VA-N31 Kenmore

Marker text: KENMORE

Four blocks west stands Kenmore, built in 1775 by Col. Fielding Lewis for his wife, Betty, sister of George Washington. Near here, between Kenmore and the Rappahannock River, stood Lewis's warehouses and docks. Kenmore's intricate plasterwork is the finest in the country. Among 19th-century owners and occupants were Samuel Gordon, who named it Kenmore, and William Key Howard Jr., who restored and embellished the mansion's plasterwork. Washington and other Revolutionary leaders often visited, and during the Civil War Union troops used it as a hospital. The Garden Club of Virginia, starting in 1929, rehabilitated Kenmore's gardens as its first restoration project.

Department of Historic Resources, 1995