Green Spring Gardens Park

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.

Green Spring
Green Spring house seen from the lawn in front, September 2015
Location4601 Green Spring Road, near Alexandria, Virginia
Coordinates38°49′N 77°9′W
Area9.5 acres (3.8 ha)
Builtc. 1777 (1777)–1784
ArchitectFarrand, Beatrix; Macomber, Walter
Architectural styleColonial, Colonial Revival
NRHP reference No.03001089[1]
VLR No.029-0025
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 22, 2003
Designated VLRJune 18, 2003[2]

Holdings

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).

  • Image of the house prior to the 1942 restoration
  • Cacti at the park, 2013
  • Boardwalk in the park, 2015
  • Interior of the visitors' center, 2015
  • Interior of the house set up as a tearoom, 2015

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  3. Langer, Emily (December 22, 2015). "Belinda Straight, psychiatrist and civil rights activist, dies at 95". Retrieved December 18, 2017 – via www.WashingtonPost.com.
  4. Sherrie L. Chapman (February 2003). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Green Spring" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying four photos


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