Selected Outbuildings

George Washington’s landscape design combines beauty and functionality in a harmonious setting. Pleasure gardens and natural vistas run along the east-west axis, while the outbuildings on the north and south lanes tell the story of plantation life.  From dawn until dusk, six days a week, slaves worked spinning wool and linen, laundering the clothes of the Washingtons and hundreds of guests, preparing food, curing meats, shoeing horses, and many other jobs that supplied the services and goods necessary to keep a large plantation running.

There are more than a dozen outbuildings on Washington’s estate: the blacksmith shop, which features a working smithy who demonstrates the trade daily; slave quarters; greenhouse; spinning house/overseer’s quarters; salt house; gardener’s house; servants’ hall; kitchen; storehouse/clerks quarters; smokehouse; wash house; seed houses; necessaries; ; coach house; and stables.