Mount Vernon’s Staircases

By Erin Holmes

In April 1759, en route to Mount Vernon with his new wife, George Washington dashed off a letter to steward John Alton directing him to clean and air out the Mansion, put out the beds and tables that had been stored away, collect some eggs and chickens, and polish the staircase “in order to make it look well.” While some of these instructions were about comfort, Washington understood the powerful impression a plantation house’s grand staircase could make and wanted his new bride, who was several rungs above him on Virginia’s social ladder, to understand that he was worthy of her.

Mount Vernon’s staircases—how they changed, how they were used, and by whom—tell important stories about daily life on the estate that don’t necessarily persist in the documentary record. They reveal the way Washington envisioned his household functioning and the way it actually did. Because of the way the staircases shaped the work of the house, they also provide important insight into the lives of the enslaved people who worked there. Moreover, these staircases continue to inform the interpretation and preservation of the house more than 150 years after the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association began its work.

The grand staircase’s earliest appearance in the documentary record comes in 1758, as Washington began to transform the house he would inherit. The staircase needed special work. The original stair was much narrower and less impressive, so Washington’s builder, John Patterson, hired carpenter and joiner Going Lanphier to build the spacious staircase with well-turned balusters that continues to occupy the passage. Portions of the original stair were re-used to create the new stair to the third floor, but determining how to place it raised concerns.

In August 1758, Patterson wrote to Washington, “In regard to pleacing the Stairs up to the Garret, I do not intend to adapt them in the Room mentiond, in the last Letter, but opposite to the head of the old Stair Caise, takeing them off from the store room.” Patterson’s recommendation is the configuration that exists today, but Washington was apparently unsure enough of this plan to write to his close friend, George William Fairfax of nearby Belvoir, who was checking on the builder’s progress.

The alternative was to have these stairs begin in a second-floor room that was initially intended as a lumber room. In response, Fairfax offered these considerations:

I am at a loss unless I know whether you intend that for Lodging Appartments for Servts. If not the Stairs may be carried from the left hand room, which you design for Lumber, without making it publick.... If the Little Stairs ... will be an Eye-sore you may find a door which will make it uniform.