Gunston Hall is an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River in Mason Neck, Virginia, United States of America. The house was the home of the United States Founding Father George Mason. It was located at the center of a 5500 acre (22 km²) plantation. The construction period of Gunston Hall was between 1755 and 1759.
The design was mostly that of William Buckland, a carpenter/joiner and indentured servant from England. Buckland later went on to design several notable buildings in Virginia and Maryland. Both he and William Bernard Sears, another indentured servant, are believed to have created the ornate woodwork and interior carving. Gunston's interior design combines elements of rococo, chinoiserie, and Gothic styles, an unusual contrast to the tendency for simple decoration in Virginia at this time. Although chinoiserie was popular in Britain, Gunston Hall is the only house known to have had this decoration in colonial America. In 1792, Thomas Jefferson attended George Mason at his death bed at Gunston Hall. After Mason's death later that year, the house continued to be used as a residence for many years. It is now a museum open to the public. In 1868, it was purchased by noted abolitionist and civil war Colonel Edward Daniels.
Construction
William Buckland signed an indenture with Thomson Mason, George Mason's brother, on 4 August 1755, four months after he finished as an apprentice from April 1748 to April 1755. In exchange for free passage to Virginia, room and board, and a yearly salary of twenty pounds sterling, Buckland agreed to act as a carpenter and joiner for the Masons for four years.
In November, when Buckland arrived, the exterior walls of Gunston Hall were probably complete. Buckland probably did design the portico overlooking the garden, in addition to much of the interior. The various carvings in the mansion were probably the combined work of William Buckland and William Bernard Sears. Buckland most likely provided designs for the carvings, but Sears most likely carved the wood. Buckland and Sears probably worked on much of the original furniture together. At the time, it was not uncommon for English architects to design furniture as well as buildings.
First floor
The front of the house faces northwest. The first floor of the house is divided in two by a central passage, leading from a door in the northwest to a door in the southeast, with a staircase running up on the northeast side. On the northeast side of the central passage is the primary chamber (or bedroom) in the front, and the little parlor in the back. Between the primary chamber and the little parlor is a smaller passage, leading to a service staircase and a small, side stairway. The Gunston Hall Plantation official website says that on the southwest side of the house is a parlor in the front and a dining room in the back. However, the Historic American Buildings Survey says that on the southwest side of the house the dining room is in the front and a palladian room is in the back.
The central passage is lined by six symmetrical Doric-style pilasters. A double arch, with a carved pine cone, divides the front of the passage from the back. In the front, there are four doors placed opposite one another, although one is a fake door for symmetry. The front of the hall is covered in wallpaper, while the back has raised painted paneling.
The primary chamber was a private room and was less ornate than the public rooms. Toward the end of Mason's life, it was painted in emerald green, which was considered a desirable color. The windows had pocket shutters, and are believed to be the only windows in the house to have curtains during Mason's lifetime.
The little parlor was private and decorated plainly. The walls were painted a neutral grey. Above the fireplace was a split pediment overmantel (a rectangle, and a partial triangle above that). During Mason's lifetime, the rectangle contained either a painting or a mirror. On either side of the fireplace are deep-shelved beaufats (niches) to store and display the tableware, with doors to secure valuable possessions.
The western room (called the parlor or the dining room) was a public, ornately decorated room. The walls are painted a yellow ocher, and the woodwork is Chinese-style. The wall of the fireplace has a mantel decorated with fretwork, pagoda-like scalloped moldings, as well as canopies topped by pine cone finials. Above the doors are similar canopies, which might have displayed Chinese porcelain vases or ceramic figures. The two long windows are topped by scalloped pediments, decorated with fretwork. During Mason's lifetime, three of the walls were probably wallpapered. During the 1700s, chinoese (Chinese-style) design was popular in Great Britain, however the Gunston Hall museum does not know of any other rooms in colonial America with this type of coordinated chinoiserie woodwork.
The southern room (called the dining room or the palladian room), was public, and was the most elaborately decorated in the house. The classical woodwork shows touches of the fashionable rococo design. The fireplace wall has an ornate chimney breast. On either side of the fireplace are beaufats, these ones with shallower shelves than in the little parlour, and no doors. Classical broken pediments top the chimney breast and the beaufats. The floor was made of carefully matched blind-doweled planks, an expensive feature. Egg-and-dart carved patterns surround the black-walnut entry doors. During Mason's lifetime, painted or decorated paper covered the thin pine paneling on the walls. The two windows look out onto Mason's garden.
Second floor
Unlike other 18th century houses of Gunston Hall's stature, the layout of the second floor is entirely dissimilar to the floor below. A narrow passage runs sideways through the upper level, leading to seven bedchambers and a storage room. At the top of the main stairway is a tri-part arch with fluted pillars, separating the passageway from a small gallery overlooking the staircase. The smaller service staircase comes up opposite the storage room.
Of the bedchambers, the only the four corner rooms have a fireplaces. Their fireplaces and surrounds did have some architectural detail. The corner rooms had two or three windows each, while the inner chambers only had one window each. The walls of the corner bedchambers were painted with more expensive shades, such as Prussian blue or verdigris. The attic was accessible through one of the inner bedrooms.
The storage closet, or lumber room, had no exterior window, but instead received light from a window to the stairwell, as there was an exterior window above the staircase landing.
Basement
Gunston Hall has a basement, which has a main passage and four rooms like the floor above it. Three staircases lead down to the basement. The basement contains four brick arched chimney supports, and nine small windows. In 1975, a cast iron stove was excavated from the basement. The style of the stove suggests it is from the 18th or early 19th century. Around 1986, a "shallow subsurface perimeter drainage system" was built about four feet (1.2 m) away from the foundation walls, due to an excess ground moisture. This significantly reduced standing water in the basement.
Garden and outbuildings
The garden was located behind the house, or on the southern side. The garden was grown above a man-made level platform where there used to be a hill, and was exactly one acre (about 4000 sq m) in area. A gravel path runs from the back of the house to the southern edge, and was twelve feet (3.7 m) wide during Mason's time period, the same width as the central passage in the house and the portico. Today, the path is narrower, crowded by boxwoods that are now about 250 years old. The path ends in an overlook extending out from the steep edge of the garden. From here, the Potomac river can be seen. The Gunston Hall museum website says that the view was more impressive during Mason's time, when the trees were cleared. The garden was most likely broken into four rectangles, with additional gravel paths running through and around it. To give the illusion from the house of all rectangles being the same size, the rectangles closer to the house were probably shorter than the rectangles farther away.
The outbuildings at Gunston Hall are reconstructed. They include a kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, and laundry. They are believed to represent typical support buildings of an 18th century plantation household. George Mason owned about 90 slaves, but the places they lived have not been located.
Visitors' center and museum shop
At the visitors' center, there is an 11-minute film entitled "George Mason and the Bill of Rights". The exhibit covers Mason's political career, personal life, and 18th century plantati
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