One of America’s most noted works of Georgian architecture, Kenmore was completed by 1776 for Fielding Lewis and his wife Betty Washington Lewis, the only sister of George Washington. Lewis was a merchant and planter as well as a One of America’s most noted works of Georgian architecture, Kenmore was completed by 1776 for Fielding Lewis and his wife Betty Washington Lewis, the only sister of George Washington. Lewis was a merchant and planter as well as a Revolutionary patriot. He served in the House of Burgesses, financed the Fredericksburg Gun Manufactory, and helped organize local resistance by merchants and militia during the American Revolution. Kenmore, the Lewis’s mansion, with its plain but formal exterior, boasts an exceptionally elaborate interior with the finest 18th-century plasterwork ceilings and chimneypieces in the country. The dining room, one of America’s most beautiful historic spaces, features an overmantel containing a plaster bas-relief with scenes from Aesop’s fables. Threatened by development in 1922, the property was purchased by the Kenmore Association (now the George Washington Foundation), which exhibits the house as a museum. Kenmore is within the boundaries of the Washington Avenue Historic District in Fredericksburg, and on the grounds are restored gardens as well as the archaeological sites of several original outbuildings.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia