The property encompasses 500 acres and borders the Potomac River.
It’s laborious to consider {that a} residence constructed earlier than America was even a rustic would nonetheless be standing, not to mention up on the market. However that’s true of a proper manor home, a cultural and architectural time capsule, that was in-built 1755 on farmland alongside the Potomac River in Maryland.
Mulberry Fields in Leonardtown consists of a lot extra than simply the manor home. There are greater than a dozen quarters, cottages and barns on the property (some historic, some added) on what was a flourishing plantation within the 18th century. Together with the buildings, the property sits on 500 acres with a stately allee of cedar timber on the south facet that result in a mile of white-sand seaside on the river.
Relationship to the 18th century, the manor home stays an architectural time capsule.
The manor home and property have remained within the fingers of the present homeowners’ household for greater than a century. The asking worth is $30 million.
Mulberry Fields holds the only real remaining Georgian-style residence in “an space which as soon as boasted a number of such constructions,” in response to the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations. The previous plantation joined the historic register in 1973.
A cedar-lined driveway with split-rail fencing results in the assorted constructions on the positioning.
Exterior, a driveway lined with timber results in the home, which has an Annapolis-style facade. But it surely’s the riverfront entrance on the south facet that claims essentially the most consideration: a big heart door with two giant home windows at both sides (in earlier occasions, you would possibly arrive by boat). Round 1820, an elaborate two-story portico with lengthy Doric columns was added.
Inside, a lot of the unique woodwork, moldings and mantels stay intact. For instance, partitions of rectangular raised panels stretch to the ceiling within the nice room and eating room on the primary flooring.
Historic particulars embrace a lot of the unique woodwork.
There are three bedrooms on the second flooring and three that make up all the third flooring. Fashionable additions embrace a kitchen, 4 full bogs and one half-bath, and air-conditioning.
The home is flanked by two stand-alone interval buildings: the kitchen, which has been transformed as a visitor cottage, and the weaving home, which retains its authentic clapboard partition partitions, flooring, doorways and {hardware}. Each have peaked roofs and brick facades. These “dependencies,” or outbuildings, as soon as housed enslaved individuals who served as cooks, steady fingers, servants and housekeepers.
The a number of fireplaces have been as soon as the only real sources of heating.
Different buildings on the property embrace a dairy, smokehouse, carriage home, backyard/device shed, a number of animal and tools barns, one in every of which has been transformed, farmhouse and previous dwelling.
It’s not laborious to think about a contemporary way of life on the land, one with bonfires on the riverfront seaside, walks within the fields and woods, and entertaining within the historic grand room.
Paneled partitions enclose the formal eating room.
The home was constructed by John Attaway Clarke and ultimately handed to his nephew, William Somerville, who had a labor pressure of enslaved individuals who labored within the fields to domesticate corn, wheat, flax and cotton within the early 1800s. The property ultimately went to his son, William Clarke Somerville, the house’s most notable proprietor, who distinguished himself whereas serving as a U.S. Military main within the Battle of 1812.
Somerville toured Europe and rubbed shoulders with the poet Lord Byron, Britain’s famed Duke of Wellington and the Marquis de Lafayette, who fought in America’s struggle of independence as a younger man. He acquired a diplomatic appointment in Greece by then President John Quincy Adams however died en route at Lafayette’s residence.
One of many historic buildings is used as an artwork studio.
The property went by a number of fingers earlier than passing to the present homeowners, who possess architectural plans and approvals that permit for reworking the kitchen and bogs in addition to the addition of a brand new wing on the west facet of the house.
Present leases on the positioning produce an revenue of $70,000. The property has area for as many as 12 rental models. Revenue is also derived from farming and the U.S. Navy, which maintains a navigation sign on the river.
The 2 brick buildings close to the manor home have been used for cooking, weaving and housing enslaved … [+]
When it comes to consumers, the homeowners are hoping the property will go to somebody who will defend the historic gem. “The homeowners and their households for generations have been very instrumental in maintaining the historical past of it and never destroying it with renovations right here and there,” says itemizing agent Kornelia Stuphan of Lengthy & Foster Actual Property. “We might love for it to be preserved. We’re hoping for a historic belief or basis.” Whoever winds up shopping for Mulberry Fields could have bought a uncommon piece of American historical past.
Mulberry Fields is positioned at 19700 Mulberry Fields Street in Leonardtown, Maryland.
The river-facing facade of the manor home welcomed guests who arrived by boat.
