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Room-by-room tour of the house from front entrance
Room-by-room tour of the house from back entrance
Room-by-room tour using the house floor plan
A short distance from the early 18th century Washington birth home location is the Memorial House. Its location may have been determined in June 1815 by George Washington Parke Custis. He visited an abandoned Popes Creek Plantation as an adult to find only the kitchen chimney standing. Amid fig bushes and wild vegetation Custis' amateur archeological survey found a rectangular foundation and ruins which he would mark as the birthsite of George Washington.
The U.S. Fine Arts Commission and the Secretary of War approved a design in 1927 based on architect Edward Donn's interpretation of the rectangular foundation discovered by Custis, and the "house of ten or twelve rooms, of two stories in height, with an ell, and probably, not much dissimilar or smaller than Gunston Hall....." The Memorial House was finished in time for George Washington's 200th birthday in 1932.
The Memorial House foundation was later revealed to be the foundation of a large rectangular out building - perhaps a barn. By 1934 the National Park Service conducted an extensive archeological survey of Popes Creek. Archeologists uncovered the ruins of George Washington's birth home yielding 16,000 artifacts, many of which had been intensely heated by a fire.
Frederick Law Olmstead visited this site in the 1920s and argued against the construction of any type of house on the location because it would lead to confusion among visitors who may conclude that the reconstructed house is the true birth home of George Washington. In some instances this has been the case, and the reconstructed house has led controversy and condemnation.
Freeman Tilden noted that the Memorial House, although not the true birth home, does represent the character of George Washington. It has great relevance to a major period of American history. The Memorial House is a good example of Georgian architecture that was used by Lawrence Washington when he constructed Mount Vernon, as well as other notiable homes such as Fielding Lewis' Kenmore and George Mason's Gunston Hall. The Memorial House distinctly resembles Gunston Hall, and is the basic design of Mount Vernon prior to George Washington's federalist style alterations.
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