Kenmore (Virginia)

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The Kenmore house in 2010.

The Kenmore House is the main building on the former Kenmore Plantation farm located in Fredericksburg , Virginia , in the United States of America . It was built from brick in the Georgian style between 1769 and 1775 by Fielding Lewis (1725–1781) . Lewis lived in the house with his second wife, Betty Washington , a sister of George Washington , whom he married in 1750. Lewis ran an arms factory during the American Revolutionary War , which consumed his fortune, and held positions as Commissary General of Munitions with the rank of Colonel.

The building was outside the city when it was built and was part of a farm producing tobacco, wheat, and corn. Several wooden farm buildings and a small shipyard belonged to it. Two farm buildings were reconstructed from bricks in the early 1920s. The main building was partly built by trained craftsmen; the use of bricks was particularly expensive at the time because they had to be made on the site. Several rooms on the ground floor have stucco work on the walls and ceilings, most of which were designed according to a pattern book by the English landscape gardener Batty Langley. There is no evidence of comparable stucco work in any other private house in North America from this construction period. The property was acquired in 1819 by the Gordon family, who also gave it its name. From 2001 the building was extensively restored and the garden was newly laid out. Like Ferry Farm , it is maintained by the George Washington Foundation and is open to the public as a museum.

In June 1969, the property was listed as a building on the National Register of Historic Places . Kenmore has been a National Historic Landmark since April 15, 1970 . Kenmore is also a Contributing Property of the Washington Avenue Historic District , which was created in May 2002.

Gordon Cemetery

The Gordon Cemetery in Fredericksburg is a small family cemetery of the Gordon family. 12 members of the family are buried in this cemetery. The cemetery is surrounded by a brick wall about 2 meters high and equipped with an entrance gate.

The cemetery is located at the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Pitt Street and is in good condition. Immediately beyond the cemetery is a valley, and on the opposite hill, where the University of Mary Washington now stands, was the front line of the Confederate States.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Batty Langley: The city and country builder's and workman's treasury of design . Blorn Press, New York 1967 (reprint of the London 1745 edition).
  2. ^ Hugh Morrison: Early American Architecture. From the first settlements to the national period . Dover Publ., New York 1987, ISBN 0-486-25492-5 (reprinted from New York 1952 edition).
  3. ↑ Kenmore on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed March 3, 2020.
  4. ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Virginia. National Park Service , accessed March 3, 2020.
  5. ^ Washington Avenue Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed March 3, 2020.
  6. ↑ nps.gov/kenmore (English)

Web links

Coordinates: 38 ° 18 ′ 15 ″  N , 77 ° 27 ′ 58 ″  W.