Gunston Hall: Home of a Founding Father

The influential words of George Mason informed the Bill of Rights. His home, Gunston Hall, is indicative of the Georgian style of architecture.

North view entrance of Gunston Hall in Mason Neck, Virginia. The estate is one of the most important examples of Georgian architecture in America. Public Domain

Considered one of the finest existing colonial dwellings in America, Gunston Hall is more than just a house and manicured grounds. It was here that George Mason (1725–1792) lived for 33 years with his wife, Ann, and their nine surviving children. It was at Gunston Hall that Mason was faced with choosing between patriotism for the burgeoning United States or loyalty to the British crown. He chose to become one of the foremost voices for liberty through his writings.

He frequently put pen to paper to help shape America’s foundation at his Gunston Hall plantation in Virginia—just eight miles from the Potomac River and around 10 miles southwest of George Washington’s Mount Vernon. In fact, Washington mentions their visits in diary entries preserved in the National Archives.

The House

The entryway was designed to impress visitors with its exquisite architectural details and Chinoiserie wallpaper, which was virtually unknown in America when Gunston Hall was built. Courtesy of Gunston Hall

Designed by English craftsmen William Buckland and William Bernard Sears, Gunston Hall follows Georgian architecture. The brick house’s first-floor layout is symmetrical, with a central front-to-back passageway and four rooms of similar dimensions stemming from that main hallway. A parlor, dining room, chamber, and Palladian formal room are situated on the ground floor. The upper level features a narrow passageway that provides access to seven bedchambers and a storage room.

Gunston Hall’s central passage, which connect to the formal rooms, the family rooms, and the upstairs bed chambers, displays elements of “French Modern” (a contemporary French elegance) and Neoclassical designs. Courtesy of Gunston Hall

After entering through the arched portico, adorned with dentil molding, and the front door, illuminated by a fan-light window, visitors walk into a large open stair hall. Hanging from an intricate plasterwork double arch in the hall is a classic acorn pendant. It symbolizes fertility and the possibility of new life. Upstairs is a classical arch grand arcade, where the arches rest on fluted square columns.

The fan-light window above the main entrance at Gunston Hall adds a decorative and functional element to the facade, which was typical of the 18th-century, Georgian architectural style. Justin.A.Wilcox/CC BY-SA 3.0

Although many surviving Georgian architectural homes in the United States offer some elements of the style’s signature Greek and Roman design elements, Gunston Hall is unique for its dramatic expression of the style. For example, the Palladian formal room features ornate, French-inspired rococo woodwork. Some of the fireplace mantels present elaborate fretwork, meaning graceful, open patterns and designs achieved by interlacing and connecting wooden strips.

The Palladian Room was used to entertain guests and features classical woodwork with touches of French rococo design, which can be seen in the sculpted ornamentation of shells, acanthus, and flowers. Courtesy of Gunston Hall

In the dining room are inset windows theatrically apportioned with windows surrounded by columns and topped with intricately detailed pediments. Inset arched niches in the room feature flush, fluted columns with stacked capitals, broken pediments, and a centerpiece corbel.

The Chinese Room, which served as the dining room, was the first known example of Chinoiserie in colonial America. Distinguished by its unique woodwork in the Chinese style, the fireplace wall features pagoda-like scalloped moldings on the fireplace and door mantels. Courtesy of Gunston Hall

Visitors to this historic site will find the rooms decorated with colonial period furnishings, accessories, and utilitarian items, such as letter openers, inkwells, candlesticks, and mortar and pestle.

The Man

A portrait of George Mason, the "Father of the Bill of Rights, " 1750, by Dominic W. Boudet after John Hesselius. Oil on canvas. Courtesy of Gunston Hall

First, Mason penned a local thesis with George Washington, entitled “Fairfax Resolves.” The rousing paper eventually motivated him, a member of the Fifth Virginia Convention, to write the Virginia Declaration of Rights in June 1776. In it are familiar statements, including: “That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights.”

However fervent Mason was about safeguarding Americans’ rights, he was one of only three delegates who refused to sign the Constitution of the United States. He insisted that without  amendments to the newly ratified U.S. Constitution, liberties would be vulnerable for future generations. To his son, George Mason, Jr., in May 1787, the year before the Constitution was ratified, Mason wrote: “God grant that we may be able to concert effectual means of preserving our country.”

Eventually, Mason’s Virginia Declaration of Rights informed and inspired another founding father, James Madison, to write 10 amendments to the Constitution. Referred to as the Bill of Rights, they were proposed in 1789 and ratified in 1791.

It turns out Mason was forward-thinking and stalwart in ensuring that the Bill of Rights was passed. The Bill of Rights is still regularly expressed, argued over, and protested—especially the first and second amendments: freedom of speech, religion, and the press; and, freedom to bear arms.

A Mason quote, shared at Gunston Hall’s museum exhibit, sums up his delight in knowing a proposal had been put forth that communicated his ideas for the future of the country: “I have received much satisfaction from the Amendments to the federal Constitution ... I cou'd chearfully put my Hand & Heart to the new Government.”

George Mason said these words to Samuel Griffin, fellow Virginia politician, on Sept.  8, 1789, just a few months after Madison had introduced the amendments to the First Congress.

An alley of cedar trees leads to burial grounds at Gunston Hall. Justin.A.Wilcox/CC BY-SA 3.0

Perhaps, as Mason walked the vast grounds around the Gunston Hall plantation, he considered how he would formulate on paper his assessments of the country’s foundational principles.

The Grounds

The home was built on the Mason Neck Peninsula along the Pohick Creek, which eventually joins the Potomac River. Atop a hill, the vast grounds that originally encompassed 5,500 acres—reduced to 550 today—were established to offer “viewing mounts” for Mason, his family, and guests to take in the vistas of fields, woodlands, and waterway. Beneath the viewing mounts are green grass earthen terraces that “step down” to the paths and Deer Park below the house.

South facade of Gunston Hall leading to the gardens. Intended as a low hedge around planting beds, the boxwood's twisted trunks may have originally been trained to grow on trellises. Bill Chizek/Shutterstock

The outdoor spaces were just as important to Mason as were the home’s architecture and design. Vegetable, herb, and flower gardens are still plentiful from spring through early fall, and fruit trees abound. He made certain the gardens offered a “spacious walk running eastwardly and westward,” as was written in “The Recollections of John Mason: George Mason’s Son Remembers His Father and Life at Gunston Hall.”

The grounds around the house are replete with English boxwoods, manicured to form large, natural frames around trees. Horticulturists and preservationists have painstakingly enhanced and maintained Gunston Hall’s exterior scenery, making sure the terraces were restored in 2023. They regularly add historic varieties of fruiting trees, shrubs, perennial flowers, and even medicinal plants.

View of Gunston Hall's formal gardens from the gazebo. Mason’s gardens were based on European landscape designs and incorporated principles of perspective, symmetry, and grace. Public Domain

Gunston Hall remained in the Mason family until 1867. After that, it changed owners until it was gifted to the Commonwealth of Virginia (COV) in 1949 and eventually became a National Historic Landmark. By offering public access to the house and ground, COV aims to “stimulate the exploration and understanding of principles expressed by George Mason in the 1776 Virginia Declaration of Rights.”

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