Arcadia and Woodlawn Plantation

Home $ Woodlawn/Fort Belvoir

About Project:

The Woodlawn Plantation has been re-imagined as a multi-use destination that is planned to include a farm-to-table restaurant and cafe, it contains expanded educational programs, a year-round farm stand, an enhanced event venue, and interpretive trails that will extend to Frank Loyd Wright’s Pope-Leighey House.

The reinvigorated Woodlawn Estate is the brainchild of a partnership between the property owner, The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the current lessee Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture, and Neighborhood Restaurant Group (NRG).  As the property is not zoned commercial, county staff must approve the use as an attraction in order for the plans to proceed.

Recent Developments:

Proposal to add new uses to the historic site while enhancing pedestrian, bicycle, and vehicular circulation. Possible new programming includes event space, argi-tourism, restaurant, and farmers market.

News:

 

Additional Information:

Tours for the 2022 season: April 15 through December 12, 2022.

Fridays through Mondays from 11:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Beginning May 29, the last tours of the day at both houses will be 2:30 p.m. If you do not arrive by 2:30 p.m., you will be unable to attend a guided tour, but you may walk the grounds.

Key Facts:

Woodlawn Mansion & Estate was originally part of George Washington’s large estate. He had the home built as a wedding gift for his step-granddaughter, Nelly Parke Custis, and her husband Lawrence Lewis. The couple operated the house and property as their family home, and as a plantation, worked by approximately 90 enslaved women, men, and children. Nelly inherited 155 enslaved people as wedding gifts and from her grandmother and mother’s estates after their deaths. We are in the process of investigating the history of slavery at Woodlawn and uncovering and sharing the stories of the people who helped build and maintain this historic property.

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