The Lee–Fendall House is a historic house museum and garden located in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, United States, at 614 Oronoco Street. Since its construction in 1785, the house has served as home to thirty-seven members of the Lee family (1785–1903), hundreds of convalescing Union soldiers (1863–1865), the prominent Downham family (1903–1937), the family of powerful labor leader John L. Lewis (1937–1969), and enslaved or free servants of those families.
The 1785 house, standing on its original half-acre lot, is in the vernacular "telescopic style" of architecture similar to many Maryland homes, but rare in northern Virginia (see below). The house was renovated in 1850, adding Greek Revival and Italianate elements to the original structure.
The historic home is listed on the National Register of Historic Places for state significance and the Virginia Landmarks Register, and is a documented contributing feature to the National Historic Landmark District of Alexandria, Virginia.
The property is now owned and operated by the Virginia Trust for Historic Preservation. It is run as the Lee–Fendall House Museum and Garden, providing exhibits, tours, and special programs.
Home of the Lees Construction In November 1784, former Lieutenant Colonel (later Major General, Senator, and Governor of Virginia) Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III purchased three one-half acre lots in Alexandria from Baldwin Dade, a merchant. On December 4, 1784, Lee sold one of these tracts to his father-in-law Philip Richard Fendall I, Esq., for three hundred pounds. Fendall, using enslaved laborers, began building the Lee–Fendall House (for much of its life called the Phillip Fendall House), for his second wife, Elizabeth (Steptoe) Lee, in the spring or early summer of 1785. The lot was located on the Southeast corner of Washington and Oronoco Street, then the edge of the city. At the time, very few structures were near, and the Fendalls had uninterrupted views of Oronoco Bay and the ships which docked there. To the north and west lay verdant fields of grass and clover. Alexandria was an up-and-coming social and political center in Northern Virginia. The architect is unknown, but the style is similar to that found at "Hard Bargain", an estate built by the Digges family, and located in Charles County, Maryland, from which Fendall hailed. It consisted of a "telescopic" design, which was synonymous with Maryland, and had three sections. A plat on a 1796 insurance policy shows eight buildings on the quarter block, valued at a total of $11,500, including an office, a two-story dwelling (probably for enslaved workers), a rabbit house, and a pigeon house. The main dwelling house was valued at $5,000. It is probable the grounds also included a small kitchen and an herb garden.
The house was completed by November 1785, when George Washington wrote in his diary dated November 10, 1785: "Went up to Alexandria to meet the Directors of the Potomack Company and dined at Mr. Fendall's (who was from home) and returned in the evening with Mrs. Washington." The Fendalls are mentioned in Washington's 1785-1786 diaries more than anyone outside his own family, and Washington dined there at least seven times in those years. Elizabeth was a favorite of George and Martha Washington, a frequent visitor to Mount Vernon, and frequent hostess to the Washingtons. Philip was one of the few men who were close friends with Washington and participated in his social coterie.
After the American Revolution, Alexandria, already known as "Washington's Home Town", became known also as the "Home Town of the Lees". At "Lee Corner", the intersection of Washington and Oronoco Streets, stands the "Keystone", the Lee–Fendall House (formerly addressed as 429 North Washington Street). North across Oronoco are twin houses: 609 Oronoco, where Cornelia (Lee) Hopkins, daughter of William Lee, lived after her marriage to John Hopkins until her death in 1816, and 607 Oronoco, the last home of Light Horse Harry Lee, and known to the public as "Robert E. Lee's Boyhood Home". Just across Washington Street to the West (#428) is the house built by Edmund Jennings Lee I, younger brother of Harry Lee. Directly South of the Lee–Fendall House, on the corner of Washington and Princess, is the house built by Hon. Charles Lee, Attorney General, another of Harry's brothers. Charles and Edmund married Lee sisters, Anne and Sally, daughters of Richard Henry Lee. The Lee–Fendall House is the only Lee family house on Historic Lee Corner that is presently a museum.
Phillip R. Fendall and Henry Lee III families The Fendall's, through Elizabeth's first marriage to Phillip Ludwell Lee Sr., had been living at Stratford Hall before moving to Alexandria. They had surrendered its proprietorship to Henry Lee III and his wife. Though continuing to live at Stratford Hall, Light-Horse Harry Lee spent a great deal of time with his relatives at the Fendall home in Alexandria. Philip R. Fendall was Harry's cousin and Mrs. Fendall (Philip's second wife), Elizabeth (Steptoe) Lee, was Harry's mother-in-law. Matilda Lee was devoted to her mother, and many of Harry's letters are datelined "Alexandria", indicating he was at 614 Oronoco. Also Washington's diary includes several entries about going to Alexandria and dining at Mr. Fendall's to meet Colonel Lee who had led Lee's Legion (2nd Partisan Corps), a renowned cavalry unit, within Washington's Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Both Mrs. Fendall and Matilda were in failing health in 1788, and the Lees spent the winter of 1788–1789 with the Fendalls. Harry Lee was still at the house in April 1789, when George Washington left Virginia to become the first President of the United States. Col. Dennis Ramsay, Mayor of Alexandria, asked Lee to write the farewell address for the first President, which the Mayor delivered at a dinner held for Washington by his fellow citizens on April 16 at Wise's Tavern (201 North Fairfax Street). A decade later, in December 1799, Harry Lee was a U.S. Senator in Congress when Washington died. The Senate asked Lee to write the eulogy for the first President. It was in that speech that he penned the famous description of George Washington as "first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." After Washington's death a large group of citizens met at Lee–Fendall House to make arrangements for Alexandria's participation in his funeral rites.
Phillip Fendall was financially and politically well-placed after the Revolutionary War. He was Secretary to his friend Washington's Potomac Company, first President of the Bank of Alexandria, and an investor in land. His Lee relatives also had prominent places in local, state, and national governments while several made their homes in Alexandria. This prosperity did not last, as with many land speculators of the period, both Fendall and Harry Lee were impoverished and imprisoned for their debts. Due to these problems the house was deeded over to Richard Bland Lee, Harry Lee's younger brother, in 1792.
Elizabeth Fendall lived in the Lee–Fendall House from 1785 until her death in June 1789 probably from cancer. She died unexpectedly while on a trip that was to include a visit to her daughter Matilda at Stratford Hall. Matilda's husband Harry Lee wrote to James Madison, Jr.: "You have heard of the loss we have met with in the death of Mrs. Fendall - better for her to be sure had this event taken place sooner & altho' we are convinced of this truth yet our affliction is immoderate. Poor Mrs. Lee is particularly injured by it, as the affliction of mind adds to the infirmity of her body." Matilda was prostrated by the loss of her mother and the Lees remained in Alexandria many weeks after the funeral.
In 1791, Fendall married for a third time to Harry's sister, Mary "Mollie" Lee. He was now related to Light-Horse Harry Lee in three ways: as his cousin, step-father-in-law, and brother-in-law. Fendall died in 1805, but Mary Lee Fendall continued to live in the house with her two children, Philip Richard Fendall II, and Lucy Eleanor Fendall, until her death in 1827. At their marriage, Fendall had created a trust for Mollie, with her brothers Charles Lee and Richard Bland Lee with Richard M. Scott as trustees, to ensure she would continue to possess the house and its small farm to the north. By 1825, however, she was apparently destitute and moved across the river to a rooming house in Washington.
In 1811 with the assistance of his sister Mary Fendall, Harry Lee was able to rent the stately house at 607 Oronoco, which was owned by William Henry Fitzhugh (another Lee). It is certain that Gen. Robert Edward Lee, the son of Harry, was a frequent visitor of his Aunt Fendall's household across the street. The family resided at 607 until Robert left for West Point in 1825. The multiple tragedies of Harry Lee's failed investments, injuries sustained at the hands of a Baltimore mob as he tried to defend a Federalist friend who had opposed the War of 1812, and his desperate search for health in Barbados, were too much, and Major General Henry Lee III died at Dungeness, Cumberland Island, Georgia on 25 March 1818 while trying to return to his family.
Although little is known of them, tax records show that the Fendalls owned 51 enslaved people in 1785, the year the house was built. Additional forced labor may have been hired from other slave owners. Two years after, in 1787, tax records show the Fendalls owning 17 enslaved people. In the 1820 Federal Census, Mollie Fendall is shown to have owned seven enslaved people. Some of the enslaved laborers may have lived in the back portion of the house.
Edmund Jennings and Sally (Lee) Lee family One year after Mollie Fendall's death in 1827, her youngest brother Edmund Jennings Lee I bought the house at auction. While continuing to live across the street at 428 N. Washington, he leased Lee-Fendall out for several years. Edmund was also a brother of Light Horse Harry Lee. His wife Sally Lee was the youngest daughter of Richard Henry Lee, a Senator and signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Edmund J. Lee was a lawyer, councilman, Mayor, Clerk of the Circuit Court, and vestryman of Christ Church. He was also a board member of the Alexandria Academy and active in other civic organizations. Despite his prominence, Edmund, like his brother Harry previously, encountered financial distress and was forced to first mortgage the house, then sell it at auction in 1833. In 1836, his son Edmund Jennings Lee II was able to buy the house. Edmund Sr. then moved from his home across the street at 428 Washington into the Lee–Fendall House. Sally died at Lee-Fendall in 1837. Edmund Sr. bought the house back from Edmund Jr. in 1839 and continued to live there until his death in 1843.
In 1841, former President John Quincy Adams visited Alexandria and stayed at the Lee–Fendall House. Edmund Sr. hosted a party at the house in his honor following a lecture at the Alexandria Lyceum.
In 1843, two of Edmund J. Lee's daughters, Hannah (Lee) Stewart and Sally Lee, inherited the House and leased it to Lucy Lyons Turner. Commonly known as "Aunt Turner", she was the granddaughter of Virginia Supreme Court Justice Peter Lyons and confidante of the Cassius Francis Lee, Sr. family. Cassius was a son of Edmund J. Lee I and a lifelong friend of cousin Robert E. Lee, son of Light-Horse Harry and later General of the Confederacy.
Louis A. and Harriotte (Stuart) Cazenove family and renovation