Tony P. Wrenn

“ The icehouse, located sixty-six feet northwest of the mansion, is one of the most striking structures at Huntley, and one that differs from most other Virginia icehouses known to the author. It exhibits quality of design and workmanship seldom seen in a utilitarian structure. Most icehouses are square, a simple form which would offer easier construction than the round structure at Huntley. Not only is this structure round, but the roof is hemispherical, forming a complete circular dome. Construction of the dome is all headers. ”

“ From the time of Hadfield's dismissal from the Capitol in 1798, until 1820, when he was busy with his magnum opus, the City Hall, the records are sketchy and incomplete. He elected to stay in this city rather than go to Philadelphia where the social and political centers were. This decision must have been made deliberately, with the prospect of designing many buildings in this growing metropolis. He was without a steady income during all this period, yet he was able to keep busy on many jobs that enabled him to stay alive. ”

“ I counted as many as thirty open graves here from which the forms of those who had been buried had been taken away. Trees are growing in the places of the tents, and time is fast sweeping away the marks of war. ”

“ Jefferson, who called George Mason "the wisest man of his generation," was his last recorded visitor at Gunston Hall, on September 30, 1792. [5] On October 7, one week later, Mason died.
Nine of his children married. On December 17, 1788, George wrote to his son John that "Your brother Thomson and his family have just moved from Gunston to his own seat at Hollin Hall."
A tutor of General Thomson Mason's family, Elijah Fletcher, wrote in a letter from Alexandria, August 4, 1810:
[General Mason is] ... a man of note and respectability, his family very agreeable, social, affable and easy. ”

“ Mrs. Thomson F. Mason was usually called Mrs. "Colross" Mason to distinguish her from another family by the same name, that of James M. Mason, United States Senator from Virginia. The family thought nothing of the drive to Washington and no entertainment was quite complete without the "Mason girls," who were especially bright and attractive young women. Open house was kept at this delightful country seat, and many were the pleasant parties given there.... [11]
Indeed the Mason occupancy of Colross made such an impression, that for years afterward the house was known as "The Mason Mansion." ”

“ In addition, Mason was a lawyer, who later became a justice of the peace and a judge. For several years before and after 1820, Hadfield was involved with the design and construction of the City Hall, which was to house the Courts of the District. Mason would have been aware of this and would probably have known Hadfield.
Certainly the design evidence of Huntley indicates the work of an architect. The structure is much too architectonic to have evolved and in many respects much too advanced for its day to have been designed by a local carpenter-builder. ”

“ At the same time, it is too architectonic to have either evolved or been put together from style manuals. It is likely instead that the building derived from an architect's plan.
The Architectural Plan
The mansion house at Huntley has remarkable refinement for a secondary house of a Virginia planter's family. This includes not only concept, scale, and the manner in which the component parts hold together, but extends to detail as well. For example, both the center first floor room and the east wing have corner blocks, of two different designs, as a part of door and window architraves. ”

“ There is no shelving or other built-in furniture to indicate the use of the cellar. Since the room above and the roof are replacements, there is little indication of actual use, and the name "root cellar" has been used only for convenience.
The cellar walls are brick, laid in common bond, with three courses of stretchers to one of headers. This bond is uniform for the structure, above and below ground. The average size of bricks is eight and three-eighths by four by two and one-half inches. The plain cornice is uniform, probably indicating that the roof was originally hipped. ”

“ Arlington House has a two story center section with one story wings, as does Huntley. It is possible that had Huntley been built on different terrain, it might have followed the more common "I" plan of Arlington House. Given the limited space on Huntley's hill, however, the "H" plan obviously made more usable space available on the site. The chimneys at Arlington, and those at Huntley, are placed in the same position in relation to the center structure and the wings; the wooden mantels in both houses have obvious stylistic similarities. ”

“ The committee on cereals presented their report on the condition of things about the farm and premises of Huntley, which was a good one and rather commendatory of Mr. Harrison as a practical farmer, and elicited several pertinent questions and answers. Some discussion ensued as to the best method of ridding farms of garlic. E. E. Mason produced several "pips" taken dexterously with the thumb nail from under the tongue of young chickens. The "pip" is a little boney substance similar to a fish scale, a negative of the tongue, and prevents the chick from eating unless it is removed. ”

“ On the ground floor only the kitchen fireplace in the west side is open. There is evidence of a possible oven in the west chimney in the center room. In the east wing the front fireplace has been closed, though a balancing structural arch in the adjacent room is still open. The floor on the ground level was brick but floors in all rooms except the rear room in the east wing have been covered with concrete.
Much early hardware remains at Huntley, some of which fits stylistically into the period of construction. ”

“ This spring, and the one immediately across the road, form the source of the south branch of Little Hunting Creek, from which derived the early name of Huntley, "Hunting Creek Farm." The springhouse is brick, now overgrown and filled almost completely so that there is no flow of water and original use is difficult to ascertain. The structure may have had a door and shelves in the brick wall. The roof is arched, one brick course deep, and the structure is reveted into the hillside. ”

“ Gunston Hall, home of George Mason IV, in Fairfax County. The house is a one-and-one-half-story brick structure, with interiors by William Buckland joiner and architect. In the garden is one of America's best surviving stands of English Boxwood. The house still stands on Route 242, 4 miles southeast of Route 1, and south of Fort Belvoir. It is owned by the Commonwealth of Virginia and administered as an historic house museum by a Board of Regents of the National Society of Colonial Dames. ”

“ The farm of our hostess consists of about 300 acres and is part of the estate formerly owned by Mrs. Thomson Mason. A new cottage has been built overlooking a fertile valley, and giving a fine prospect including the Potomac River, Mt. Vernon, Woodlawn and Belvoir estates and is carried on by Harry Pierson, son of our former President. [44]
The Pierson House may be the structure directly across Harrison Lane from Huntley. ”

“ Though barns existed until the 1950's, none of these, as evidenced by photographs, would seem to date from the period of construction of the house. Some one hundred seventy-one feet west of the tenant house, and in a straight line with the main house, are the remains of a large brick foundation. This foundation supported a sizeable structure in the Huntley complex, which may have been a barn. The ruins are rectangular, and approximately thirty-three by sixty feet.
[38]
Figure 23. ”

“ It is a one-story brick structure with a ridge roof over three rooms. Neither of the end rooms has a finished floor or ceiling nor do they appear ever to have had finished walls; the windows are wall openings protected by iron bars; each room has four brick diamond-shaped ventilators and neither seems to have been heated—in addition to being open, there are no chimneys or flues. It is likely that both rooms were used for storage spaces and, from the evidence in existing doors and windows, secure ones. ”

“ They require some depth, and insulation, so that they are usually finished in brick or stone. Sawdust was an ingredient commonly used for storing ice, used in alternating layers of block ice and sawdust. Sawdust was certainly used in the icehouse at Huntley, and has covered the floor to such an extent that it is not possible to determine the original depth of the structure. Walking on the present "floor" gives one somewhat the same feeling as walking on a peat bog. ”

“ The design evidence indicates that Mason did build well at Huntley, and that he sought assistance in doing so. Huntley's similarities to other area structures designed by the architect George Hadfield are striking. In addition, of all the architects in the area at the time Hadfield was most available and is believed to have already designed one house for the Mason family, Analostan. There is also good reason to believe that Thomson Francis Mason and Hadfield knew each other. ”

“ The brickwork does not seem to have been laid ornamentally, but this is not strange for a building of the early part of the nineteenth century, where the emphasis was taken away from brick and it was often either stuccoed or painted. ”

“ Bars at the windows, strong doors and the open ventilators would indicate storage areas needing light, ventilation and security. Such an area might be required for any number of farm produced commodities.
Both necessaries, in the center portion, are completely finished, with plaster walls, well shaped seats, windows with sash and glass, and brick floors, now covered with concrete. The necessary for men to the right has one seat, while that for women, to the left, has three. ”

“ Poor and others; Col. Taylor's, now Williamson's Hotel; the Mausoleum, built for the families of Van Ness and Burns; and the Branch Bank of the United States. It is only to be regretted that there are so few remains of his uncommon talents. [69]
There are "remains of his uncommon talents" which are not in that list. Hadfield is known, for example, to have provided plans and designs for the Marine Barracks in Washington. [70] There are also good reasons to believe that he designed Analostan, located on what is now called Theodore Roosevelt Island, for John Mason, Thomson Francis Mason's uncle. ”

“ Tenant house.
All the buildings are brick. The house itself is a significant Federal period structure, built during the ownership of Thomson F. Mason, c. 1820, and believed to have been influenced by George Hadfield, architect of Washington's first City Hall and first superintendent of the Capitol's construction.
Origin of the Name
The first known use of "Huntley" as a place name for the Harrison Lane house appears in an 1859 deed of the property by Betsey C. Mason, widow of T.F. Mason, to her sons John Francis and A. Pendleton Mason. The property is described as:
... ”

“ Some of the bricks are fired to a dark color but there is no discernible pattern in the brick work.
All of the structure is below ground. At the top of the dome is a square opening of quarried stone which is at ground level. ”

“ During the Civil War, on October 12, 1864, the Alexandria Gazette, in reporting the military occupation of the town, carried the following item on Colross:
... The fine old Mason mansion, in the suburbs of the town, was hired by an army officer.... The Mason mansion ... is a fair type of the residence of a wealthy Virginian. A wide hall in the centre opens into various rooms, while the front entrance is approached through a pleasant courtyard. ”

“ Location and Site
Huntley, 6918 Harrison Lane, near Woodlawn Plantation, Fairfax County, Virginia, is currently owned by Colonel and Mrs. Ransom G. Amlong. It is located off the Jefferson Davis Highway (U.S. Route 1) , in the Groveton community, on Harrison Lane, between Lockheed Boulevard and Kings Highway (Route 633) .
The house is on a plateau, overlooking Hybla Valley, at 150 feet above sea level. To the south, or in front of the house, the ground level drops in three terraces to 130 feet above sea level. To the north or rear there is a sharp rise to 200 feet. ”

“ The Southern people are not considered by these northern farmers especially unfriendly. There is little social intercourse, however, because the women got so thoroughly mad, that they will never get over it in this world.... ”

“ The memorial sent to Congress was couched in legal enough terms to have been drafted by Mason, who later became a judge. His political activities gave him enough local standing to insure his election as Mayor of Alexandria in 1827 and again in 1836. [9]
A glimpse of Mason as a family man can be seen in a reply to a letter from his wife in which she complained of an exchange of words with Huntley's overseer (in 1828) , Slighter Smith. Mason, who must have been in court at Leesburg, wrote:
I have been indeed a little surprised at hearing the conduct of Mr. ”

“ Asaph Street houses in the decade before his death. He died in 1838 and was buried at Colross. There are long periods of time unaccounted for and probably many real estate transactions which have not yet been documented.
Other Mason Houses
Analostan, home of General John Mason. Located on the Potomac River in the District of Columbia on Theodore Roosevelt Island, known in the past as Barbadoes, Mason's Island, or Analostan. Built in the 1790's, its design is attributed to George Hadfield. General Mason sold the house about 1833 and moved to Clermont. ”