Green Spring Gardens Park
Green Spring | |
| File:Historic Green Spring in Annandale, Virginia - 1.jpeg Green Spring house seen from the lawn in front, September 2015 | |
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| Location | 4601 Green Spring Road, near Alexandria, Virginia |
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| Area | 9.5 acres (3.8 ha) |
| Built | c. 1777–1784 |
| Architect | Farrand, Beatrix; Macomber, Walter |
| Architectural style | Colonial, Colonial Revival |
| Website | Official website |
| NRHP reference No. | 03001089[1] |
| VLR No. | 029-0025 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 22, 2003 |
| Designated VLR | June 18, 2003[2] |
Green Spring Gardens (31 acres) is a public park, including a historic 18th-century plantation house "Green Spring", which is the heart of a national historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003.[1] The Fairfax County Park Authority operates Green Spring with the assistance of various nonprofit organizations concerned with history and gardening. Open daily without charge, the street address is 4603 Green Spring Road, Alexandria, Virginia.
Holdings
[edit | edit source]The historic district encompasses two contributing buildings, two contributing sites, and two contributing structures located within the park. It includes the brick farmhouse, built about 1777–1784, a 19th-century spring house, a family cemetery, archaeological site, subterranean brick vault, and a small 4-chambered stone structure. The property's landscape was redesigned in 1942, in the Colonial Revival style by noted landscape architects Beatrix Farrand and Walter Macomber. The house and grounds were donated to Fairfax County in 1970 by New Republic publisher Michael Whitney Straight and his wife Belinda Straight,[3] who had moved their family to Washington D.C. during Massive Resistance.[4]
Its estate gardens (popular among local wedding photographers) feature boxwood hedging, roses, and perennial as well as annual borders. The park also has a tropical greenhouse, a wooded stream valley with ponds and gazebo, a naturalistic native plant garden, and over 20 demonstration gardens. It is a member of the North American Plant Collections Consortium for its Hamamelis collection (130 taxa, including all 4 species).
Gallery
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Image of the house prior to the 1942 restoration
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Cacti at the park, 2013
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Boardwalk in the park, 2015
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Interior of the visitors' center, 2015
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Interior of the house set up as a tearoom, 2015
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See also
[edit | edit source]References
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- ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value). and Accompanying four photos
External links
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- Official website
- Green Spring Farm, 4601 Green Spring Road, Annandale, Fairfax County, VA: 2 photos at Historic American Buildings Survey
- Botanical gardens in Virginia
- Parks in Fairfax County, Virginia
- Virginia municipal and county parks
- Museums in Fairfax County, Virginia
- Houses completed in 1784
- Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
- Houses in Fairfax County, Virginia
- National Register of Historic Places in Fairfax County, Virginia
- Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia
- Historic districts on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
- Northern Virginia Registered Historic Place stubs
- Fairfax County, Virginia, geography stubs
- United States garden stubs