View of Arlington House from Arlington Cemetery

Arlington House is the former home of Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate army during the Civil War. However, the house was originally built by George Washington Parke Custis, the grandson of Martha Custis. Marth is the lady who married George Washington as her second husband. After his father died and his mother was unable to care for four children on her own, the Washington’s took in Custis and raised him. He loved George Washington and thought of him as his father.

When Martha died in 1802, Custis inherited 1,100 acres on the Potomac River. He also bought as much George Washington memorabilia as he could afford during a Mount Vernon estate sale. He stored the collection in a small cottage near the river, but the items quickly began to deteriorate from mold and mildew. To remedy the situation, he set out to build a grand mansion: a memorial to George Washington where he could display his memorabilia to anyone who stopped by. The mansion was to have a large main house and two wings, all built using the Greek Revival style of architecture. Unfortunately, Custis was short on money at the time and was only able to build what is now the north, or left wing, of Arlington House. It was originally two stories tall and hastily constructed with no real plan in mind using materials he could find on his property—timber and clay for bricks—and the labor of his slaves and paid craftsman.

In 1804 he was able to build the south wing of the house. Once completed, he moved all of his memorabilia into the new building and set it up as a place to entertain guests. The family remained living in the north wing.

It wasn’t until 1816 that Custis had the money to begin construction on the main house. The budget was tight, but he wanted his Washington memorial to be extraordinary. He therefore saved money by building a brick house and then covering it in what is known as hydraulic cement, or stucco. Once hard, the surface was painted to look like sandstone, with a faux marble finish painted at the top of the portico, giving the brick structure a regal look. In addition, the north wing was remodeled to match the south wing so that it fit in with the architectural design scheme. Everything was completed in 1818.

Side view of Arlington House shows the left wing, Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial

Robert E. Lee came into the picture in June 1831 when he married Mary Anna Custis, a distant cousin who he knew since childhood. She was the daughter of George Washington Parke Custis and his wife Mary Lee Fitzhugh. Lee immediately moved in with Mary and her parents, though he was often away on military duty and mainly came back for the holidays.

Mary, the only surviving Custis child, inherited the house and property in 1857 when her father died (her mother had died in 1853). At that time the house and overall estate was in poor condition, so Robert took three years off from his military duties to get things back in order. George W. P. Custis had stated in his will that the family’s slaves were to be freed within five years of his death, or sooner if the plantation was in good financial condition. It has been pointed out that Robert E. Lee never owned slaves, which may be technically true, but he certainly took advantage of their work while living at Arlington House during the Custis years. Even when the Lees inherited the house and the slaves, legally everything and everyone belonged to Mary. Lee kept the slaves for the full five years after Custis’s death even though he could have freed them sooner. He did, however, honor the will and freed everyone in 1862.

When the Civil War began, President Abraham Lincoln offered Lee command of the Union army. However, like many people of the time, his loyalty ran with the state where he was born, and his decision to fight for the Confederates was solely predicated on the fact that Virginia seceded from the Union. Had Virginia stayed with the Union, Lee would have taken Lincoln’s offer.

Knowing that Arlington was certain to be occupied by Union forces due to its strategic view of Washington, D. C., and the surrounding area, Mary shipped the most valuable items in the house to friends and family farther south and then left for Richmond under a Union military escort. Selina Gray, slave and head housekeeper of the Lee’s, remained behind with her family as caretaker of the property.

As runaway slaves fled into Union territory, the government was overwhelmed with refugees. To combat the issue, Freedman’s Villages were set up at various locations, with one of the first being on the grounds of the Arlington plantation about a half mile from the house. Here the residents could build small houses and establish a working community complete with a school, hospital, and business shops. While the government intended for the villages to be temporary, most of the residents formed a permanent attachment to the land.

As the village grew to many thousands of residents after the war, the government was tasked with maintaining the property, and thus began to impose rents. Protests broke out and payments were hard to collect. Talks about closing the village began as early as 1868, but it wasn’t until 1900 that the Arlington Freedman’s Village was finally shut down. Residents were, however, paid for their homes and improvements they had made to the land.

In 1864, the Federal government confiscated Arlington plantation when Mary Lee failed to pay a property tax that required her to appear in person. Shortly thereafter, in a political move to ensure that Robert E. Lee would never try to reclaim the land, the government established Arlington National Cemetery on the grounds. The ploy worked, for Lee never did return to see the house; Mary came only one time before her death.

Graves of Arlington Cemetery surround Arlington House

The Arlington plantation was to have been inherited by Lee’s oldest son, Custis, so he took the Federal government to court in 1877 on charges that it illegally confiscated the property. In 1882, the Supreme Court sided with Lee. Since the house was now surrounded by a cemetery he had no intentions of moving in, so he sold Arlington House back to the government for $150,000 in 1886.

After the Civil War, Robert E. Lee went on to become president of Washington College. He was a proponent of restoration, and because of this he became accepted as a righteous person by those in the North. In 1925 a bill was passed to create a memorial to Lee at Arlington, and the house was restored to its 1861 appearance. The National Park Service took over in 1933. The park, originally called the Custis Lee Mansion, was renamed Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial in 1972.

The first restoration of Arlington House began in 1929 and was finished for the opening of the park in 1933. The house was in good condition, having been used all along as the residence of the superintendent of Arlington Cemetery, but there were no original furnishings, or any furnishings from the pre-Civil War era. After much effort, a collection was assembled that consisted of authentic antiques from the early to mid-1800s, reproductions of actual furniture and decorative items that were once at Arlington but were now back at Mount Vernon, and some original pieces of Custis and Lee.

The antiques were donated by wealthy patrons and make up the majority of the larger furniture items now on display. However, the Mount Vernon reproductions and the original pieces have a much more interesting story. Long before there were any plans for a Robert E. Lee memorial, the items Mary Lee shipped from the house before the Union occupation were donated to Mount Vernon, Washington College (now Washington and Lee University), and the Smithsonian. For the most part, these institutions were not willing to give up the items for the new Arlington House renovation.

When Mary evacuated to Richmond she left plenty of furnishings in the house, including some of the George Washington-owned pieces. Everything was initially protected by the Union officers who moved into Arlington House, but after the loss at the First Battle of Manassas (aka First Battle of Bull Run), security got a little lax. When Union soldiers stole some of the Washington memorabilia, Selina Gray went to General Irvin McDowell, who was then using the house as his headquarters, and convinced him that the items needed to be saved. McDowell had the Lees’ personal possessions secured in the attic and basement and shipped the Washington memorabilia to the patent office in Washington, D. C. After the war the memorabilia was returned to Mount Vernon. When attempting to furnish the restored Arlington House, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association was approached about allowing the Custis-owned items to be reproduced, to which they agreed.

The Lee items that had been stored in the attic and basement were retained by the U. S. government. Mary attempted to get them back, and while President Andrew Johnson agreed, Congress held things up. It wasn’t until 1901, long after Mary’s death, that President William McKinley had the items returned to the Lee family, who later donated many of the pieces back to Arlington House. All told, about a third of the furnishings in the house today are original Lee and Custis pieces, including the Lees’ bed on display in their second floor bedroom. There have also been a few items returned by the men who stole them during the occupation, and some of the former slaves donated items that were once gifted to them.

Nearly all of the original paintings that hung in the house have been located, but many are now privately owned or are in museums. Most, but not all, of what you see today are reproductions.

In 2017, an second major renovation of Arlington House began. This not only included upgrades to the house, but also to the museums and book store. The renovation was completed in early 2021, and the house reopened in June. Arlington House now meets present day museum standards. With a new security and climate control system, it is hoped that other museums will now lend original pieces for display at the house. The National Park Service also hopes to buy back some of the original furnishings and paintings with the money donated for the renovation.

While not everything in the house is original, the rooms have been furnished much as they were in 1861. But how would anyone know what the place looked like? Four of Selina Gray’s children were still alive in the late 1920s when the original restoration was started, and they were consulted about the home’s appearance. Help also came from another former slave, Jim Parks, or Uncle Jim as he was better known. Parks was 85 years old at the time but still had a great memory. It was he who remembered the interior layouts of the slave quarters. When he died in 1929, he was buried at Arlington Cemetery despite never having served in the military. He is the only person buried at Arlington who was born at Arlington.

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