Huntley: A Mason Family Country HouseWrenn, Tony P.
History
Huntley: A Mason Family Country House
Wrenn, Tony P.
Huntley (Va.)
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.[71]
Similarities to the Work of Hadfield
Among the few known drawings of Hadfield is one labelled "A Country
House--Geo. Hadfield--Exhibited Arc. designs at Royal acad. in
1780-82...."[72] The house is of three-part construction and has windows
set into arched recessed panels. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) is
of three-part construction and has windows set into arched recessed
panels.[73] The City Hall in Washington, now the District of Columbia
Court House, is of three-part construction, with connecting hyphens, and
has windows set into arched recessed panels.[74] The same is true of the
plan for Analostan, though one wing evidently was never constructed.
Huntley, too, is of three-part construction and though the windows are
not set into arched recessed panels, they are set into the center of
square recessed panels, which serve the same design function of catching
and reflecting light and shadow. The recessed arch appears at Huntley in
the root cellar superstructure, however, duplicating Hadfield's use in
the structures mentioned above.
[Illustration:
Figure 26. Arlington House (Custis-Lee Mansion) showing portico
designed by Hadfield. Photo courtesy National Park Service.]
[Illustration:
Figure 27. Analostan, now demolished, formerly stood on Theodore
Roosevelt Island. Possibly designed by Hadfield. Photo by Abbie
Rowe. Courtesy National Park Service.]
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.
When Huntley is compared with Analostan another similarity shows up. The
gable end at Analostan has a relatively shallow cornice, common in the
period, outlining a pediment strikingly similar to the gable ends of the
wings at Huntley. Located within the pediment at both houses is an
elliptical ventilator.
The design for Huntley could easily have come from Hadfield. There were
opportunities for T.F. Mason to have met him through Jefferson or
through his uncle, General John Mason of Analostan.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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