Arlington
House Architecture & Construction
rlington
House was built by slaves on the plantation of handmade brick covered with a very
hard cement called hydraulic cement, and the surface was scored and
painted to look like marble and sandstone, a faux finish! These faux finishes
were very popular in the early 19th century, just as they are now. The back or
West side of the house was left unfinished with the brick exposed until 1818.
One of the earliest Greek Revival structures, and one of the earliest
residences to use the Colossal Orders, (the huge columns that span
the entire two stories of the house), the Arlington House design was inspired
by a specific Greek temple. The plan is attributed to George Hadfield, a young
English architect who had earlier worked on the United States Capitol building.
Hadfield probably also designed the slave quarters in back of the house. These
structures form a small court and harmonize in style with the house.
The
huge columned portico was intended by George Washington
Parke Custis to be conspicuous from the city. Mr. Custis wanted a fitting
memorial to George Washington and a safe place to display his collection of George
Washington's memorabilia, which he called his Washington Treasures.
The facade of the house including both wings is 140 feet. The imposing portico
is 60 feet across by 25 feet deep, featuring 8 massive Doric columns, 6 of them
on the front. Each column is 23 feet tall and 5 feet in diameter at the bottom,
tapering at the top. The
design of the capitals at the top of the columns are called Doric. They are the
simplest of the Greek columns. Doric columns were usually fluted. Those at Arlington
were not fluted, but smooth, probably because Mr. Custis wanted to save money.
The capitals, the entablature and the pediments are made of wood, scored and covered
with
stucco.
The
stairs of the portico are
also made of wood. Possibly, sand formed the portico floor at first. It is known
that Mr. Custis did not have the octagonal brick tiles made and installed until
1851. Today, visitors walk on the other side of the historic surface as architects
flipped the brick tiles over to save them from wear and tear.
The
only original locks are on the main front and back doors into the Center Hall,
and the lock on the door between the Center
Hall and the Back Stair Hall. The latter was stolen in 1865, but returned
in the 1920's when restoration began. The only original floors are in the five
bedrooms of the second floor.
The
North Wing, constructed in 1802, was originally 2 stories with a massive single
chimney and had a hip roof. (Mr. Custis planned for this to become one large ballroom
some day). Later the North Wing was changed to a gable roof, windows were added
and the exterior was decorated to match the South Wing. The South Wing was constructed
in 1804 with a temporary wall, probably of wood. Obviously, construction of the
largest section of the house, the two-story Middle House with its
impressive portico, was already planned and accommodations were being made for
its addition in 1818. In the meantime, the Custis family lived in the North Wing
and entertained guests in the South Wing where they displayed the Washington
Treasures. The
original roof was of wooden shingles. Lee had the roof of the Middle House
covered with slate, and he installed gravel roofs on both North and South Wings
in the 1850s. Each wing originally had a parapet, which looked like a decorative
railing, across the edge of the roof. Lee also removed those during the 1850s. Two
loggias with arches were added to the rear of the house between 1818-20. Probably
by 1845, these loggias were enclosed to make the Conservatory
and the Outer Hall Pantry.
At the same time, what architects called flanker additions, were added to create
entrances to the back halls in the main part of the house. The Lees called their
conservatory the Camellia Room. The
walk-in closets on the landings may have been used as bedchambers when necessary.
The servant's stairway continued down into the basement to provide access to the
North Wing Basement, but it was removed at some unknown date. It is believed that
the main stairs may have also continued to the basement, and were also removed.
Before the stairs to the basement from the pantry were constructed, there may
have been stairs in the Winter
Kitchen to the upper floor of the North Wing. Remnants
of the central heating system installed by Lee in the 1850's are in the basement
of the house under the Center Hall. A dairy
was located under the South Wing where former slaves stated that milk was stored
in a deep, dry well and butter was churned. The
somewhat austere quality of the architecture is relieved by the deft use of the
graceful arches throughout the house. There is an exceptionally large arch in
the Morning Room in the
South Wing. A
water closet was installed in 1837 at the end of the Outer Hall Pantry (enclosed
loggia) in the North Wing. Probably, the separate room housing a bath
was added at the same time. There
was an octagonal Summer House located in the exact center of the flower garden.
It was used for the entertainment of guests on summer nights, and some of the
Lee daughters could be found there reading books where the weather permitted. Slave
Quarters Located
in back of the main house are two rectangular buildings, which are set at right
angles to the house, forming a small service court. These buildings, the two surviving
slave quarters which housed slaves who were the house servants of the Custis and
Lee family, have three rooms each, and have stone foundations with rough stucco
walls featuring Greek Revival architectural details. It is thought that Hadfield
also planned these buildings. The stone well is located between one of these structures
and the North Wing of the house. The
Summer Kitchen was located in the North
Slave Quarters and housed the carriage driver, Daniel and his son, Daniel
in one room. George Clark, the long time plantation cook, and his assistant lived
in another room. The Summer Kitchen was located in a basement of this
building, but was filled in at some point and no longer exists. The
South Slave Quarters
housed Selina Gray, Mrs. Custis's personal maid and trusted housekeeper. She,
her husband and their eight children lived in one room with a small loft where
some of the children slept. (It was accessible by ladder and the crawl-space attic
had a ceiling only high enough for small children). There were no windows in the
attic. The middle room in the South Quarters building was used as a Smoke House
where hams and other meats would be hung from the ceiling to smoke and cure. The
third room in this building housed other slaves that worked in the Custis-Lee
household. There
was a Slave School House located in the grove of trees behind the flower garden
and roughly where the Old
Amphitheatre of the National Cemetery is now located. Slave field hands lived
in log cabins, mostly in the southern end of the plantation, but none of these
cabins have survived. Other
Outbuildings Other
buildings, which no longer survive, were the traditional plantation outbuildings.
Some distance behind from the house on a small hill stood the Stable/Carriage
House. Designed like a miniature Arlington House, it also had a Doric columned
portico. This structure burned and the cemetery administration built a new office
building that looked very similar to the old stable. On
another hill behind the house was an Ice House. Before refrigeration, ice was
harvested in the winter from frozen ponds and rivers, then packed in sawdust in
an ice house which had well insulated walls. An ice house was more common for
a town or city, but wealthy planters might have their own. The
plantation Outhouse or Privy occupied the same place just
north of the vegetable garden where the former Gardener's Tool Shed, a small brick
building built in the1920's by the cemetery administration, is now located. It
is now the Robert E. Lee Museum
and features an exhibit about Lee with artifacts that are not being used in the
house interpretation. |