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City: Newport News
State: VA
Zip: 23607
Phone: 757-888-3371
Lee Hall is an Italianate plantation house set on a rise and visible from the main thoroughfare. It was home to Richard Decatur Lee, his wife, her two sons and their four children. Just three years after construction of the house, the War Between the States erupted. Lee supported the Confederacy and secession. The strategic location of the property made it desirable by both the Union and the Confederacy. It served as the headquarters of Confederate Generals Magruder and Johnston first, but by May 1862, after a skirmish around Lee Hall itself, Union troops occupied the lower Peninsula until the end of the war. When the Lees returned, they found their property, like many others, had been seized by the Freedmen's Bureau. Only after receiving a pardon from President Andrew Johnson in 1865 was Lee's property restored to him. However, without slaves as a labor force and his mill, which had been destroyed by Union troops, Lee was never able to turn a profit again. By 1870, he was so much in debt that the property was sold. The house and brick kitchen still stand today though both were altered over the 134-year period before they were purchased by the City of Newport News in 1996. The property is now 15 acres. In addition to the earthwork constructed during the Civil War skirmish, other changes to the site include the C&O Railway crossing through the property in 1881, only 400 feet from the back door of the house. The Garden Club of Virginia's work at Lee Hall includes tree planting and fences for property.
Year: 2003
Landscape Architect: William D. Rieley
Trees and fencing
