Sully House
The view from the front porch.
Gardens and flowers
Slave quarters
A multi-function table.
Sully House
April 30 , 2007
Written May 19
Dear Friends and Families,
When traveling, one often needs to kill some time. On this day, we were catching a plane from Dulles Airport near Washington D.C. back to Frankfurt and then on to Nuremberg and home. Even as much as I like to be at airports well in advance of flight time, I recognize that arriving at 11:00am for a 4:30 pm flight is just too cautious. So, we needed a diversion.
More shopping was ruled out, since our bags were at the weight and space limit. Stopping at the Air and Space Museum, my favorite detour near Dulles, didn't seem interesting today, since I'd been there once or twice already this year. Then I remembered a small sign on the southern entrance to the Dulles Airport complex that promised some sort of "plantation" and that sounded like a nice way to wait outside in the sun until it was really time to go check-in.
That's how we ended up at The Sully House. We paid our four dollar entrance fee, most of my last US dollars, and were told that we would need to wait a half-hour before the house tour began. We were the only tourists around, but schedules are schedules and, besides, we didn't mind the wait. We wandered through the gardens and fields, taking flower pictures, a favorite subject. The Spring blossoms were glorious.
There was also a reconstructed slave cabin to visit. The original would have dated from the early 18th Century, when the Sully farm was first carved out of the local forest land. It would remain a large but relatively simple farm for 70 years, before the manor house was built in the early 1790's. As the Henry Lee family farm, it was about 1,000 acres, planted in fruit trees, rye wheat, and garden vegetables, built and maintained by a combination of slaves and sharecroppers. Henry Lee II's son, Richard Bland Lee, inherited the farm and built the manor house with luxuries befitting an important Congressman of the newly independent United States.
When our house tour started, promptly at 11:00, we were the only visitors. The docent and her young assistant, gave us the history of the location, from 18th Century farm to today, including when it was planned to be part of the Dulles airport runway complex. Fortunately, airport developers were convinced they already had enough space, without tearing down the historic buildings.
The house is furnished with pieces from the 19th Century, when it served as a stylish gathering place for Northern Virginians. (We were particularly impressed by a three piece table that could expand to various sizes. Maybe this is the answer to our own dining table dilemma.) Upstairs, the bedrooms look quite liveable. The furnishings are simple but practical. One of the windows still has the name of one of the Lee children scratched into a bedroom window paine, giving a sense of real family residents from long ago.
Back outside, the passing airliners reminded us that it was time to restart our trip home. Within 20 minutes, we had checked in our Hertz car and were on our way through the normal routine of tickets, security checks, and waiting. Then there was the eight-hour flight across the Atlantic, more waiting, a short flight, a taxi ride and arrival at home. All in all, an uneventful trip, as the best of airline trips should be.
Our stop at the Sully House seemed like days earlier, but it had given us a relaxing break, which allowed us to enter the international travel routine a little bit better prepared. We recommend it over last minute shopping!
Regards,
John and Marianne
Sully House |
The view from the front porch. |
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Gardens and flowers |
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Slave quarters |
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A multi-function table. |
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website: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/parks/sully/