Picture this A sprawling estate in Leesburg Virginia. This is Oatlands Historic District a place where history whispers from the very stones. Oatlands wasn’t always the serene landscape you see today.
Oatlands Historic District began in 1798. George Carter a great-grandson of Robert “King” Carter established it. He built a wheat farm that expanded to include other grains sheep a gristmill a sawmill and even a vineyard. In 1804 Carter started building the impressive Federal-style mansion. He expanded it in the 1820s and 1830s. A terraced garden and numerous outbuildings were added. This was a testament to the wealth of the era and the hard work of enslaved laborers.
The truth is Oatlands’ prosperity relied on the enslaved people who worked the land. When Carter first owned the land there were 17 enslaved individuals. Over time through purchases and the cruel system of chattel slavery their numbers grew to 133 by 1860. These people were vital to planting harvesting caring for animals performing domestic labor and possibly even crafting in trades. Their labor built Oatlands.
After George Carter died in 1846 his widow Elizabeth Grayson Lewis Carter inherited the property. In 1861 fearing a Civil War battle nearby she fled. George Carter II reopened the mansion with his wife in 1863. He inherited the property upon his mother’s death in 1887. The Carter family sold Oatlands in 1897 for $10000. Stilson Hutchins founder of The Washington Post bought it but never lived there.
William Corcoran Eustis and Edith Livingston Morton Eustis purchased Oatlands in 1903. Mrs Eustis revitalized the neglected gardens. She added boxwood-lined parterres statuary a rose garden a bowling green and a reflecting pool. Her plantings included Buxus sempervirens ‘Arborescens’ and ‘Suffruticosa’ Larix decidua and Quercus robur. The house received modern upgrades including indoor plumbing heating gas lighting pine floors an elevator and a custom bathroom.
The prominent Eustises had many famous friends. General George C Marshall Henry Cabot Lodge President Harry S Truman and Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt all visited. In 1964 after Mrs Eustis’s death her daughters gifted Oatlands to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
Oatlands became a National Historic Landmark in 1971. In 1974 surrounding areas were designated the Oatlands Historic District. Oatlands Mills Mountain Gap School and the Church of Our Savior are all included in this designation. Walk these grounds and feel the weight of history. Imagine the lives lived here the work done and the legacy left behind. Oatlands Historic District a living testament to the past.