We took a road trip to George Washington’s Mt. Vernon to see where the great one lived in retirement. His house fell into disrepair until the 1860s when the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Organization organized to save the place. It was run-down and all the furnishings had vanished. Decades of painstaking research and acquisition fixed all that, and today the house and surrounding gardens are exquisitely presented.
We watched a research team pick away at the front exterior, where the laminated boards were clearly visible (along with an electrical line!). The frontage “bricks” are rusticated, or made to resemble large brick blocks. The Mansion Revitalization Project is repairing the framing and masonry, installing new HVAC, improving drainage of the cellar, and conducting research in rarely accessible spaces. Perhaps because of the project, we were only able to access the original wing of the mansion.
The house has 9,000 square feet above ground (plus basement) with 22 rooms. We were able to tour only one wing, the original house dating to 1852, along with the kitchen and smokehouse. The cupola does not contain an office. Rather, it was opened during the summer to draw warm air up and out the windows for cooling.
George and Martha spent considerable time entertaining, so much so that he told her that they had gone 20 years without them being alone in the house. In 1798 alone, they had 677 overnight guests.
The Marquis de Lafayette rated his own room, complete with a painting of him. He was perhaps Washington’s greatest protege, after Alexander Hamilton. Lafayette came to America from France in 1777 at the age of 19 to avenge his father’s death at the hands of the British. He returned in 1824 “as a 67-year-old survivor of the French Revolution. Lafayette’s return proclaimed the survival of Revolutionary ideals like liberty and equality, and symbolically offered hope for the future of the country.”
Outside his bedroom there is hanging on the wall a key from the Bastille in Paris, given to Washington by Lafayette as a gesture of goodwill for the inspiration France drew from the American Revolution.
The Washingtons shared an upstairs bedroom, where he died at age 67 in 1799. Directly below lies his office, where he brought back to the house his original desk and chair from his president’s house in Philadelphia. A bookcase on the opposite wall has hundreds of contemporary leather volumes, although none of them were Washington’s.
The chair has its own back story, including being used by Andrew Jackson in the White House when he was the seventh President. The description reads in part, “In the 1820s, many Washington admirers became devotees of Jackson, who shared Washington’s legacy as a military hero-turned-president (though with very different politics). In 1905, the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association purchased the chair for $100.”
Today the mansion is in the news because archaeologists discovered numerous bottles of jam intact below the cellar floor. According to a guide, the jam was put into repurposed wine bottles for future consumption, but they got inadvertently buried during an early restoration. No word on the quality of the jam hundreds of years later.
The house gets around 1 million visitors annually, down from the peak of 1.2 million pre-pandemic. During that period, the place was all but shut down. Fully 600 enslaved persons worked the 8,000 acres that he secured over the years.
It’s estimated that if the Forbes 100 Richest People were around back then, he would have rated high up on the list. By the way, they are interviewing for a new George Washington to walk the grounds and talk to visitors. I told the guide that the GW in Colonial Williamsburg looks the part but presents as grumpy.
The reason the house is only partially shown is because of renewed renovations. From a fundraising pitch for the Mansion Revitalization Project:
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Sailing Boys
Against my better judgment, I agreed to teach two boys how to sail. One was 13 and the other 10. Usually, boys that age tend to get bored by sailing, but these were alert and responsive. Their parents mentioned that they were adopted, which I found astonishing. Who would abandon such beautiful children?
Their dad, Travis Simpson-Hart, said, “We got them when they were 4 and 7. One of them was discovered by Child Protective Services tied to a chair watching TV. The other has a scare on his face from being attacked with a broken lightbulb.
Harbor Sail
While in Alexandria, we drove over to National Harbor, a $1 billion redevelopment project that includes an MGM casino and big hotels near the water along with the Gaylord Convention Center (below). I was particularly interested in the harbor itself because it defied commercial logic to build a marina 95 miles up the Potomac from the Chesapeake Bay.
Sure enough, there was only one sailboat among the hundred or so boats docked. A big catamaran from Cocoa Beach FL looked like it was docked there semi-permanently. The others were smaller fishing boats that could navigate the Potomac, and the occasional sport fishing boat that seemed out of place so far away from the Bay. The decking of the dock had a lot of repairs but was otherwise sturdy. I inquired at the office on rates, and the minimum is $8,460 a year. That’s twice that of York River Yacht Haven, owing to the proximity of Washington if not the Bay.
York Sailing
Back at home, I was showing a group how to turn the mark in a race when I discovered the mark itself was amiss. The R-24 buoy in the middle of the York appeared to be sinking. The base normally rises 2 or 3 feet off the water, but it looked like it had only 8 inches of clearance. I radioed the US Coast Guard Hampton Roads Sector, and they were incredulous since the thing juts down 20 feet below the surface.
They used their rescue form to ask about the boat, the color of the boat, number of passengers, etc. “It’s not about the boat, but the buoy,” I implored. They called back later for details and said they would get the ATON crew to investigate. ATON stands for Aids To Navigation. After I gave them the Lat/Long position, I said I would send before and after pictures.
Shoal Sailing
I had the privilege of teaching a couple how to sail and would have married them on the boat except for a rainout. They eventually bought a 28-foot Hunter and moved it from Mobjack Bay to York River Yacht Haven, right next to our boat. J.B. Woodward described how his new wife Christi shouted directions from inside the boat while reading the chart because their depth meter didn’t work.
Later I sent him an image of the only shoal they have to worry about, a big one along the north shore near R-2.
Women enjoy sailing today more than ever, and particularly a romantic cruise. Couples get to enjoy a romantic getaway as they sit up on the bow for privacy, and Let’s Go Sail provides professional photos for free. First-time or skilled mariners are welcome to sail a modern-32-foot sailboat in a unique setting of wildlife and Fall foliage or Spring bloom. It makes for an extraordinary anniversary idea.
Let’s Go Sail
Check Couples and Family rates and pick a day for a sailboat charter. Scroll down reviews on Trip Advisor. Go back to the home page of Williamsburg Charter Sails.
The best Williamsburg boat tour offers safe “social distance sailing” daily for up to 6 people. It’s an extraordinary experience for couples. Leave your worries behind. Enjoy the thrill of moving with the wind without a care in the world. Put life back on an even keel with a romantic experience for a birthday or anniversary. 3-hour sailboat cruise as a semi-private yachting charter lets you exhale and relax as you enjoy comfort, stability and speed.
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