Carlby Manor House

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

Carlby was a Sussex County, Virginia, house known as "the Mitchell Home" until 1947 when its present owner, Carl W. Porter, moved it from its original location 20 miles south of Petersburg to its present location on the shore of the Potomac River. The date of construction of the house has not been established but a title search has traced the house back to the middle of the eighteenth century. Over one of the first floor fireplaces is an inscription which reads "Mary ... Wilkinson, 12 April, 1762, 2 a.m." The undocumented tradition of the house is that it was built by Daniel Mason for his daughter, the mother of General Winfield Scott, and that it was Scott's boyhood home.

The house is two stories high with a chimney at each end. When the house was reconstructed on its present site, the side porch was enclosed and the house was placed so that its front side faces the river and the rear is accessible from the circular driveway. The roof was recovered in rounded-end wooden shingles exactly like those on the roof of Mount Vernon. The old kitchen was converted into a paneled den and a new kitchen was installed in the area created by the enclosure of the porch.

The interior has a wide entrance hallway with opposing doors. To one side of the hallway is the large living room; to the other, the dining room, den, and kitchen. The flooring is of wide pine; the ceilings are 12 feet high on the first floor. The living and dining rooms are distinguished by the dark painted and stained paneling, some floor-to-ceiling, some with wainscoting below and a cornice above, all of which has been carefully restored by the owners. The first floor windows are nine over nine except in the dining room where they have been extended to floor level to take full advantage of the view of the Potomac. Throughout the house the mantels, paneling, and hinges are original.

Carlby is beautifully sited well back from the road and faces the Potomac River, less than 200 feet away from its front door.