The historic heart of Washington and Lee University, located in the Lexington Historic District, is an architecturally harmonious complex of buildings forming one of the nation’s most dignified and beautiful campuses. The central element, the Colonnade, gives the impression of a single design concept. It is, in reality, the product of a building program extending over 150 years. The first buildings, erected in 1803 for what was then Washington College, have disappeared. The classical theme of the complex was established with the oldest existing building, the temple-form Washington Hall of 1824. Its builder architects, John Jordan and Samuel Darst, here transformed the prevailing Roman Revival style into a sturdy regional idiom. Washington Hall was flanked by Payne Hall in 1831 and by Robinson Hall in 1843. Two pairs of porticoed faculty residences were also added to the complex. Stylistically contrasting elements are the distinctive President’s House of 1868 and the Lee Chapel of 1866-67.