Spring Bank Mansion (Site)

These coordinates mark the exact spot where the house used to stand. 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:

Spring Bank:
In 1805, Richard Conway deeded 128 acres of land to Robert Patton, Jr. (Fairfax County Deed Book V-2, page 299). He died in 1827 and his children sold the property to George Mason of Hollin Hall, who leased it for a time; one of the tenants for a period of five years was John Armfield, partner in Franklin and Armfield of Alexandria.

It is not known when the structure was built, but an advertisement in the Alexandria Gazette of August 19, 1848, described Spring Bank as "one of the best and most extensive mansions in this part of Virginia, containing with its wings and basements 25 rooms under one roof, many of them large and elegantly furnished..." On November 13, 1878, the Alexandria Gazette reported a fire at Spring Bank, and stated that the building was insured for $4,500 which "will nearly cover the cost." The building is presently a two-story brick structure with a high basement, a low-pitched hipped roof supported by brackets on the main section of the house and a pitched roof with a gable end on the wing section. The brick work on the front wall is of crude workmanship, indicating that it might have been built for stuccoing. The front steps of Aquia stone appear to be older than the rest of the structure, according to Calder Loth of the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission and local tradition has it that they were brought from elsewhere.

George Mason of Hollin Hall, a grandson of George Mason of Gunston Hall, lived in the house from about 1845 to 1868. During the Civil War, from October 1861 to March 1862, the 63rd Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, camped on the grounds, resulting in a claim for $20,000 damages (Fairfax County Deed Book I-4, page 112.) It was known by the Regiment as "Camp Johnston."

General Fitzhugh Lee was a tenant in the house for a time during his successful Virginia gubernatorial campaign, as evidenced by a letter dated May 9, 1885, from the War Department addressed to Lee at "Spring Bank, near Alexandria, Virginia," now in the hands of Fitzhugh Lee Opie of Alexandria. See also Alexandria Gazette, May 24, 1884.