Architecture:
Cleydael
was built over a four year period (1855-59) by the Stuart family's
slaves. It is extremely well constructed and carefully designed, a
true testimony to the craftmanship of the enslaved artisans who built
it. The architect is unknown and it may have been designed partly by
Dr. Stuart himself, presumably in collaboration with his building
foreman. Its external appearance is similar in style to Cedar Grove,
the Stuarts' older (1840) main house, which is also larger and in
brick. Cedar Grove was also built by Stuart slaves and it's probable
that at least some of the same artisans were involved in both
projects.
The style of the house is broadly
late Federal with Greek Revival touches, a somewhat outmoded style
for the era in which it was built. To a large extent, this might
reflect the Stuarts' conservative tastes and the fact that they were
both middle aged when the house was built. However, variants of this
style, as "farmhouse vernacular" remained popular in Virginia well
into the 20th century. The simple but elegant Greek Revival style
porch on the back (see right) originally had a twin on the opposite
side, until replaced by the current wrap around porch around the turn
of the century. The current back was originally the front
elevation.
The house was built to be as cool as
possible in summer. It's unusual "T" pattern of halls was designed to
provide cross ventilation to catch any possible breeze from any
direction. The downstairs rooms all connect to adjacent rooms with
parallel doors, also to encourage air circulation. Located in a
shady, wooded spot, the house has relatively high ceilings (11 feet
on the ground floor and 10'4" on the second floor).
The house measures approximately 50
feet wide x 28 feet deep and has five bays, with windows over the
front and back doors. There are no side windows in the original
house. There is no basement, but the crawl space is quite deep (ca. 4
feet). There is a trap door into this crawl space from the Doctor's
office, potentially handy in case the Yankees arrived and valuables
needed to be hidden. There is a chimney at either end, built flush
into the wall in a style unique to eastern Virginia and Maryland and
Delaware. The exterior panelling is constructed of wide lapped boards
of oak. All lumber used in the house came from the
plantation.
The house has fewer rooms than many
houses of similar dimensions. This may also have been to promote the
free circulation of air, and also may have reflected the fact that
the Stuarts had a large family. The downstairs rooms consist only of
two large rooms -- parlor and dining room -- of identical proportions
(approx. 19 x 19) on opposite sides of the large central hall, which
is large enough to be a room in its own right (12 x 29) and indeed is
the dominant "room" in the house. The top bar of the "T" hallway
arrangement ran through two much smaller (9 x 19) rooms on the
opposite side of the house, also symmetrically arranged -- a large
stair hall, and opposite it, a long narrow room that functioned as
Dr. Stuart's office. This room was partioned into two smaller rooms
during the Stuarts' ownership, with the outer portion functioning as
the Doctor's waiting room and the back portion his private office.
This partition was removed early in the 20th century during the
Richardson's ownership.
The mouldings both downstairs and
upstairs are very simple, reflecting that this was a house built not
for "show" but for comfort. The main interior architectural feature
is the wide mouldings around the windows, in the Greek Revival taste.
The parlor and dining room have matching wooden mantles, carved with
a simple paneled design. Interestingly, the mantles in the two
bedrooms upstairs are more ornate. The mouldings in the parlor are
very simple, consisting wholly of narrow and quite plain crown
moulding. The dining room is slightly more elaborate, with the
addition of a chair rail, which might or might not be original. The
doctor's office has a picture rail, as does the large upstairs
bedroom over the dining room.
The upstairs floor plan nearly
mirrors the ground floor, with two large bedrooms and one long narrow
one which was called the "trunk room" in the Stuarts' era. The area
upstairs over the large central hall was divided into two, with a
(ca. 12 x 14) bedroom (now the bathroom) in the back portion and the
front portion serving as a sitting room. The current bathroom has
vestiges of an early stencilled border on the floor. The floors
throughout the house are wide planked heart pine, with the exception
of the third floor, which is cedar.
The upstairs landing has a doorway
between it and the sitting room, so that drafts can be closed off if
wished. From this landing leads the stairs to the third floor, which
are boxed in at the half landing with a rustic door. The third floor
is a large unpartitioned space and was probably a sleeping area for
the Stuarts' two sons. The floors are not typical semi-finished attic
floors but are nicely finished, tightly fitted cedar boards. Only the
side walls are plastered, perhaps reflecting that the house was meant
to be used in the summer when insulation was less of a concern than
ventillation. The ceiling height is 11 feet into the gable point,
quite high for an attic and the crossbeam is 7 1/2 feet high. The
roof timbers are aromatic cedar, giving the third floor its own
special charm.
The lean-to kitchen wing is a later
addition, ca. 1900, with the screen porch probably added about 20
years later. We have obtained permission from the Virginia Department
of Historic Resources, which holds the easement on Cleydael and from
King George County zoning authorities, to extend the kitchen wing
into a kitchen/family room combination, rebuilding it in a scale and
style more sympathetic to the main house.
Although the house retains
most of its original plaster, there are no clues as to what the
original interior paint colors might have been or any surviving
wallpaper. Perhaps this was removed during the restoration process or
by earlier owners or tenants. We also do not know if the house was
originally painted white. In the 1937 WPA historic inventory, the
photograph shows the house painted a medium to light color which
photographs as gray.
Outbuildings and
Land:
Cleydael was originally called the
"Neck Quarter" plantation when it was sold to Dr. Stuart in 1845 by
Nathaniel Hooe. There may have been an earlier house on or near the
site of the current house, or the "Neck Quarter" farmhouse may have
been elsewhere on the 3000 acres.
No outbuildings survive from the
Stuart era. The barn, which we had originally hoped might be
contemporary with the house, turned out, upon inspection, to be much
later ca. 1930s, as all the nails in it were cut wire
and the boards all sawn with a circular saw except for a few chestnut
boards in the open section which look like they may have been
salvaged from an earlier structure. Because of safety and liability issues we regretfully had to demolish it as it would have cost over $100k to restore. Instead, we have salvaged many of the materials and hope to rebuild it at some stage.
An early to mid 20th century carriage
house/garage collapsed in the late 1980s. The only other outbuilding upon our arrival as a ca. 1960s composition board well house, now rebuilt in a more sypathetic style.
In its heyday, Cleydael would have
had a separate summer kitchen (there is no basement in the house for
a winter kitchen and this was a summer home), and probably a smoke house and wash house in
addition to tenant cottages.
During the Richardson family's
ownership, (1911-1976) there was a four room tenant house on the
property, and there were also, prior to the building of the
subdivision, two small tenant houses near the present subdivision
entrance. The buildings probably dated to the Civil War
period and may have been the cottage of Julian and Patsy Dixon, Dr. Stuart's manservant
and the family cook. had still been standing nearby as late as the
late 1990s. The cottage of William Lucas, the free black waggoner neighbor at
whose house Booth and Herold spent the night of April 23, 1865 was
demolished sometime ca. 1930 and was located further down the present-day Rt 206.
Eventually, if permission could be
obtained, we would like not only to replace the barn, but also to
build a small reproduction summer kitchen and smokehouse,
particularly if we can determine where the originals might have been
located. This would be useful for interpretative purposes as at least
one account (Philip Van Doren Stern) describes Booth and Herold as
having been fed in the kitchen rather than the main house.
Our first project along these lines was the construction of a reproduction tobacco barn, built for the recent National Georgraphic television program on John Wilkes Booth, in which Cleydael portrayed the Garrett farm where Booth was corned and killed. Our documentation was contemporary engravings of the capture of Booth (for which none of the artists actually saw the Garrett barn!) and photos of surviving barns from Tidewater Virginia and Maryland.
In the meantime, the outbuildings we have added are mostly modern -- a stable complex for our horses, storage sheds for farm equipment and the like.
The original Neck Quarter / Cleydael
landholding had consisted of 3000 acres. It remained the same size
throughout the ownership of Dr. Stuart, his daughter and grandson.
During the Richardson's tenure (1911-76) about 1/3 of the land was
sold off, so that by the time Mrs. Richardson died, Cleydael
consisted of 900 acres. That was its size when it was subdivided by
the Cleydael Limited Partnership, with a little over 12 acres begin
allocated to the Cleydael farmhouse itself. Unfortunately, it is
surrounded by "executive homes" subdivision and no longer retains its
own road access to Rt 206. However, the modern world is well
concealed from the front with a tall screen planting of leyland
cypress trees. There is about 4 acres of pasturage in the front yard,
where the horses will be kept. The house and its front back and side
gardens take up another 2 acres or so. Beyond the back yard is about
6 acres of woods. Most of the wooded area is heavily sloped, leading
to a marsh at the bottom of the property and Peppermill Creek. The
Upper Machodoc Creek runs through the original Cleydael property but
not the current 12.04 acre plot. The woods would make wonderful
riding and nature trails and that's what we'd ultimately like to do.
Plans for the small arable section of
the land not being used for horse pasture included growing heirloom
variety apples and vegetables and herbs documented as having being
grown in Tidewater Virginia in the 18th and 19th
centuries.
