“These men were terrific at creating anything you measured in dollars. What they weren’t so good at is stuff you know is incredibly important but can’t measure in dollars: civilization, soul, identity, community. That’s what was so painfully missing.” -- "Edge City, Life on the new Frontier," describing the development of Tysons Corner.
“We are just terribly depressed, surprised and shocked.” — Joyce Wilkinson, chairman of the Fairfax County History Commission, upon learning of the demolition of Maplewood in 1970.
Note: Fifty years ago, perhaps to the day, Maplewood, a Second Empire style mansion that stood just east of Tyson’s Crossroads, was torn down. Built in early 1870s, the historic home was one of the great losses in Fairfax County history (The barn, torched by arsonists in 1964, was big and impressive, too.) We pay tribute to Maplewood with this brief history.
When it comes to the loss of historic homes in Northern Virginia, a good discussion could be had over the question — what were the greatest losses?
My pick would be Belvoir. Not only did the Georgian brick beauty standout in architecture, size and prominence, the mansion was home to the dynastic Fairfax family. George Washington lamented that the “happiest moments” of his life had been spent there.
Also big losses were West Grove, the brick mansion built around 1715 and whose site overlooks Alexandria; Abingdon, the once famed country estate of the Alexander family and then home to Washington’s step-son Jacky Parke Custis and his family; and Mount Eagle, built by Bryan, Eighth, Lord Fairfax in 1790.
In Alexandria, some folks are still shaking their heads at the demolition of the Corse-Leadbeater House and the Hallowell House, consummate examples of Greek-Revival.
Although it has fallen through the cracks, Maplewood also needs to be a part of this discussion. Quite frankly, I had not heard of it until several years ago when I picked up and read a thin yellow book with that title at Local History/Special Collections. Diane Rafuse gave us a terrific consolation prize.
Before it was demolished in 1970, Maplewood was a four-story home built in the Second Empire style. This style, popular in the second half of the nineteenth century, gave architects something more elaborate to work with than the Federal and Georgian styles.
Originally named “Villa Nuova,” and built sometime in the 1870s, Maplewood was a rare example in the county of the Second Empire style. The brick dwelling was thought to be the only such residential dwelling in the county, although Highland View, more modest in size, later surfaced as an example.
Perhaps the best description of the Second Empire style in the U.S. is provided by “A Field Guide to America Houses” by Virginia Savage McAlester. Its main features are the Mansard roof with dormer windows, which allowed for an upper floor. Some homes have a centered tower, paired windows that are bracketed or hooded. Details are similar to the Italiante style with ornate porches. The golden age came in the 1870s, mostly in the Northeast and midwestern states. The style was modern and imitated the latest French building fashions.
Much is owed to the French designer Francois Mansard and Mansard-roofed wings added to the Louvre in the 1850s. The Second Empire “was the first true style of the Victorian-era in the United States.”
The Second Empire style had a much shorter run than the proceeding Georgian and Federal styles, but like the Greek Revival period that proceeded it, produced some fine examples in Alexandria. City Hall there has been called “one of the state’s boldest examples of the Second Empire style.” Old Town Alexandria has some wonderful well-maintained examples south of King and east of Washington Street.
In Washington, the early 1870s brought a flurry of Second Empire homes, both new and remodeled. By far the most conspicuous is the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Located next to the West Wing of the White House, it was originally built for the State, War and Navy Departments. Perhaps better appreciated is the nearby and more modest Renwick Gallery (first known as the Corcoran Gallery).
In his book, “Capital Losses,” the esteemed historian James Goode shows us about a dozen and a half examples of the style that were torn down in Washington. It’s hard to know for sure, but it seems a greater percentage of the Second Empire style was demolished than other styles in the nation’s capital.
All of the above mentioned homes and buildings had an urban setting. Located about eight miles west of Washington, Maplewood’s rural landscape must have made it seem some kind of a Shangri-La. A writer for the Washington Post called it, “one of the finest country estates in Virginia.”
Maplewood’s site is between the McClean metro station and the Capital One office tower. Beth Mitchell’s Map of Fairfax County in 1760 gives us our first glimpse of its surroundings. It can be difficult to pinpoint a future site, but we are aided by the crossing of the two main roads in that time when the county was just eighteen years old and still wilderness in many parts.
In their book, "The Fairfax County Courthouse," Ross D. Netherton and Ruby Waldeck tell us Route 7/Leesburg Pike was then known as the New Church Road and later the Eastern Ridge Road, the Alexandria-Leesburg Road and Middle Turnpike. Highway 123 runs along the course of what was then known as Road to Falls Warehouse.
Fed by the streams of Difficult Run, Accotink Creek, Wolf Trap Run, Scott’s Run and Pimmit Run, a number of springs were found around the junction of these two roads, that were more like dusty paths. In 1742, the County chose to locate the County Courthouse there at a place called “Spring Fields.”
A James Scott owned ten enslaved humans and about 3,000 acres, which included the future site of Maplewood and its farm land.
It’s hard to know exactly what went on in this part of the county once the courthouse moved to Alexandria in 1752. Enslaved humans likely continued to work the tobacco lands. Before or after the Revolutionary War, some farmers switched to growing wheat. After the turn of the century, Fairfax County fell into an agricultural slump. During the Civil War, this part of the county was in the no-man’s land between rebel and union forces.
In 1852, William Tyson, who lived in Cecil County, Maryland, seems to have seen potential in this part of Fairfax County. He acquired a large tract of land from A. Lawrence Foster. Originally known as “Peach Grove,” the name later became Tyson's Corner, and several years ago, simply Tyson's.
This roaring economic engine and increasingly vibrant neighborhood started with tiny roots. As Stephen Fuller puts it, Tyson’s Corner was “little more than a mom-and-pop general store at the intersections of Routes 7 (Leesburg Pike) and 123 (Chain Bridge Road, now Dolly Madison Boulevard) surrounded by farms.”
Tysons today is the crown jewel of Fairfax County, an ever-growing edge city with a skyline reaching higher and higher, four Metro stations, and a population that is projected to reach 100,000 in 2050 (23,000 currently).
Of Tysons, Christopher Leinberger, a professor at George Washington University and a senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program, said the redevelopment there “is the most important urban redevelopment in the country, possibly in the world.”
Sites of historic homes can sometimes be obscured. Not so with Maplewood. The pilot of a plane could, at least for now, spot its site with the glance of an eye. Maplewood sat a short distance from Capital One’s gleaming new office tower, which sits inside a triangle formed by the Beltway, the Dulles Access Road and Route 123.
Equally a visual clue is the Metro’s Silver Line, which also towers over parts of Tysons. If you want to visit the site of Maplewood, all you have to do is exit at the McLean stop, and you’re there. (Note: The McLean stop is not in McLean, but is close and meets Metro’s naming requirements).
As we speak, the precise site of Maplewood is a construction site, with scores of hard hats on site and gleaming buildings shadowing the site. Renderings show a set of buildings here as part of the expansion of the Capitol One’s business campus in Tysons. Perhaps some of you remember the baseball field that was there until recently.
In our region, there are many examples of lost landmark homes. A good number of their stories have not been told. We are fortunate that Maplewood had a friend in Diane N. Rafuse and her colleagues at the Fairfax County History Commission. Her 64-page book, “Maplewood, Fairfax County,” covers its history, as well as some of nearby Strawberry Vale (see end for short summary).
The book has one of the most unique prefaces ever written. John Porter Bloom, Chair, Fairfax County History Commission, writes:
While the report was in draft form and under review, the building was unexpectedly razed by its owner under circumstances which it is hoped, will not be repeated in the case of other buildings of comparable historic and architectural significance. Publication of the report has been delayed somewhat because of editing necessary, such as verb tense.
As mentioned, Maplewood was built sometime in the 1870s. While that is not very old in terms of some of the other lost historic homes from the colonial or antebellum era, what tugs on the heart is Maplewood’s architecture and rarity. The house stood out with a center pavilion topped with a convex mansard roof. Its size, 25 rooms, soared above the norm. And as mentioned previously, the Second Empire style was rarely seen so far away from an urban setting.
The exact build date for Maplewood is not known. We do know there was a flurry of building in this style in Washington in the early to mid 1870s. Of those 18 or so, Adolf Cluss designed about a third. Most of the rest are unknown.
Maplewood is identified on G.M. Hopkins’ Atlas of 1878 by its first owners name, John J. Shipman. The home and farm were located in the central part of the Providence District.
About two miles to the west, the Washington and Old Dominion (then known as the Washington and Ohio RR) cut its path through Vienna, on its way to Alexandria or Leesburg and beyond. Two miles to the east, Georgetown Turnpike took its toll-paying customers from the Chain Bridge to Dranseville where it met up with the Leesburg Turnpike.
Shipman’s neighbors were General John S. Crocker (1843-1890), the Moore and McGarity families and Edmund Flagg (1815-1890) (Eastwood Farm). Flagg (1815-1890) is certainly worth a few moments of our time, as is Crocker. The Magazine of Poetry tells us he Flagg was a poet, lawyer, journalist, author, and diplomat. Of New England stock, he wrote for newspapers in St. Louis, Louisville, Vicksburg, and edited that city’s Bulletin. Some of his literary work won prize money. Flagg's expatriate service included Berlin and Venice. He spent his sunset years in Washington working for the State Department and as Chief Librarian for the Department of Interior. With his wife, he took up residence at Eastwood Farm in 1869 and later Highland View.
Crocker, likewise from the North (New York) and a public servant, lived in Lewinsville. In the first part of his adult life, he was a lawyer and member of the New York House of Representatives. As a colonel during the Civil War, he led the men of the 30th Regiment New York State Military Forces. Crocker settled in Washington after the war and served as alderman and warden. He passed away the same year as Flagg.
Maplewood’s builder and first owner was John J. Shipman. Who he hired to sketch and build it is unknown. Shipman made a name for himself in this part of the county, first as a judge in the township of Langley in 1871.
The following year the Georgetown Courier reported that the “Lower Falls Road (123 from Tysons to Chain Bridge) is “undergoing considerable improvement. John J. Shipman of Lewinsville, whose energy is proverbial, having a number of laborers, engaged in widening it several feet at many points, building calverts, and repairing at many points.”
Shipman’s obituary (February 11, 1898) in The Washington Post tells us he was a well-known contractor and constructor of public works. He left a widow, two sons and three daughters.
The family lived at 1310 Q Street northwest. As told by Kathy Orton (Washington Post, November 8, 2013), that home, built in the 1880s, has a story unto itself. In 1975, a Washington couple, Jackie and Charles Reed, bought and lovingly restored the Victorian. They named it the Aaron Shipman house (Aaron from her family). Just recently, the home became The Logan, a new condominium development.
Rafuse covers all of Maplewood’s owners. After Shipman came the Dunn family (1886-1912), the Brodt family (1912-1919), Andrew O. Edmundson (1919-1925), Ethel M. Ulfelder 1925-1962) and then the Westgate Corporation (1962-1970).
The Dunns, who changed the name from “Villa Nuova” to Maplewood, and the Brodts, would have benefitted from the proximity of Maplewood to Lewinsville. The hamlet, about a mile to the east, sprung up after the Civil War. It was a cross roads community at the junction of todays Chain Bridge Road and Great Falls Road. A map from 1879 shows a third road near Lewinsville, which could be today's Balls Hill Road.
Beginning in 1857, a Post Office at Lewinsville served area residents. During the Civil War, a skirmish there resulted in several casualties. In the 1880s, the village at Lewinsville had couple of stores, the church, a one-room school house, and a blacksmith’s shop. McLean was still a few decades away.
Note: As seen by the dotted line on the map, the western terminus of today’s Chain Bridge Road is at Anderson Road. Before 1962, the road continued its westward path past Maplewood. In 1962, a new more straight road was built from about where Maplewood was located to the current intersection with Chain Bridge Road.
Nearby Vienna was also growing after the war. Some of the new faces arrived from up north. As the town’s website notes, one of the most influential immigrants was Major Orrin T. Hine, a radical Republican who owned real estate and their first mayor. A public school for African Americans was built in 1868.
The Dunn family also got to see a technological wonder, the Great Falls and Old Dominion Electric Railway, an interurban trolley line that began service in 1906. John Roll McLean, publisher and owner of The Washington Post, acquired the line, whose stop at Chain Bridge Road was named after the owner. Anyone driving on Old Dominion Road does so where those trains ran.
Sadly, Brigadier General Dunn (US Army) enjoyed his stay at Maplewood for only about a year. After earning his law degree, he served two terms in the US House of Representatives from Indiana. Dunn supported the Union during the Civil War and served as Judge Advocate General. In Washington, he served on boards such as the Columbia Institution for the Deaf. A farmer near Maplewood said, “General Dunn will be missed more than anybody can tell.”
The loss of landmark homes typically included the loss of outbuildings. When Charles L. Brodt, a capitalist of New York and Paris, acquired Maplewood in 1912, it had a “handsome barn” and a granary. The lawn contained 100 maple trees and a cultivated garden. Brodt planned to breed coach horses. An article in the Post around that time said the woodwork on the first floor was “said to be the finest black walnut in the country.”
At that time, Maplewood’s farm spread out across 370 acres of “productive soil with a tract of ten acres of white oak trees near the house.”
Note: One news report said Maplewood was the summer home of Woodrow Wilson, but no info on that is in Rafuse’s book or other sources.
Andrew O. Edmundson next owned Maplewood. Little is known about him except that he raised peaches at Maplewood from 1919 to 1925. An historic aerial map from 1900 shows Peach Grove Hill and Freedom Hill. Freedom Hill became a redoubt during the Civil War. An historical marker in Freedom Hill Park tells us the Union army built the small batteries in January 1865. A company from the 5th Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery Regiment was stationed there.
If there is a pantheon of the movers and shakers who helped start and build Tysons Corner, John T. “Til” Hazel sits on it. In his book, “Edge City,” Joel Garreau says Hazel “has done more to shape the Washington area than any man since Pierre L’Enfant” (a lot of bruised egos and eyebrows raised with that one).
Others who helped Tysons get started or grow were Marcus J. Blis, Gerald Halpin, Tom Nicholson, Charles Ewing and Colonel Rudolph Seeley (and likely others we didn’t come across).
Around 1962, Nicholson, Halpin, Ewing and Seeley partnered to form the West Group Management, a firm that combined the businesses of real estate development, construction and property management. Purchasing 560 acres, which included Maplewood and its farm, and many more acres later, they were among the first to develop Tysons Corners.
In an article in the Connection Newspapers (September 25, 2017), Fallon Forbush quotes John Ulfelder, Fairfax County planning commissioner and uncle of Seeley, as saying:
“Jerry Halpin got on a plane with my uncle Rudy Seeley and he flew to Mexico … to go meet with my grandmother to talk to her about having her put portions of her remaining farmland in with Jerry and his partners.”
Ulfelder’s grandmother, Ethel M. Ulfelder (1885-1962) was married to Dr. Sidney Ulfelder (1875-1959). A graduate of Columbia University, he was a surgeon in Mexico City. They had four children — Howard, Sidney, Ruth and Martha.
Martha (1918-2002) was born in Mexico City. Her obituary in The Washington Post tells us her parents acquired Maplewood in order to have a home in the United States, where the children could attend school. She spent time both at her family’s home in Mexico City and at Maplewood. The Ulfelders owned and lived at Maplewood from 1925 to 1962.
Martha’s first husband, John N. Poro, died in Portugal in 1943, while serving with the U.S. Army. In 1949, she married Colonel Rudolph G. Seeley. He became the Executive Vice President for the Westgate Corporation, which acquired Maplewood in 1962.
The Selleys also lived at Maplewood, whose address at that time was 7676 Old Springhouse Road. Together they took over the operation of Maplewood’s dairy farm.
Note: Old Spring House Road runs between Scotts Crossing and Spring Gate Road, about 500 feet from the site of Maplewood. It appears there is no road named Maplewood nearby.
Martha and Seeley were what we call today a power couple. She co-founded the West Group and served as a general partner, secretary and a member of the board of directors of Westgate, and a general partner of West Park. The Selleys were active in the community and supported benevolent organizations in McLean and nearby.
Colonel Seeley, who served in World War II, also had a large obituary in the Post (January 6, 1988). It pointed out he was a civic leader and developer who helped pioneer the explosive commercial growth of the Tysons Corner area.
The trolleys that ran across Northern Virginia and Washington had a good run after the turn of the century. As author Paul Ceruzzi points out in his book, “Internet Alley,” they “began the transformation of Northern Virginia from a farming region to a bedroom suburb.” The coming of the automobile, however, soon doomed what amounted to the area’s first mass transit system.
Yet, in the 1940s, Tysons Corner was still a quiet farming community. John Holley of the Post (June 20, 1942) filled up his tank and headed out to see the place. He wrote down his impressions of the area around Maplewood.
White wooden fences follow the contour of the hills, brown and white and spotted cows in the hundreds roam the wide slopes. The hills rise again into thick forest land that extends for a mile at least to Tysons Corner.
Had Holley returned to Maplewood twenty years later, he would have seen an extraordinary sight. Filling the needs of a population that exploded from 98,000 in 1940 to 275,000 in 1950, the developers bulldozed and built the county into one massive sprawl of suburban homes. Tyson's Corner was a one stop shopping for retail and clusters of office space.
As if to atone for Northern Virginia’s once bad reputation for bad roads, the state proposed a $328M roads plan in 1952. Included were funds to study the construction of a “circumferential highway” around Washington.
The growth west of Washington was so widespread, planners for Dulles, Washington’s second major airport, chose a location twenty miles west of D.C. and eight from Tysons Corner.
Of all the headlines Fairfax County read during this time, the one that startled residents the most came in 1957. The Soviets launched Sputnik, the world's first artificial satellite. Readers of George Orwell's 1984 must have been nodding their heads.
That same year, bulldozers began clearing a site in nearby Langley that would become the CIA’s new headquarters. An aerial view from 1962 shows Maplewood and its farm being swallowed by a triangle of concrete and steel — the new Capital Beltway, the new Dulles Airport Access Road and a busier and busier Route 123.
The Capital Beltway, finished in this part of the county in 1964, took away nearby Strawberry Vale (demolished in 1959). Maplewood survived the new super-sized roads, but the clock was ticking.
The Westgate Corporation purchased Maplewood in and its 512 acres, which was the most held by a single family in that area. They filed an application with the county to rezone the land for an industrial park (how’s that for an oxymoron?).
As told by “Fairfax County, Virginia, A History,” the county approved the request. Rafuse tells us there was only token opposition and when the Board of Supervisors held the rezoning hearing, “there was no mention of the Maplewood House.”
In the 1960s, the Selleys used Maplewood as its temporary headquarters. In February 1970, the home was demolished. In its place rose a new tall building, the headquarters of the Westgate company. Already there within the triangle formed by the Beltway, the Dulles Access Road and 123 were several other office buildings. On the other side of the Beltway, shoppers were flocking to the mall anchored by Hechts and Woodward & Lothrop. The landscape of farms dotted with country estates was no more.
Was there an effort to save historic homes in Fairfax County in the 1960s?
Yes.
But as told by “The Preservation of History in Fairfax County Virginia,” preservationists fought a constant uphill battle. There were dozens of older homes and structures to try and save. In a county twenty miles by twenty miles and founded in 1742, choosing among them must have seemed like an act of triage.
The preservationists fought hard. A major achievement took place with the election in 1971. As noted by the above mentioned book, the new Board of Supervisors was generally sympathetic to preservation of historic sites and buildings. The Architectural Review Board also made strides.
But for Maplewood, it was too late. For anyone silently cheering for the lonely house, The Washington Post of February 25, 1970 brought sad news.
Kenneth Bredemeier wrote:
Wrecking crews stole a march on Fairfax County history buffs last weekend. A 100-year-old Victorian mansion the buffs had hoped to preserve was demolished and apparently none of them knew anything about it until it was too late.
Bredemeier quoted commission members as saying that Rudolph Seeley, executive VP of Westgate Corporation, “told them last October than the structure would not be torn down for up to three years and not sooner than one year.”
Seeley said that Maplewood “was not a particularly architectural gem under any stretch of the imagination.”
Calder Loth, the esteemed architectural historian for the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, had put his stamp of approval on Maplewood, describing it as “a significant example of Victorian architecture, meriting listing by the National Register of Historic Places.”
Joyce Wilkinson was quoted as saying, “It was just simply a sneak approach.”
Preservationists care about all the properties under their care and watches but the loss of Maplewood seemed to hit particularly hard. Wilkinson, chairman of the Fairfax County History Commission, was quoted as saying, “We are just terribly depressed, surprised and shocked.”
Tysons is a wonderful place with a bright future. But 50 years after the loss of Maplewood, the demolition of all of the nearby Goodman homes is underway. Our visit there found a sense of community and a leafy landscape that served as a pleasant oasis among the concrete and steel.
Doesn't anybody care?
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