Ravensworth Plantation Home (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the house used to be. No remains are visible here.


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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:

The tract, purchased in 1685 by the first William Fitzhugh from the original grantee, John Matthews, contained almost 22,000 acres in what is now Fairfax County. The land was surveyed in 1690 and a direct grant was confirmed in 1694. The boundaries extended roughly from present-day Fairfax City to Falls Church, south to the vicinity of Pohick Church, then west and northwest to the beginning. A group of French Huguenots was installed as tenant farmers to raise tobacco, and later Ravensworth Road, a tobacco rolling road, was established with the tidewater port of Colchester on the Occoquan River as its destination.

In 1796, the first William's namesake and great-grandson purchased a townhouse at 607 Oronoco Street in Alexandria from which he supervised the construction of the Ravensworth mansion on the portion of the estate south of Braddock Road. On August 1, 1926, the mansion house was the victim of an arsonist. Many priceless portraits in the extensive family collection were saved, but 17 were lost. The Virginia Historical Society was given the remaining paintings, and some of the antique furniture saved was given to "Arlington House." The estate was sold in 1957 for development and remains in the family cemetery were removed to Fairfax Cemetery across from Truro Episcopal Church.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Clio Foundation website as written by Genna Duplisea:

A nearby historical marker was dedicated in 1992 and shares the history of Ravensworth the largest estate in Fairfax County in the 18th century which was owned by the Fitzhugh and Lee families and built at this spot around 1796. The estate was built and sustained by enslaved women and men and featured a Palladian-style mansion and a notable stable in the classic Jeffersonian style. The Historic American Buildings Survey documented the property in the 1930s even though the house had burned down by that time. The survey suggested that the stable may have been designed by doctor-turned-architect William Thornton (designer of the U. S. Capitol). George Bolling Lee, a descendant of the original owners of the estate, and his wife were the last owners of the home; Helen Lee sold it for development in 1957.

Ravensworth was once an estate held by the Lee family. William Fitzhugh (1741-1809) built the Palladian-style house around 1796, on what was the largest land grant in the county at nearly 22,000 acres. He had inherited a southern portion of the tract, while his brother Henry Jr. built his home Ossian Hall in the northern part. Fitzhugh's great-grandfather, also named Williams Fitzhugh, had acquired this land in 1685.

The mansion was two stories, with five bays, fronted with a one-story columned portico. Two side wings flanked the central part of the house. At the rear of the structure was a large piazza, possibly inspired by the piazza at Mount Vernon.

After William's death in 1809, his son, another William (1792-1830) inherited part of the property, including the Ravensworth house. He married Anna Maria Sarah Goldsborough (1896-1794). They had no children, but adopted a Goldsborough niece. William sold some of the land in 1820, bequeathed another parcel to his adopted daughter, and his will left the rest of the Ravenstowrth estate to his widow, then to his niece Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee.

The daughter of the Ravensworth-builder William and his wife Anna Bolling Randolph Fitzhugh (1747-1805), Mary Lee, married George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Washington. They lived at Arlington House, and their daughter Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee married Robert E. Lee. The mother of Robert E. Lee, Anne Hill Carter Lee, went to the estate in her final illness and was buried there after her death.

Enslaved persons operated the plantation. The last William Fitzhugh (son of the house's builder) supported the eventual end of slavery and colonization of Liberia by freed slaves, but he owned 208 people at the time of his death across several estates. In his will he manumitted his enslaved workers, though there were still a few enslaved persons still at the estate with his widow Anna Maria during the Civil War.

In 1861, when Robert E. Lee left Arlington House to take up command of Confederate troops, his wife Mary Anna fled to Ravensworth and her aunt, Anna Maria Fitzhugh, widow of the last William Fitzhugh. Mrs. Lee only stayed at Ravensworth for about a month during the war, but Fitzhugh remained there with several enslaved persons. Both Union and Confederate units made use of the estate during the war, cutting wood or camping at the site. Anna Maria Fitzhugh died in 1874; Robert E. Lee and Mary Anna Randolph Custis Lee's sons George Washington Custis Lee and Major General W. H. F. "Rooney" Lee inherited and lived at Ravensworth. Three years later, the U. S. government rejected a reimbursement claim for hay seized during the war.

After Rooney Lee's death in 1891, Ravensworth house passed to his sons Robert E. Lee III and Dr. George Bolling Lee. The latter eventually obtained sole ownership of the house. Ravensworth house burned in 1926 under mysterious circumstances, possibly arson, which also destroyed many portraits of the Lee and Custis families. The estate is nevertheless present in the Historic American Buildings Survey in a 1937 entry. It is possible that the survey used older photographs of the building. The survey also noted the unique brick stable built in the classic Jeffersonian style, which was constructed ca. 1805.

George Bolling Lee's widow Helen sold the estate to developers in 1957. The stable was razed in 1960. Historical markers near the former site of the estate tell the story of Ravensworth. Within the town of Springfield, the Census-designated area where the estate once stood bears its name.


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Here follows an excerpt from local author and historian Mary B. Lipsey's "This Old House: Annandale, Springfield, Burke & Beyond" presentation:

Ravensworth was built about 1796. Where was it located? If you know where Kilroy's is, take Port Royal Road until it ends far back in the back. It was operated as a tobacco plantation. Now the immigrant bought the property and later generations were the first to actually live on the property. William Henry Fitzhugh inherited it in 1809. He dies in 1830, leaving his wife a widow, Anna Maria Fitzhugh, who happens to be a very good friend of Robert Lee's mother. When Robert Edward Lee's father left his mother and his children without a home, Anna Maria Fitzhugh said, here take out townhouse in Alexandria. So that is where Robert E. Lee has fond memories of, and coming to Ravensworth to visit his cousin and to meet another cousin, Mary Custis. Her father definitely did not like the idea that this poor kid deserved his daughter, but they fell in love and did get married.

It's actually William Henry Fitzhugh who supported Robert E. Lee's appointment at West Point. Again, you see the intertwining of these families. After his graduation from West Point, he pushes to get back to Virginia as he hears that his mother is dying. He does get there in time, so Robert E. Lee and Mary Custis Lee spend a hard honeymoon at the Ravensworth plantation when the Civil War begins.

With the outbreak of war, Mary Custis Lee did not want to leave her family home at Arlington Hall. That's where she was raised. That's where she grew up. That's where her father has all the mementos of George Washington. But the war is getting pretty close to Arlington. So, Mary Custis Lee comes out and she stays with Anna Maria Fitzhugh at the Ravensworth estate during the war. Robert E. Lee was already in Richmond by now saying, "get out of there, you're going to bring the Yanks on your aunt. Get out of there." So Mrs. Lee leaves and lives a vagabond life for a full year going from friend's homes to family homes all around the Janes River area until she finally reaches Richmond about a year later.

The Union Army and the Confederate Army both received messages to leave the Ravensworth house along because of the Washington family connections to it. But, you still have the Union Army coming in and cutting all the trees down. Today, you may still see a few old trees, but most are really young compared to other nearby neighborhoods, because, according to the records, they cut 106,000 cords of wood. What was the Union Army's purpose? The purpose is to put them on the train and send them to people to build wooden huts for the soldiers. They wanted the lumber, it wasn't like retribution against the property owner.

We know that Mosby spent a night in a haystack at the Ravensworth house, but the Confederates aren't going to touch the house either. Doesn't mean they can't destroy the property, but they're not going to touch the house because of the Lee family connection. Years later after the war, the Fitzhughs made a southern claim against the property and it was denied. The family hired a cousin, who was a lawyer, and the Southern Claims Commission came back and said, "If those Lee children will admit to being loyalists, we will let you have the claim for $350,000." Can you imagine the Lee children saying, "Oh yes, we were loyal to the Union?" Eventually the Lee family would operate Ravensworth as a gentleman's home. They come there in the summer and on weekends. They property was taken care of by managers.

In 1926, the house caught fire. They believe it was due to arson. The family later rebuilt a farmhouse on the property. While there was no local fire department in 1926, the community was able to get a lot of family heirlooms out of the house because it was a slow fire. A man was accused of setting the blaze, but never found guilty. So the property remained in the Lee family hands until 1957. Our community of Ravensworth is built on the site today.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Annandale Chamber of Commerce website:

Ravensworth Plantation: 1796
By: M. Callahan

Of all the colonial land grants in Fairfax County, Ravensworth was, by far, the largest at 24,112 acres or 37.7 square miles. (The entire land grant ran through, what is now, part of Falls Church to Pohick Church and from the present Fairfax Court House almost to Alexandria.)

The Ravensworth manor house was located in what is now the Ravensworth Shopping Center, and was the largest of the three 18th century manors built by the Fitzhugh family. The plantation was named in honor of the Fitzhugh ancestral home, Ravensworth, in the North Riding area of Yorkshire, England.

“Baron FitzHugh, of Ravensworth, is an abeyant title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1321 for Sir Henry FitzHugh. The title passed through the male line until the death of the seventh baron, George FitzHugh, in 1513 when it became abeyant between his great-aunts Alice, Lady Fiennes and Elizabeth, Lady Parr, and to this day their descendants. The family seat was Ravensworth Castle.” Col. William Fitzhugh, the first of the family in the Virginia Colony, was most likely a minor member of this Yorkshire family.

The two other Fitzhugh manor homes were Ossian Hall off Braddock and Ravensworth Roads, built in 1783, and Oak Hill off Wakefield Chapel Road, built in 1790. Although significant homes and estates, neither could compete with the massive acreage Ravensworth had for planting, or forests for timber. Tobacco was the primary cash crop through 1830, when the relatively new farming technique of crop rotation was introduced by northern colonists who settled in Annandale. Tobacco continued to be grown in alternating fields with grains and vegetables, in order to preserve the viability of the soil.

By any standard, Ravensworth was an extremely handsome frame Palladian-style mansion with wide, pillared two story verandas offering cooler breezes and an extended living space on the garden side. Over the main entrance an impressive two story portico welcomed guests to this gracious home. The spacious rooms were 27 feet square, furnished with valuable family heirlooms from the Fitzhugh, Parke, Custis, Lee, and Bolling collections. Moreover, the walls were hung with one of the finest private collection of early American portraits ever assembled. And, its landscaping included the widest possible variety of plantings known in the colony; manicured with particular care.

Ravensworth became the well visited Northern Virginia country residence of William Fitzhugh, and later William Henry Fitzhugh, Mary Lee Fitzhugh Custis, and William Henry Fitzhugh Lee.

William Fitzhugh was the great-grandson of English immigrant Colonel William H. Fitzhugh, a lawyer who arrived in the Virginia Colony in 1671. He was born in Bedford, England on 9 January 1651. Upon his death in 1701, he left an estate of 54,000 acres, including the Ravensworth land grant. It was later largely inherited by William, and overseen by his mother, Lucy Carter, daughter of Robert “King” Carter.

Of the Ravensworth land grant, he received the southern portion, which included Annandale, while his brother Henry, received the northern portion. Having lost an eye in an accident, the few remaining images of William, are most often seen in profile.

William Fitzhugh was a man of remarkable dedication who served in the colonial House of Burgess, in the Virginia House of Delegates, as a Virginia Delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1779, and as a Virginia State Senator. He was a close friend of George Washington. In fact, Fitzhugh was the last person Washington visited, outside his Mount Vernon estate, before his death. Ten years later in 1809, Fitzhugh died at the age of 69, leaving behind three children who survived to adulthood. He was initially buried at Ravensworth along side his wife, who had died four years earlier. Their remains and gravestones were eventually moved to Lorton's Pohick Church cemetery in 1926.

William Fitzhugh (also known as William Fitzhugh of Chatham), and his wife Ann Bolling Randolph Fitzhugh, a cousin of Thomas Jefferson, spent three years building a home, known as Chatham Manor, across the Rappahannock River from Fredericksburg. The manor house, completed in 1771, remains today as Park Headquarters for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. With the economy floundering after the Revolution, Fitzhugh sold Chatham Manor and 1,288 acres for $20,000, and moved to his townhouse at 607 Oronoco Street in Alexandria. The townhouse is often referred to as the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee since in 1818, when Robert was eleven, the townhouse was leased to Anne Hill Carter Lee, Ann Fitzhugh’s cousin, and the recent widow of Light Horse Harry Lee.

In this Alexandria townhouse in 1804, Fitzhugh’s daughter, Mary Lee (Molly) Fitzhugh, at the age of sixteen, married George Washington Parke Custis, grandson and adopted grandson of Martha Custis and George Washington. After marriage, the couple resided at Arlington House, also known as the Custis-Lee Mansion. Custis built this impressive home on the high ground of 1,100 acres, overlooking the Potomac. The property had been purchased by his deceased father, leaving both the land and a large monetary inheritance to Custis. The construction of Arlington House required a handsome sum of capital and took over 13 years to complete, but habitable by the time of the Fitzhugh-Custis marriage. When he died in 1857, he was buried at Arlington alongside his wife who had died a few years earlier. His will provided that:

Arlington plantation (approx. 1100 acres) and its contents, including Custis's collection of George Washington's artifacts and memorabilia, would be bequeathed to his only surviving child Mary Anna Custis Lee (wife of Robert E. Lee) for her natural life, and upon her death, to his eldest grandson George Washington Custis Lee; White House plantation in New Kent County and Romancoke plantation in King William County (approx. 4000 acres each) would be bequeathed to his other two grandsons William Henry Fitzhugh Lee ("Rooney Lee") and Robert Edward Lee, Jr., respectively;

Legacies (cash gifts) of $10,000 each would be provided to his four granddaughters, based on the incomes from the plantations, and the sales of other smaller properties; (Some properties could not be sold until after the Civil War and it was doubtful that $10,000 each was ever fully paid.)

Certain property in "square No. 21, Washington City" (possibly located between present day Foggy Bottom and Potomac River) to be bequeathed to Robert E. Lee "and his heirs." (Slaves owned by Custis, numbered around 200, were to be freed once the legacies and debts from his estate were paid, but no later than five years after his death. This clause was fulfilled by Robert E. Lee, Executor, in Dec. 1862.) After the death of GWP Custis, Arlington House was left to the Lee family, but permanently confiscated after the Confederate surrender.

In 1831 the only surviving Custis daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, married her childhood playmate and sweetheart, Robert E. Lee, at Arlington House. The ceremony took place in the Family Parlor, adjacent to the dining room, the site of several other weddings. The couple honeymooned at Ravensworth., now the home of her brother’s widow, Anna Maria Fitzhugh. Mary Lee, a remarkably enlightened woman, with a first rate classical education, taught slave women to read and write, and gave Bible lessons to black children, an unconventional practice at the time.

Two years prior to his marriage, Robert E. Lee returned suddenly from West Point to visit at his mother’s deathbed. So strong was the bond between Anne Carter Lee and the Fitzhugh family that upon her last illness, she was moved from her Georgetown home to Ravensworth and nursed there. Upon her death, she was even temporarily buried at Ravensworth.

Next to inherit Ravensworth was William Henry Fitzhugh III (1792-1830). A graduate of Princeton & a respected member of the VA Constitutional Convention, his childless widow, Anna Maria Sarah Goldsborough Fitzhugh, ran the estate, upon his premature death from a sudden stroke in 1830. Nearly thirty years later, Anna offered refuge to her sister-in-law, Mary Lee (Mrs. Robert E. Lee), who fled Arlington House in May of 1861.

Ravensworth was the home of Mary Lee’s grandparents, now long departed, and a safe haven compared to Arlington House. Although Mary Lee was initially unaware, the three Fitzhugh estates were protected by orders from both Washington and Richmond for the duration of the war, since all had ties, through family or visitation, to George Washington. A safeguard had been written by Union General Winfield Scott for, “Mrs. A.M. Fitzhugh of Ravensworth, a widow lady of great excellence, connected with the family of the father of this country." Consequently, her family and property were placed under army protection. However, Mrs. Lee feared her presence might invite damage to the home; harm to her relatives; or, even her capture by the ever present Union soldiers throughout the Annandale area. Thus, Mary Lee, and her minor children, moved onto Richmond for the duration of the war.

Ravensworth suffered some ravages during the war, namely having 4,000 acres of her sylvan woods cut for use by the Union Army as tent poles, pit props & firewood. Reparations were never made.

Nine years after Appomattox, and after the death of her husband, Mary Lee visited Anna Maria, at Ravensworth one last time. Together they journeyed to Arlington House. Here they painfully walked into the empty damaged rooms, and viewed her mother’s glorious garden, now gone and replaced with the graves of Union soldiers. Mary Lee died within the year (1873) followed by Maria a year later.

Upon the death of his aunt Anna in 1874, former Confederate General William Henry Fitzhugh "Rooney" Lee, the second son of Robert E. Lee, inherited the Ravensworth manor house and 563 surrounding acres, where he resided until his death in 1891. The remaining acres were divided among the other four surviving Lee children.

During the Civil War, Rooney Lee served in the 9th VA Cavalry, rising eventually to the rank of major general, when in June of 1863 his leg was severely injured at the battle of Brandy Station. During many months of convalescence, he was captured, and imprisoned at Forts Monroe and Lafayette. By March of 1864, Rooney Lee was part of a prisoner exchange, and returned to command his old cavalry unit. He served with distinction at Second Manassas, Antietam, Brandy Station and Five Forks.

After the war, Lee returned to farming and served many terms as president of the VA State Agricultural Society. He was elected a VA State Senator from 1875-1879 and to the US House of Representatives from 1887-1891. In 1890, Rooney Lee accepted, on behalf of the Ladies Memorial Association, the Confederate Monument at the Fairfax Confederate Cemetery (now Fairfax City Cemetery). An enthusiastic crowd of two thousand were joined by former Confederate officers & enlisted veterans to dedicate the monument.

The property of Rooney Lee passed next to his two sons, and then solely to his surviving son, Dr. George Bolling Lee in 1922. Dr. Lee employed a farm manager to oversee the farm, and used the residence as a summer home. The house mysteriously burned on August 1, 1926, however the adjacent outbuildings were not damaged. Dr. Lee soon built a smaller farm house on the property where he spent summers until his death in 1948. (Fortunately, many of the portraits in the family’s extensive collection had been removed before the fire, and most were saved. Only seventeen were reported to be lost.)

The estate was once considered as a potential location for the Northern Virginia University, or George Mason University, as it would later be named, but rejected in favor of the Fairfax City location. In 1957, the property was sold by Dr. Lee’s widow and developed into the Ravensworth subdivision. The Lee farm house was demolished to make way for the Ravensworth shopping center. The family graves were moved to Pohick Episcopal Church, where these four monuments can be found by the east wall of the church. William Fitzhugh of Chatham (1741-1809), Ann Bolling Fitzhugh (1747-1805),William Henry Fitzhugh III (1792-1830) & his wife Anna Maria Sarah (1796-1874).


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Here follows an excerpt from "The Story of Ravensworth" website as prepared by John Browne:

William Fitzhugh (of Chatham) built Ravensworth Mansion circa 1796. In his mid-50s and successful in both business and politics, the new home in the country was said to be a retreat away from the social demands of Fredericksburg.

The manor house was home to his wife and three young children and enabled him to oversee activities on his 12,000 Ravensworth acres. David Turk argues that the “…move was motivated by profit of the tobacco trade. By living on the tract, he personally supervised the cultivation of the fertile product in Northern Virginia.”

The house survived until destroyed by a fire of undetermined cause on August 1, 1926. In the preceding years, it had passed by inheritance or life estate to:
William (of Chatham)’s son William Henry Fitzhugh in 1809
William Henry’s wife Anna Maria Fitzhugh in 1830 (for life in trust for Mary Custis Lee and her heirs)
William Henry’s nephew William Henry Fitzhugh (Rooney) Lee in 1874
Rooney’s wife Mary Tabb Lee in 1891 (in trust for oldest son George Bolling Lee)
Rooney’s son Dr. George Bolling Lee circa 1922. Dr. Lee built a smaller replacement house on the property, where the stables and outbuildings had survived the fire.


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Fitzhugh, William (of Chatham) (1741-1809)
Role in Ravensworth – owner Parcel 1.2

William was the third child and only son born to Henry (of Eagle’s Nest) and Lucy (Carter) Fitzhugh. His father died in William’s second year. His mother soon remarried to Nathaniel Harrison, a widower who brought two children to the household, and they had another child together.

William married Ann Bolling Randolph (1747-1805) in April 1763. They had six children; just three lived to adulthood:

1. Lucy Fitzhugh (1771-1777)
2. Betty Randolph Fitzhugh (1773-1774)
3. Ann Randolph Fitzhugh (1783-1806)
4. Martha Carter Fitzhugh (1786-1793)
5. Mary Lee Fitzhugh (1788-1853), married George Washington Parke Custis (1781-1857)
6. William Henry Fitzhugh (1792-1830)

William inherited extensive properties from his father, including the half share of the original Ravensworth landgrant (Parcel 1.2) and Eagle’s Nest. He later sold Eagle’s Nest and built Chatham, near Fredericksburg, VA, and maintained his residence there until the 1790s.

Fitzhugh Family Plantations
Besides managing his extensive plantations, William was a political leader, statesman and member of the Continental Congress in the struggle for American independence. The Biographical Directory of the U. S. Congress summarizes his career succinctly:

“a Delegate from Virginia… pursued classical studies with private teachers; engaged in agricultural pursuits; member of the State house of delegates in 1776 and 1777; Member of the Continental Congress in 1779; again a member of the State house of delegates in 1780, 1781, 1787, and 1788; served in the State senate 1781-1785…”

In about 1796, he built Ravensworth Mansion – a country house on his Ravensworth property, where he finished his years. He also maintained a townhouse in Alexandria.

A friend and neighbor of George Washington, William’s daughter Mary married Washington’s step-grandson. He was visited by Washington on his last trip outside Mount Vernon before his death in 1799.

William (of Chatham) was a slaveowner whose wealth depended on slave labor to work and maintain his extensive lands. In the 1799 tax rolls, 96 enslaved people were recorded under his name, and the 1810 federal census counted 235 slaves living on his Fairfax County properties.

Appending “(of Chatham)” to his name helps differentiate this William from many other Williams in several generations of the Fitzhugh family.


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What’s in a Name?
Have you ever wondered how Ravensworth Elementary School got its name? Find out in this video produced for Fairfax County Public Schools’ cable television channel Red Apple 21:

Ravensworth Elementary School opened in 1963. The name Ravensworth is entwined with the story of the Fitzhugh family. In the 1670s, William Fitzhugh emigrated to Virginia from England. Fitzhugh practiced law, served in the House of Burgesses, and was a lieutenant colonel in the militia. He acquired a large tract of land and what would later become Fairfax County. After he arrived in Virginia, William Fitzhugh incorrectly adopted the coat of arms of another Fitzhugh family, the Barons Fitzhugh of Ravensworth. These Fitzhugh's were an ancient noble family line in England, but died out in the 1500s. Since Fitzhugh's family already had their own coat of arms that had been in use since the late 1400s, some historians speculate Fitzhugh reinvented himself knowingly in an attempt to elevate his stature in the colonies. The borrowed coat of arms and the manufactured connection to the Barons Fitzhugh passed to William Fitzhugh's descendants as fact.
His heirs eventually renamed Fitzhugh's land in Fairfax County Ravensworth after the other Fitzhugh's Ravensworth estate in England. In 1796, Williams great-grandson, who was also named William Fitzhugh, built a mansion which he called Ravensworth on land that he had inherited in what is now the North Springfield area. This William Fitzhugh was a wealthy planter, a delegate to the Continental Congress from Virginia, and a friend of George Washington. He also built Chatham manor near Fredericksburg and owned a town house in Alexandria that has become known as the boyhood home of Robert E. Lee. The Ravensworth mansion and estate passed down through the Fitzhugh family who maintained ownership into the 20th century. The mansion was destroyed by fire in 1926 and the estate's farmland was sold to developers in the 1950s. Ravensworth and the Fitzhugh's storied legacy live on today in the aptly named Ravensworth Elementary School.


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History of Ravensworth
By Ray D’Amato

Ravensworth Estate was the largest and most historical land grant in Fairfax County. The mansion, which had been built in the late 1700s, was destroyed by fire on August 1, 1926. The Ravensworth mansion was the oldest of the three famous Fitzhugh homes of the Annandale area, similar in line to the others: Ossian Hall across Braddock Road, and Oak Hill on Wakefield Chapel Road.

Ravensworth was an extremely handsome home with wide, pillared two-story verandas extending the length of the house, and its landscaping was done with great care. The furnishings were priceless heirlooms of the Lees, Custises, Parkes, Fitzhughs, and Bollings. The walls were hung with probably the finest private collection of early American portraits in existence. Fortunately, many of the portraits had been removed before the fire, and a number were saved during the conflagration, but 17 paintings were burned.

Explore some photographs of the Ravensworth House and Stable, once located at 5200 Port Royal Road, courtesy of the Library of Congress.

The Fitzhugh Family
In the late 1600s the plantation which was the background for these homes was granted to William Fitzhugh, originally from Bedford, England. He had settled in Westmoreland County and in 1685 purchased from John Matthews nearly 22,000 acres in what was to become Fairfax County.

William “the Immigrant” Fitzhugh (1651-1701)

William Fitzhugh never lived on his Ravensworth plantation, but secured a party of French Huguenots as tenants and set them to raising tobacco. It was not until the fourth generation that some of the Fitzhugh family lived on Ravensworth land. William Fitzhugh, the namesake great-grandson of the emigrant, was the first of the family to reside at Ravensworth.

William Fitzhugh (1741-1809) served as a delegate to the Continental Congress for Virginia in 1779.

According to George Washington’s diary, Mr. Fitzhugh had been spending some time at Ravensworth as early as 1786, so it is assumed that the house was built between these two dates. William Fitzhugh’s daughter, Mary Lee, at the age of 16, married George Washington Parke Custis (Martha Washington’s grandson) and became the mistress of “Arlington House.” William Fitzhugh had also purchased a townhouse in Alexandria at 607 Oronoco Street in 1799, which is family in 1818 loaned to their cousin, the widow of “Light Horse Harry” Lee, and her eleven-year-old son, Robert Edward Lee. William Fitzhugh died in 1809 and was buried at Ravensworth beside his wife, who had died four years before. His son, William Henry Fitzhugh, became a member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, and it was said that he was headed toward the governorship before he met an early death. He had no children, and his estate went to his wife, Maria, in trust for his sister’s daughter, Mary Anna Randolph Custis, who married her childhood playmate, Robert E. Lee, in 1831.

Robert E. Lee (1807-1870) and his wife Mary Anna Randolph Custis (1808-1873)

The War Between the States
As the Fitzhugh’s Alexandria home had been a haven for young Robert E. Lee and his widowed mother, Ravensworth would thrice more shelter his loved ones in time of distress. Two years before his marriage, Robert E. Lee had been summoned from West Point to his mother’s deathbed at Ravensworth, where she had been brought by the Fitzhughs when she became ill at her Georgetown home. Upon her death she was buried temporarily at Ravensworth. Ravensworth was eventually apportioned among the Lee children and became the refuge of Mrs. Robert E. Lee and her children at the outbreak of the Civil War. However, Mary Lee soon realized that her presence might endanger her beloved hostess and bring retribution upon the home by the Northern forces, so she departed for her Randolph cousin’s home further south.

Years later, after the war and the loss of her beloved husband, Mary Lee came again to visit “Aunt Maria” at Ravensworth. They made a last pilgrimage to “Arlington House” …the empty rooms… her mother’s tangled and neglected garden! Her death came within the year (1873), Maria Fitzhugh’s the following year. Thereafter, Ravensworth estate was apportioned among the Lee children. The house with 563 acres was allotted to Representative W. H. F. Lee, who died in 1891. He willed his estate to his widow in trust for their two sons, Robert E. Lee III and Dr. George Bolling Lee. Dr. Lee acquired sole ownership following the death of his brother in 1922; he died in 1948. His widow sold the estate in 1957 for development, and remains in the family cemetery were removed to Fairfax Cemetery across from Truro Episcopal Church. Today the land known as the Bristow Tract holds many major subdivisions including Springfield, North Springfield, Bristow, Ravensworth Farm, and West Springfield.


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Here follows an excerpt from the Braddock Heritage website:

Ravensworth Replacement House:
On August 1, 1926, the Ravensworth Mansion mysteriously burned down, though the adjacent outbuildings survived. Subsequently, Dr. George Bolling Lee built this smaller farm house on the property. In 1956, the property and buildings were considered as a possible location for the Northern Virginia University - the future George Mason University, which eventually was built near Fairfax City. The property was later sold and developed into the Ravensworth subdivision. The Lee farm house was demolished to make way for the Ravensworth shopping center and industrial area.

The original Ravensworth Mansion was built c. 1797 and became home to William Henry Fitzhugh and his wife Anna Maria. Henry had inherited the Ravensworth property in 1809, while still a minor, upon his father William Fitzhugh's death. Anna Maria's niece, Mary Lee and her husband, Robert E. Lee honeymooned at Ravensworth. During the Civil War, Mary Lee and her children briefly stayed at Ravensworth, but fearing for the safety of her relatives, they moved south to eventually settle in Richmond.

The Fitzhughs, who were childless, had willed the 8,000-acre Ravensworth property to their niece. Mary Lee's death in 1873 preceded Anna Maria's in 1874. Therefore, the estate was divided among the five surviving Lee children. William Henry Fitzhugh Lee inherited the mansion and 500 surrounding acres. By 1922, W. H. F. Lee's property had passed to his son Dr. George Bolling Lee, who used the residence as a summer home and hired overseers to operate the farm.


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Here follows an excerpt from the George Mason University library website:

George Mason University: A History
Ravensworth vs. Sunset Hills

Over the course of the search many sites were mulled over--as many as two-dozen. But, from the many properties studied, only two were seriously considered for the new home of the Northern Virginia branch of the University of Virginia. These were the Ravensworth Farm and Sunset Hills tracts. These two sites were on opposite ends of Fairfax County and were separated by about ten miles. In the end, each of the two groups, the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, and the Advisory Council, settled on its own site, arguing that it best fit the guidelines established by the University.

At the intersection of Braddock Road (Virginia Rt.620) and the future Capital Beltway, the former Ravensworth Farm would be served by decent roads, and its location would put it just south of the geographic and population centers of the Northern Virginia region in 1956. The land was once owned by Col. William Fitzhugh the grandfather of Mary Custis Lee, and now was owned by Edward M. Carr, James McIlvaine, and John C. Mowbray. The fact that the site had local history implications was seen as an asset by its backers. In the spring of 1956 the owners of Ravensworth initially offered fifty acres as a donation with an option to buy up to an additional 240 acres. They also offered conveyance of existing buildings and other cash incentives as well. Combined, these factors made Ravensworth quite attractive to the Advisory Council. The only perceptible drawback to the Ravensworth site was the fact that the federal government had proposed the construction of an international airport four miles southeast at Burke in the early 1950s. There was concern that if the future flight path went from east to west, the Ravensworth site would be directly in the path of jet planes during takeoff and final approach for landing. It was suggested by some that the noise could be detrimental to the everyday operations of the campus.

Sunset Hills, on the other hand, was located in Herndon in the northwestern part of the county. Located on the north side of Route 606 near what is now Reston, it belonged to the sons of the late A. Smith Bowman, founder of the A. Smith Bowman Distillery, and maker of Virginia Gentleman bourbons. The site was more than twenty miles away from Alexandria, Arlington, and Falls Church, sparsely populated, served by a network of smaller roads fed by Route 7 to the North, and lacked a convenient water and sewerage source. The Bowman brothers initially offered 50 acres of land along with $25,000 cash with which to erect the first buildings back in December 1954 to President Darden. In March 1956 the offer was expanded to 250 acres, with an option to purchase 250 additional acres.


On June 7, 1956 the Advisory Council met to consider the Ravensworth tract. In a vote among its members, Ravensworth was accepted unanimously. Though the Bowman offer was studied by the Council, it wasn’t given much consideration, primarily because of its location. To the Council, Sunset Hills was too far west from where the majority of the potential students lived. For all intents and purposes it seemed as if the search for a permanent home for the new college was over. The location was right; the size fit; the cost was reasonable; and, located between the more populous Alexandria, Arlington, and Falls Church on the east and less populous Herndon, Chantilly, and Centreville on the west, it could be argued that it was nearly in the exact center of the Northern Virginia population. All that was needed was consideration and approval by the Board of Visitors.

At its September 15, 1956 meeting, the Board assembled to consider the sites currently available to the University. In this meeting, a special Board subcommittee submitted its preliminary recommendation of the Sunset Hills tract for the construction of the new campus. Cited among reasons for its selection were the ample acreage, the projection that the Herndon area was going to be near the center of the area’s population in the future as land development increased in the western end of the county, and numerous recommendations from interested persons in western Fairfax and Loudoun Counties. The proximity of the proposed airport and potential noise was the Board’s sole objection to Ravensworth. It was, at that time, considered common knowledge among many in Northern Virginia that if an airport was going to be built at Burke, the flight path would travel north to south so as not to interfere with traffic using the existing Washington National Airport located north of Alexandria to the east. C. Harrison Mann, Jr. adds in a footnote to his unpublished manuscript that the Burke site was never seriously considered for the international airport. Ironically, in 1958 the federal government abandoned the Burke location for a larger tract in Chantilly, situating it very near the Sunset Hills site. This facility, now known as Washington Dulles International Airport, opened in 1962.

As expected, the Advisory Council and the local jurisdictions did not care about this decision. Mann’s letter of October 18 to the Board of Visitors fully registered their dissent. This location was impractical and utterly unacceptable. By the end of 1956, the question of who had the right to choose the location for the new college was in question. Advisory Council chairman, Clarence Steele, and others suggested that if the Council, who represented the jurisdictions that were going to pay for the land, could not choose where the branch would be built, then perhaps the Council should disband.

At about this same time the Board of Control for the Establishment of a Branch College in Northern Virginia stepped into the picture. The Board of Control was created by the General Assembly soon after the 1956 passage of Resolution 5, enabling the University to create a branch in northern Virginia. The Board of Control would take up the site selection duties of the Advisory Council, if necessary, and at the end of 1956, it became so. Fortunately, many of the people involved in the Advisory Council were also members of the Board of Control. The Board of Control would use a different approach than that of the Advisory Council to find land. Instead of seeking land offerings through word of mouth or through personal connections, it publically requested proposals of land offerings. In early 1957 the Board of Control received information on new sites as well as upgraded offers on previously-studied sites. Although many new and upgraded parcels were offered and examined, Ravensworth and Sunset Hills remained the frontrunners. The Sunset Hills owner’s new offer included a donation of 250 acres, an additional 250 for sale for $1000 per acre, and $25,000 cash. As expected, the Board of Visitors continued its strong endorsement of Sunset Hills.

However, the newly established Board of Control, which represented the local governments participating in the creation of the Northern Virginia branch, did not wish to have anything to do with a site so far away from the center of the population. Board chairman C. Harrison Mann, Jr. argued vehemently against the BOV’s recommendation of Sunset Hills and implored them to reconsider. While some members of the Council seriously considered accepting the Board’s recommendation, representatives from Alexandria, the jurisdiction furthest away, stated that they would not support the Sunset Hills location and would “withdraw from any participation in the establishment of the college.” The city's motivation was clear: the Sunset Hills tract was too far from the City of Alexandria to make a commuter college practical. If its taxpayers’ money was going to help build this college, Alexandria wanted them to have reasonable access to it. None of the other groups on the Board of Control wished to see Alexandria leave. They hoped to keep a common front and work together. Also, if Alexandria pulled out, the financial burden would increase for each of the remaining members once a site was finally chosen.

When it was all but certain that the Ravensworth would never be approved by the Board of Visitors, the Board of Control began looking at other pieces of land and fell upon the Chiles tract three miles north of Ravensworth. The Chiles tract was seen by many as the next best location to Ravensworth because it was located in the exact center of the population of all four jurisdictions. This site also was located right next to the future Fairfax Hospital, and the “Board [of Control] saw in this close proximity an ideal situation for a School of Nursing.” Although this tract was not for sale at the time, it was suggested that the Fairfax County government could have used eminent domain to acquire the land. This made the debate of the Chiles tract a moot point because President Darden made it clear that the University was not interested in acquiring land by condemning it. The Chiles tract was thought to be valued at about $623,000, a sum that was a bit outside of the budget for the group represented by the Board of Control.

In January of 1958, President Darden wrote to Mann, asking him to consider the Sunset Hills tract and try to convince others on the Board of Control to see it as an opportunity to establish a college in Northern Virginia. “Certainly it would seem to be wiser to have it there rather than abandon it.” In the Washington Evening Star on April 3rd Darden was quoted as saying, “I would regret to see the University leave Northern Virginia, but I am satisfied we cannot carry on unless we have general support in the area. If these very deep differences cannot be resolved I would, with real sadness, recommend that we withdraw.” In his manuscript, Mann infers that Darden was losing patience with the process and threatened to delay or abandon the project altogether unless the Board of Control go along with the Board of Visitors and approve the Sunset Hills site. Both the Board of Visitors, and the University, appeared dead-set on the Sunset Hills site, and did not seem to be considering any others by this time. This was evident in the shift in attitude towards the proposed airport now slated for Chantilly. As Mann notes in his history, “Even the proximity of the airport at Dulles was advanced as an argument for Sunset Hills, though Judge Bryan (Judge Albert V. Bryan, a member of the Board of Visitors) had used the airport argument so effectively against Ravensworth when it was believed that it might be located at Burke.”

With the final vote of the Board of Visitors on the permanent site for the college set for February 1, Northern Virginians initiated some last-minute scrambling in a final attempt to secure a more convenient location for the branch. On Sunday, January 19, 1958, Fairfax Mayor John C. Wood called an emergency Town Council meeting to discuss the possibility of the Town of Fairfax becoming a player in this process. Wood represented the owners of the Ravensworth property, and he had first-hand knowledge of the difficulties surrounding the site selection for the branch. Most probably by that time, Wood was certain that Ravensworth would never be selected. He was aware of a tract of land owned by a Fairfax lawyer and former Commonwealth’s Attorney located just south of the Town of Fairfax and suggested to the Council that the Town purchase the land in an effort to lure the University to Fairfax. The Town Council unanimously agreed to secure an option on the land and offer it to the University as a donation. Hopefully, the University would accept, bringing the branch college to Fairfax. He submitted the proposal to C. Harrison Mann on January 21 for the Board of Control’s consideration. The Board of Control at that time was still hoping that the Board of Visitors would somehow reconsider its bias against Ravensworth.

The owners of Ravensworth issued one more offer, which increased the amount of donated land in order to make the offer more competitive with the Sunset Hills site. The Board of Control voted on this offer, and all but one member voted in favor of the Ravensworth site. The Board of Control sent their recommendations to the Board of Visitors in Charlottesville a few days before their vote.

Mann himself traveled to Charlottesville for the February 1 meeting to make sure that he was on hand to answer any questions the Board of Visitors might have during their deliberations. The Board did not call upon Mann during the meeting, and Mann received a phone call at his Charlottesville hotel notifying him that the Board of Visitors had voted 9 to 2 in favor of the Sunset Hills site. This effectively ended the competition between Ravensworth and Sunset Hills.