III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW A. Brief Summary of Leesburg’s Development Created from a portion of Fairfax Scots-Irish and Germans arrived from The Carolina Road was first referred County, Loudoun County was Pennsylvania and the English from to as the Shenandoah Hunting Path established by an Act of the Virginia Virginia’s Tidewater region. and originally connected Frederick, General Assembly in 1757. The Maryland to a Native American Leesburg was laid out at the crossroads following year, John Carlyle, an trading post on the Roanoke River of two early Virginia roads, the Alexandria merchant, sold a portion of at the Virginia-North Carolina line Alexandria Road (Loudoun Street) and his landholdings to Nicolas Minor. John near present day Clarksville, Virginia. the Carolina Road (King Street). Hough was commissioned to survey this Today it is Virginia State Route 15, also small settlement for a new town to serve The Alexandria Road historically referred to as the Old Carolina Road. as the county seat. linked the port city of Alexandria with As the only major town located on the market center at Winchester. It is The town was established in 1758 the north-south trading route, and as known today as Virginia State Route 7 and named Leesburg, in honor of the the county seat for Loudoun County and has also been called the Alexandria- prominent Lee family of Virginia. (1757), Leesburg grew steadily Leesburg Turnpike and Leesburg Pike Early settlers to the Leesburg area throughout the eighteenth and early- throughout its history. came in search of good farmland. The nineteenth centuries. The original plan of Leesburg was completed by John Hough in 1759. Leesburg Old and Historic District Design Guidelines 7 III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW A. Brief Summary of Leesburg’s Development, continued The sale of the 70 original town lots was accompanied by the requirement that the half-acre lot be built upon within three years. The guidelines for the original town set the minimum dimensions for a building at 20 feet by 17 feet with a roof ridge at least 9 feet high. It was also specified that the structure must be built of brick, stone, or wood with a masonry chimney. A number of these early structures have been preserved and established the use of indigenous materials such as wood, fieldstone, and brick. Westward expansion surged at the end of the Revolutionary War, and Leesburg served as a gateway for this expansion. A photo, taken around 1900, of an early Leesburg building once incorrectly rumored to have served as Surviving architecture of this period Washington’s headquarters. shows an increase in the size of the structure and the level of craftsmanship. In 1835, A Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia described the town as a “well-built and neat village” with fifty houses, twenty-two general stores, three churches, a bank, six schools, four taverns, two apothecaries, paved streets and municipal water supplied through wooden pipes. As settlements grew to the west, the need increased for efficient ways to bring farm goods to market. This growth led to the construction of the Leesburg Turnpike by 1820 and an extension to the west in the following decade. Increased trade meant new prosperity for the town. This wealth was displayed by the construction of highly detailed Federal-style houses in the urban tradition of Alexandria and other fashionable coastal cities. Gray’s New Map of Leesburg from 1878. 8 Leesburg Old and Historic District Design Guidelines III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW By the eve of the Civil War, the growing of 350 Union soldiers. The Confederate mass-produced building materials town was an established trading center troops would be forced south six transported from major manufacturing and accessible by road, ferry and rail. months later, burning mills and bridges centers to Leesburg via the railroad The expanded thirty-six-block town as they left. Occupied and shelled but also by the presence in Leesburg of is illustrated on Gray’s New Map of by Union troops, the town witnessed the Norris Brothers’ Planing Mill and Leesburg, the basis for the boundaries of frequent movement of troops and raids Lumber Works. In the early-twentieth- the original (1969) Leesburg Old and throughout the duration of the war. century, as suburban northern Virginia Historic District (OHD). experienced a population surge, a Between the end of the Civil War and number of downtown lots were further The Alexandria, Loudoun and World War I, Leesburg continued to subdivided to allow for residential infill. Hampshire Railroad (AL&H) had grow with much of this development reached Leesburg in 1860 with a occurring in areas near and outside of Post-World War II growth lead to a route paralleling that of the Leesburg the town boundaries. It was during late-twentieth-century explosion of Turnpike. The railroads brought visitors this period that several of the late- subdivisions and commercial areas escaping the cities of Washington, eighteenth and early-nineteenth century bringing one of the most architecturally Georgetown and Alexandria as well as dwellings in the Nicholas Minor section, significant early townscapes in the state. factory-made building materials. Union the downtown core, were converted to troops destroyed the tracks and bridges commercial use. Through the foresight of nearly half- of this major supply line and held the a-century of preservation efforts, line until the close of the war. This increase in commercial activity Leesburg’s OHD, noted for its collection corresponded to an increase in of well-preserved, late-eighteenth During the Civil War, Leesburg was the residential construction. This through early-nineteenth-century scene of the 1861 Battle of Ball’s Bluff, expansion was made possible not only by structures, is preserved for today and a Confederate victory with the capture the inexpensive and highly decorative, the future. A view looking south on King Street around 1900 at the intersection of A similar view looking south on King Street around 1935 shows larger Market Street. The iron fence which surrounds the courthouse property is buildings and a streetscape influenced by the arrival of the automobile. just visible on the left. Leesburg Old and Historic District Design Guidelines 9 III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW B. Historic District Character and Neighborhoods Leesburg’s neighborhoods add Leesburg’s Old and Historic District Any building—whether an existing complexity, richness, and variety preserves the sense of place established structure or one that has yet to be built— to the OHD, and reflect the town’s by the immediate streetscape view fits into its larger context by degrees development patterns and history. Each as well as the district overall. Any of relationship that are based on the neighborhood is characterized by a existing or new building relates to individual’s view of a building within unique combination of building forms, its surroundings in a variety of ways, its surroundings. This approach may be architectural styles, and site features. including site planning, building design, considered as a series of concentric rings and materials. It relates not only to its that radiate out from that structure. Descriptions of the neighborhoods are immediate surroundings but also to the Each building relates immediately to provided to summarize their general broader context of the neighborhood those structures and site features that character. Neighborhoods do not have in which it is located and the district immediately surround it. From that hard borders. Neighborhoods are as a whole. point, it relates to the surrounding not intended to be mini-districts with neighborhood and, ultimately, to the separate design guidelines. entire historic district. 1 5 2 4 6 3 9 8 Old and Historic District Neighborhoods 1. West Market Street Gateway (page 11) 2.Old West and Market Historic Street District Neighborhoods Neighborhoods (page 12) 7 3.Old West and Market Historic Street District South (pageNeighborhoods 12) 4.1. DowntownWest Market (page Street 13) Gateway (page 11) 5.1.2. NorthWest KingMarket Street Street Gateway NeighborhoodsGateway (page (page14) (page11) 12) 2. West Market Street Neighborhoods (page 12) 6.3. EastWest Market Market Street Street Gateway South (page(page 15) 12) 3.4. WestDowntown Market (page Street 13) South (page 12) 7.4.5. TownDowntownNorth Branch King (pageStreet & W&OD 13)Gateway Trail Area (page (page 14) 16) 8.5.6. VinegarNorthEast Market King Hill (page Street Street 17) Gateway Gateway (page (page 14) 15) 9.6.7. SouthEastTown Market KingBranch Street Street & W&ODGateway Gateway Trail (page Area(page 18) (page 15) 16) 7.8. TownVinegar Branch Hill (page & W&OD 17) Trail Area (page 16) The8.9. Old VinegarSouth and Historic King Hill StreetDistrict(page Gateway 17)is divided (pageinto neighborhoods 18) which each have a unique scale and architectural and streetscape character. The character9. South of each King neighborhood Street Gateway informs (page appropriate 18) treatments for new development. 10 Leesburg Old and Historic District Design Guidelines III. ARCHITECTURAL AND DEVELOPMENT OVERVIEW 1. West Market Street Gateway The western entrance to the OHD Forms, Scale, and Styles: single-family, is characterized by large single-family 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 stories; vernacular homes deeply set back on large Victorian, Italianate, Queen Anne, landscaped properties. These dwellings Colonial Revival; gable, cross-gable, were predominantly built between the hipped roofs, small-paned windows, 1850s and mid-1900s, as well as the two-over-two windows, one-over-one circa 1830 Rock Spring Farm. More windows; one-story, one or three recent construction respects these earlier bay porches forms. This neighborhood includes the non-contributing West Green Materials: brick, stone, poured and development, which is very different concrete block foundations; wood in architectural character and site porches; slate shingle, standing- characteristics from the rest of seam metal, asphalt shingle roofs; the neighborhood.