Tip Toe Through the House and Garden
Nestled against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains just west of Middleburg, this year’s Historic Garden Week is scheduled for Sunday, April 24 and Monday, April 25.
The tour, under the auspices of the Garden Club of Virginia and organized in this area by the Fauquier and Loudoun Garden Club, features four spectacular houses and gardens. They’re all located within the 18,000-acre Crooked Run Rural Historic District and the Mosby Heritage Area along the scenic roads among the villages of Middleburg, Upperville, and Paris.
Properties include an immaculately restored 1812 Federal farmhouse overlooking Paris Valley as well as a stately 1913 Georgian Manor house in an English park-like setting that showcases resplendent open spaces.
The Fabulous Four:
Gap Run Farm is located midway between Upperville and Rectortown in the heart of Northern Virginia’s Piedmont Hunt.
Unusual for the region, the Gap Run stable is designed as an integral and connected part of the farm’s main residence. The house and stable were completed in 2011 and are sited to maintain complete privacy from the main road while enjoying magnificent views of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The distinctive contemporary architecture is designed to enhance the owners’ appreciation of the landscape. Both house and stable are arranged around an intimate landscaped entry courtyard, and the stable forms one side of the space. The architecture of the main house carries through to the stable.
Other buildings on the farm include a fully renovated log cabin from the 1880’s, a traditional tenant house and several utility sheds. The plants and trees around the main house and stable are exclusively native to the region.
Holman Hall Farm was originally part of the land grant from Lord Fairfax to Landon Carter in 1731 and was later a gift to his daughter, Francis Lee Carter. This part of the grant remained open farmland until the main house and most of the out buildings were constructed between 1999 and 2002.
Much of the inspiration for Holman Hall came from colonial Virginia as well as English and Irish country houses. The gardens and landscape are inspired by the philosophies of the great Georgian gardeners Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton.
On the grounds, areas of special interest are the summerhouse folly overlooking the front pond and the allee of linden trees leading to the guesthouse. In the main house, there’s a great room fashioned in Irish country style with carvings over the doorways that are patterned after the work of Grinling Gibbons. The 18th Century Dutch-British sculptor and wood carver was widely known for his work in England, including St. Paul’s Cathedral, Hampton Court Palace and Blenheim Palace. Also throughout the main house is an extensive collection of sporting art by such renowned painters as George Stubbs and Sir Alfred Munnings.
St. Bride’s Farm is a 350-acre horse farm located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The main residence is situated in an English parkland-style grove of mature specimen trees and enjoys a panoramic view of the Bull Run Mountains. The property was also originally part of the 1731 land grant to Landon Carter. Dr. Cary D. Langhorne purchased the property in 1913 and three years later built a Georgian-style manor designed by Nathan C. Wyeth, architect of the Oval Office and the West Wing of the White House.
The current owners completed a major renovation in 2010, designed to return the home’s interior to its historical roots. In the heart of Virginia hunt country, St. Bride’s Farm comprises a main residence, guest house, farm office, barns, training facilities and numerous out buildings.
The managed landscape includes naturalized woodlands, herbaceous flower beds and a sunken formal garden, which showcases perennials around a reflecting pool. The owners’ collection of contemporary outdoor sculpture provides thoughtful modern accents to this otherwise traditional venue. Miles of historic stone walls, curving moss-lined drives, grazing horses, bright rolling hay pastures, mixed fruit orchards and a kitchen garden complete the scene.
Belle Grove is a Federal house built in 1812 by Isaac Settle, a tavern keeper and postmaster in Paris.
Its history during the Civil War is well-documented by diaries of Settle’s granddaughter, Amanda Edmonds. These describe visits by Mosby’s Rangers and Yankee raids—one of which captured two Confederates.
The house has been restored with few changes and is furnished with antiques belonging to the current owner. The original woodwork remains, including heart pine floors, hand-carved mantels and faux-grained doors. There is one wing, a separate summer kitchen connected by a hyphen, and its unusual seven-foot wide fireplace is still visible. A stone smokehouse is in back.
The views from Belle Grove have changed little since the Civil War. Mature Kentucky coffee, ginkgo and holly as well as dogwood and flowering fruit trees shade the lawn, and a spring perennial bed graces the front walkway. Belle Grove remained in the Settle-Edmonds family for 155 years. Many are buried in the nearby cemetery. It is on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places and is protected by a conservation easement.