Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, VirginiaNetherton, Ross De Witt
History
Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, Virginia
Netherton, Ross De Witt
Green Spring Farm (Va.)
Across the central hallway, the two bedrooms retain the same basic
design of the original house. Both are approximately 11 by 11 feet and
have random-width flooring and chair rail on two sides of the room.
The original fireplaces have been retained in these rooms. In the
front room, the fireplace mantel is entirely plain; in the rear room,
the mantel has two supporting columns and has three diamond shapes
carved in the wood. Both rooms have built-in cabinets, shelves, and
closets, some of which were installed in 1942 and some which were
added in 1960. Also added in 1942 is the door connecting the front
bedroom with the staircase from the first floor of the west wing.
Through the passageway at the head of these stairs, there is access to
the second floor of the west wing.
The third floor (or attic) is entered by a stairway in the central
staircase. At the head of this stairway is a hallway connecting
bedrooms in the east and west ends of the house and providing access
to closets at the rear of the house and a small bathroom (7 by 7 feet)
at the front of the house. The bathroom has a dormer window to the
front of the house, and each of the bedrooms has a dormer window to
the front and a window in the gable end wall. The gable end windows
are set in plaster arches, flanked in each case by a 4-foot-high
candle shelf. Both bedrooms have built-in closets, cupboards, and
shelves. Bedroom walls have plain plaster finish and plain wooden
baseboards, no cornices, and no chair rail.
_East Wing._ The east wing of the house presently includes the living
room and a sunporch. The floor level of this wing is 1 foot 8 inches
lower than the floor level of the central block; and the connecting
doorway has three steps, with double doors at the top step.
The date when the east wing was built is not certain, but it is
probable that the basic structure comprising the wing was constructed
around 1840 and thereafter used as a kitchen or combination
kitchen-dining room until the renovation of the house in 1942.
Photographs taken about 1900 and in 1936 show this wing with a door
opening to the front of the house at ground level. The floor of the
old kitchen was laid with cobblestones, and the east end of the room
had a great hearth and Dutch oven. Food was cooked here and taken up
the stairs into the main part of the house. Many other household
chores (such as soapmaking) were performed here.[95]
When the house was renovated in 1942, the cobblestone floor of the
room was overlaid with wooden flooring and pine wainscotting was added
to the walls. On the north side, looking out onto the semicircular
lawn, a picture window was installed. On the south side of the room,
the outside door was replaced with a window similar to the one already
in that side (figure 9). The large hearth and fireplace were replaced
with a smaller one similar to what had been installed in the library
(with the unusual wooden lintel).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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