After yesterday’s adventure, we decided to stay on land today. Drove to Mount Vernon to tour George Washington’s home. Expected high temperature today was low 80s, compared to the high 90s we’ve had for last several days, another plus for us.
We saw Mount Vernon from the water last year when we cruised up the Potomac River to National Harbor. It was a speck of a building at that distance high on a bluff, looking like an impressively wide stone building with a red roof and two chimneys and a weather vane cupola.
Above are side-by-side photos of the exterior of the building. The one on the left shows the stripped surface; the one on the right shows the “original” surface. Washington was pretty clever. The house is built of yellow pine, but the wood was shaped to look like stone blocks. To complete the illusion, sand was thrown onto wet paint.
It is quite a nice tour. No photos are allowed in the house, but I can report that the attention to detail is extraordinary. The interiors were based on the year George Washington died, 1799, as a complete inventory of the house’s contents was made as part of settling his estate. The group that saved Mount Vernon as a national treasure, matched up the estate list with the detailed records George Washington kept of purchases throughout the years. Each room contains exactly what it did in 1799. The downstairs parlors (one for family and friends and one for receiving high ranking guests) are painted — one in a rich robin’s egg blue and the other in spring green. Those blues and greens were indications of a person’s wealth, as were the detailed wallpapers in the spacious upstairs bedrooms.
George Washington’s study was the most impressive room for me. In addition to a wall of glass-fronted bookcases, there was a “fanning chair” at the desk. Looking something like a rocking chair, the chair had pedals which attached to rod leading to a large blade shaped fan. The fan could be moved to and fro with George’s feet, leaving his hands free to keep the records of his five farms, distillery, grist mill and other enterprises.
The view of the Potomac from the mansion’s porch is stunning. We learned that the area across the river is now a national park. At one point, a water treatment plant was in the works, but the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (the keepers of the entire Mount Vernon complex) got word of it and one of the members purchased 400 acres smack dab in the middle of the site. Today the park is comprised of about 4000 acres and George Washington’s view has been saved. (Though his view was probably of farmland and not forest.)
