Original Site of Evergreen House

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the Evergreen plantation house stood for many years until it was moved by Rufus Colley in 1969 a short distance away to Cannon Lane to protect the home from destruction when the Gladden Tract was being turned over to gravel pit mining operations. Rufus Colley had the old house repaired and renovated by removing massive Victorian porches to pare it down to fit the new acreage. Formerly, it was located down a long narrow driveway that runs beside the ball fields on Franconia Road. Now it sits about 100 yards southeast of its original location, in a different directional orientation, which caused a humorous problem. Apparently some bees had nested inside the beams over the front door. With the face of the house now to the west instead of the north, the heat from the evening sun melted the remaining honey and beeswax. What a mess! A driveway used to be there that has not been used in at least fifty years. It went down the north side of the property ending just east of the end of the present day Burgundy community by a creek.


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

Evergreen is one of the few remaining Fairfax County houses known to the recorder in the Italian Villa style popular in mid-nineteenth century America. This style was well publicized by the works of Andrew Jackson Downing, a landscape architect, and Alexander Jackson Davis, the principal American architect who worked in the mode.

The present owner, Rufus B. Cooley, believes that the oldest part of the house, now the smaller section, was built about 1850. The house appears on the 1865 Military Map of Northeastern Virginia, and Courthouse records show that in 1860 the will of a former owner, George D. Fowle, was proved at the house. The brick foundations under the house indicate that this older wing was once larger than it is now, and may have been partially destroyed by fire. The main section of the house was probably added when repairs were made, but the owners do not know when this took place. In 1884-85, Evergreen served as the residence of General Fitzhugh Lee, his wife, and several children, during Lee's successful campaign for the office of Governor of Virginia. It seems likely that the house was enlarged by that time.

The house is distinguished by its flat, overhanging roof with supporting brackets, a most typical feature of the Italian Villa style. The new section, which is several feet higher than the older part, has 12-foot ceilings and floor-to-ceiling windows on the first floor. The most interesting interior features, according to the owners, are the curved staircase and the mantels -- marble in the living room, stone in the dining room and brick in the kitchen.

General Fitzhugh Lee was the most famous resident of Evergreen. A nephew of General Robert E. Lee, "Fitz" Lee served as Governor of Virginia from 1886 to 1890, and later as Consul General in Havana and Military Governor in Cuba. His wife was the former Ellen Barnard Fowle, daughter of one of the previous owners of the house, George Fowle. In 1969, the house was purchased by the present owners who moved it from its original site at 4050 Franconia Road, where it had been threatened by demolition, to its present location.


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Here follows an article written by Edith Sprouse in the Fall 2002 "Franconia Legacies" newsletter as published on the Franconia Museum's website:

EVERGREEN - THE OTHER LEE HOUSE.
Once located on Franconia Road on the Burgundy plantation, this mid nineteenth century house, distinguished by its Italian Villa style design, was moved from the original site in 1969 by Rufus B. Cooley (then principal of the Bucknell Elementary School) before a housing development was built on the land. Evergreen's chief claim to fame is its association with General Fitzhugh Lee, a former Governor of Virginia.

While he was running for Governor of Virginia, Lee rented Evergreen. His wife Ellen was a daughter of George D. Fowle who had owned the Burgundy tract for many years.

Fitzhugh Lee was the son of Sidney Smith Lee and the nephew of two Confederate Generals, Robert E. Lee and Samuel Cooper, Lee has the distinction of being the only governor of Virginia who was a native of Fairfax County. Lee was born at Clermont, his mother's family plantation, on November 19, 1835. Before the advent of the Capital Beltway, the present Clermont Drive ran north from Franconia Road past the site of his birthplace. Lee graduated from West Point in 1856. As his obituary later reported, "from early manhood his life was one of constant activity."

Lee fought Indians on the western plains and later returned to West Point to become an instructor. At the outbreak of the Civil war he resigned his commission and joined the Confederacy to become Chief of Cavalry in the Army of Northern Virginia.

After the war, with no resources at his command, he returned to his Richland tract in Stafford County and farmed, "with his old war house hitched to the plow."

On April 19, 1871 the Alexandria Gazette reported that, "Gen. Fitz Lee was married in this city this evening, to Miss Nellie, daughter of the late George D. Fowle. Several ex-Confederate Generals were in attendance at the ceremony." In an account of a New Years Eve ball in Alexandria, the newspaper added on January 5, 1875: "Among the ladies present were Mrs. Lee, the beautiful and accomplished wife of General Fitz Lee, who was very elegantly attired in orange silk flounced with black lace."

The issue of May 26th stated, " At Richland, the residence of Gen. Fitz Lee, we were most forcibly struck with the air of general improvements and prosperity. This genial gentleman has gone to work in earnest since the war, by his example and advice, to restore Virginia again to her former position among the states."

In June of that year he was the speaker at the Bunker Hill Centennial celebration. At ceremonies on July 4, 1876 he was described, as age forty, as a man 5'5" tall, with brown hair and a red beard. The Lees had five children who survived infancy -- Virginia, Ellen, Annie, and their brothers George and Fitzhugh. While the family was living at Evergreen, an infant died at that place.

General Lee was elected Governor of Virginia in 1885. When he retired from the regular army it was with a rank of Brigadier-General. He subsequently served as Consul-General in Havana and Military Governor in Cuba. In the opening years of the 20th century planning began for the forthcoming 300th anniversary of the founding of Virginia.

Fitzhugh Lee took at active part by 1904 in preliminaries for the Jamestown Exhibition, traveling extensively to promote legislation among the several states of its behalf. he was on a train from Boston to Washington in April 1905 when he was stricken with apoplexy.

Fitzhugh Lee died the next day in Providence Hospital, Washington, at 11:20 p.m. on April 28th. His wife and daughters came from Fort Oglethorpe, GA. One son, Lt. George Mason Lee, was stationed in San Francisco; Lt. Fitz Lee, Jr. was in the Philippines. This "peculiarly genial and lovable man," reported the Fairfax Herald, was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.

The Virginia Historical Society, of which he was a member, eulogized him by saying that "in every relation of life, public and private, he was worthy of the noble stock from which he came but to his comrades he was known simply as "dear old Fitz."


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Here follows an excerpt from Donald Hakenson's "This Forgotten Land" tour guide:

The Evergreen house was built about 1870 and has since been moved several hundred feet to its present location. A clipping in the author's possession states that Fitzhugh Lee rented Evergreen for the duration of his campaign for Governor. The article stated that Major General Lee rented the house in April 1885.

MAJOR GENERAL FITZHUGH LEE.
Major General Fitzhugh (Fitz) Lee, son of Sydney Smith Lee, and nephew of General Robert E. Lee was born at Clermont, near Franconia on November 19, 1835. Fitz Lee made Major General before he attained the age of twenty-eight. Major General Lee was the last Cavalry Commander for the Army of Northern Virginia. After the war, he was elected Democratic Governor of Virginia from 1885 to 1889. Fitzhugh Lee is the only Governor of Virginia who was born in Fairfax County. In 1889, Fitz Lee was commissioned a Major General United States Volunteers and commanded the VII Corps in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. In 1901, he retired as a Brigadier General in the United States Army after having commanded the Department of Missouri for two years. On April 28, 1904, Major General Fitzhugh Lee died in Washington City. He was buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia not far from his friend and mentor Major General Jeb Stuart.