Historic Green Spring

B-260

A 1784 brick house, a spring house, and a designed landscape showcase the unique 1942 collaboration of two American masters of design, Walter Macomber and Beatrix Farrand. Green Spring is the only known place where both designers' work is extant. Macomber, restoration architect for Colonial Williamsburg and Mount Vernon, completed a Colonial Revival rehabilitation of the buildings that reflected the growing popularity of the style for domestic architecture. Farrand, the sole female member of the American Society of Landscape Architects at its founding in 1899, designed the gardens around the brick house with her trademark clarity of outline and transition from formal to informal landscapes.

Department of Historic Resources, 2009

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Balmori, Diana, Diane Kostial McGuire and Eleanor M. McPeck. Beatrix Farrand’s American Landscapes: Her Gardens and Campuses. (Sagaponack, NY: Sagapress, Inc., 1985). Cook, Edward R., William J. Callahan, Jr., Camille Wells. Dendrochronological Analysis of Green Spring House, Alexandria, Fairfax County, Virginia. January, 2008. Fairfax County Park Authority, Division of Historic Preservation Archaeological Report completed by Richard J. Dent, PhD. Director, Potomac Run Archaeology Survey of the American University. January 28, 1992. Farrand, Beatrix. Preliminary Sketch of proposed design for Straight gardens dated October 30, 1942; located in Farrand Papers at the University of California, Berkeley. HABSI (HABS Inventory Sheets). Includes documentation by George Worthington, August 12, 1958 and by Nan Netherton’s 1969 Virginia Landmarks commission report. HABS, VA, 30-ANDA. V,1 - Moss House. Netherton, Nan and Ross. Green Spring Farm, Fairfax County, Virginia. (Fairfax, VA: Office of Comprehensive Planning, 1977). Straight, Michael. Interviews conducted by Sherrie L. Chapman, September 11-12, 2002. Fairfax County Park Authority Collections.