century, where the emphasis was taken away from brick and it was often either stuccoed or painted."[53]

Room Arrangement

Originally the house was "H" shaped. The center portion is three stories at the front (south), two at the rear, and only one room deep. The wings on either side are two stories at the front, one at the rear and two rooms deep. Construction of the house on the slope of the hill accounts for the difference in height. Major entrances are on the first floor, although a ground floor is located beneath it. The wings project about half their width front and rear from the center section. This arrangement provides a large center room at the first floor level, with two rooms on each side. On the second floor level there is only one large center room, while on the ground floor level there is a large center room with two flanking rooms on each side. Here were the kitchen, various storage rooms, and possibly quarters for the household staff.

Every room on the first floor and almost every room on the ground floor had an exterior entrance. There is no obvious physical evidence to indicate the means of access to the second story room. Evidence of a dumbwaiter from the ground floor kitchen area to the floor above still exists in the rear ground floor room of the west wing.

A wing has been added to the rear portion of the west side of the house.

This is partly brick and partly frame and is of relatively recent construction. The rear of the H-shaped building has been filled in to create a hall s.p.a.ce, bath and an enclosed stair to the second floor room. At the second floor level it provides an extra room and a bath.

This work is probably nineteenth century, but the exact date is unknown.

In front, at the first floor level is a porch addition. This is built around earlier steps which are of quarried stone supported by a brick wall on each side. The present porch roof covers and obscures the brick arch and top of the fanlight over the entrance. There was probably no covered porch on the house originally.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 11. Mantel, central first floor room. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 12. Mantel, north room first floor. 1969. Photo by Wm. Edmund Barrett.]

Windows and Doors

Windows in the facade are unique in that they are set into recessed brick frames. While the frames in the root cellar are arched, those in the residence are square panels, with the window set into the center of the frame. According to architectural historian E. Blaine Cliver, the exterior window construction is quite simple with a double beaded frame set into the brick two to three inches from the front surface. The simplicity of the window framing, which is Federal in style, would place the house somewhat after the late Colonial period, in the early nineteenth century. Windows on the ground and first floor are six-over-six, double-hung sash, except adjacent to the entrance on the first floor porch where they are four-over-four. Windows on the second floor consist of a single, nine-pane sash, which opens to the side on hinges. The pane size is eight and a half inches by ten inches and a large portion of the gla.s.s is early. The exterior shutters consist of a single panel of fixed louvers and much shutter hardware survives. This includes several types of shutter stops, which are generally wrought rather than stamped. A fine boot sc.r.a.per also exists at the rear first floor entrance.

The door entrance in the south front has framing sidelights and an elliptical fanlight with wood tracery. In general, the oval fanlight came into use in the 1790's and went out of common use around 1825; although according to Mr. Cliver it probably was not common in this area until after 1800. The stiles of the entrance are basically the pilaster type although the reeding within the pilaster is rounded rather than flat. An opposing door at the north or rear of the center room was also originally exterior. The keystone over the fanlight has a beaded center portion which is similar to those found in the work of nineteenth century architect Asher Benjamin.

Interior Features

The center first floor room has a fine mantel which is also similar in proportion to the Federal styles of Benjamin. The mantel is somewhat busy, and a little heavy, yet it has delicate detail and reeding on the sides. The mantels in the side rooms are much simpler, as might be expected in ancillary rooms. Basically, however, their proportions are the same, dateable to the early nineteenth century but with much less style involved. All four of the side mantels are of the same basic design, but each has been given an individual detail or refinement.

The second floor room has a simple mantel and moldings. It has the ovolo curve in the molding around the architraves which was common in the eighteenth century and persisted into the nineteenth.[54] This room would have been less used than downstairs rooms and the moldings are bound to be simpler, as is often found in the nineteenth century, when the upstairs was no longer as much used as in the eighteenth century.

This room has a tray ceiling of the type one would expect to find beneath a hip roof, such as Huntley had in the nineteenth century.

Much of the flooring in the house is early, consisting of wide random width pine boards. The saw marks in the subflooring above the ground floor center room are vertical, but apparently from a mechanical saw.

Beams under this portion of the house are hand-sawn on one side and broad-axed on the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 13. Detail, exterior door, north facade. 1969.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 14. Detail, interior of entrance door, south facade, 1969.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 15. Detail, window and door, central first floor room. 1969. Photos by Wm. Edmund Barrett]

On the ground floor only the kitchen fireplace in the west side is open.

There is evidence of a possible oven in the west chimney in the center room. In the east wing the front fireplace has been closed, though a balancing structural arch in the adjacent room is still open. The floor on the ground level was brick but floors in all rooms except the rear room in the east wing have been covered with concrete.

Much early hardware remains at Huntley, some of which fits stylistically into the period of construction. Most of it cannot be positively dated.

The front door latch, for example, is an old Carpenter-type lock, generally common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, but having no visible manufacturers mark, it cannot be positively dated.

Door and window architraves in the center first floor room, and in rooms in the east wing have corner blocks, while those in the west wing do not. Detail of the architraves throughout is early, and those with corner blocks are probably contemporary with the rest of the house. In the center room, first floor, the mantel, door and window architraves, and panelling beneath windows, all have the same molding details, indicating that all woodwork is of the same age.

Exterior Features

On the two wings the wooden cornice is fairly deep, approximately eight inches, providing a slight projection. This may be indicative of a somewhat later date--moving toward the cornices of the Greek Revival period. They are probably of a later date, but if so, certainly within thirty to forty years after the house was constructed, or no later than the mid-nineteenth century. The saw-tooth cornice line does not run behind the present wooden cornice, indicating, along with the fact that brick bonding continues into the gable end, that the roof configuration on the wings is probably original. The only probable differences between the original roof and that now in place is that the gable ends over the center section were clipped, giving the appearance of a hip roof when seen from the front. This roof continued, shed style, over the wings.

There probably were no covered porches and the front porch at the first floor level may have been open above and below.

The Tenant House

The tenant house is a brick two-story structure with a ridge roof, a slightly off-center interior chimney and a three bay front. The building is approximately thirty-two feet long and twenty-two feet wide. A seven foot projection on the right end, added in this century, houses bath and kitchen facilities. It is approximately two hundred seventy feet west of the mansion house.

The brick is laid in common bond, with five courses of stretchers to one of headers. The average brick size is eight and one-half inches by four inches by two and one-eighth inches. The cornice line is composed of three rows of bricks stepped outward. The first and third courses are stretchers and the middle course is composed of headers laid to form a dentil course.

This structure burned in 1947; now only the exterior walls are original.

All windows, doors and interiors date from remodelling after the fire.