Arch Hall Manor House

Here follows an excerpt from the 1970 Fairfax County Master Inventory of Historic Sites which contains sites from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory:

Arch Hall:
Records of the Assurance Society of Virginia show that Arch Hall was standing in the year 1796, with the owner listed as Thomas Patten. Records at Woodlawn Plantation show that at least during the years 1816-1819 the house was owned by Lawrence Lewis (a nephew of George Washington and husband of Washington's ward, Nelly Custis Lewis). There is no evidence to indicate that the Lewises ever lived in the house though the current owners were told when they bought it that Arch Hall had been used by the Lewises as their townhouse.

Arch Hall was originally constructed in Alexandria at 815 Franklin Street, but during the 1940's the structure was dismantled and reassembled on the Belmont Bay shore. Once sued as an antique shop, Arch Hall has undergone many changes in the last 25 years. After the house was moved, a second story was added to one of the wings, interior walls were removed to enlarge some of the rooms, and the kitchen was enlarged and modernized. The present owners, working from pictures supplied by the Library of Congress, have had a copy of the original curved fireplace constructed and have tried to restore the old floor boards and woodwork.

Though the exterior resembles a cottage, the interior is extraordinarily spacious, with unusually large windows. It is a long, low building with a center hall having a high arched ceiling, a door with an arched transom and side lights, and a cross-gabled roof with dormers on one side only. The house is frequently attributed to William Thornton because of similarities between this structure and Woodlawn such as the oversized windows, arched doorways and some of the interior trim. No proof has yet been found to support this conjecture.