Locust Hill is an early 19th-century Federal-style

Federal architecture

Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the United States between c. 1780 and 1830, and particularly from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with its era, the Federal Period. The name Federal style is also used in association with furniture design...

 mansion north of Leesburg

Leesburg, Virginia

Leesburg is a historic town in, and county seat of, Loudoun County, Virginia, United States of America. Leesburg is located west-northwest of Washington, D.C. along the base of the Catoctin Mountain and adjacent to the Potomac River. Its population according the 2010 Census is 42,616...

 in Loudoun County

Loudoun County, Virginia

Loudoun County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and is part of the Washington Metropolitan Area. As of the 2010 U.S. Census, the county is estimated to be home to 312,311 people, an 84 percent increase over the 2000 figure of 169,599. That increase makes the county the fourth...

, Virginia

Virginia

The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...

, United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

. Locust Hill was the home of John Thomson Mason

John Thomson Mason

John Thomson Mason, Jr. was a U.S. Congressman from Maryland, representing the sixth district from 1841 to 1843.-Early life and education:...

 (15 March 1765–10 December 1824), a prominent American jurist and Attorney General of Maryland in 1806 and nephew of Founding Father of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States of America were political leaders and statesmen who participated in the American Revolution by signing the United States Declaration of Independence, taking part in the American Revolutionary War, establishing the United States Constitution, or by some...

 George Mason

George Mason

George Mason IV was an American Patriot, statesman and a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention...

.

History

Locust Hill is believed to have been built for John Thomson Mason

John Thomson Mason

John Thomson Mason, Jr. was a U.S. Congressman from Maryland, representing the sixth district from 1841 to 1843.-Early life and education:...

, a nephew of George Mason

George Mason

George Mason IV was an American Patriot, statesman and a delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention...

 of Gunston Hall

Gunston Hall

Gunston Hall is an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River in Mason Neck, Virginia, United States of America. The house was the home of the United States Founding Father George Mason. It was located at the center of a 5500 acre plantation...

 and son of Thomson Mason

Thomson Mason

Thomson Mason was a prominent Virginia lawyer, jurist, and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Mason was a younger brother of George Mason IV, United States patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S...

 of nearby Raspberry Plain

Raspberry Plain

Raspberry Plain is a historic property and former plantation in Loudoun County, Virginia, near Leesburg. Raspberry Plain was one of the principal Mason family estates of Northern Virginia.- History :...

. Although no definite date of construction has been determined, stylistically the house probably dates from the first quarter of the 19th-century.

Architecture

Locust Hill is a Federal-style Flemish-bond brick house situated on the first rise of the eastern slope of Catoctin Mountain

Catoctin Mountain

Catoctin Mountain, along with the geologically associated Bull Run Mountains, comprises the easternmost mountain ridge of the Blue Ridge Mountains, which are in turn a part of the Appalachian Mountains range...

. The residence features a brick water table

Water table (architecture)

A water table is a masonry architectural feature that consists of a projecting course that deflects water running down the face of a building away from lower courses or the foundation...

, twelve-over-twelve double-sash windows, and fanlight

Fanlight

A fanlight is a window, semicircular or semi-elliptical in shape, with glazing bars or tracery sets radiating out like an open fan, It is placed over another window or a doorway. and is sometimes hinged to a transom. The bars in the fixed glazed window spread out in the manner a sunburst...

s over each of the formal entrances. Locust Hill's two-story front portico

Portico

A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls...

 with stylized American order capitals

Capital (architecture)

In architecture the capital forms the topmost member of a column . It mediates between the column and the load thrusting down upon it, broadening the area of the column's supporting surface...

 served as the inaugural stand from Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...

's second presidential inauguration in 1937.

Locust Hill's property also features several farm buildings, one which is an early 20th-century frame barn with a jerkin

Jerkin

The word jerkin can mean:* Jerkin * Falconer's term for a male gyrfalcon* In architecture, a half-hip roof* Jerkin' - a hip hop dance movement that originated in Los Angeles....

head roof.

Events

• Ann Mason Tutt (1807–1873), daughter of Charles Pendleton Tutt and Ann Mason Chichester, married Charles Bonnycastle at Locust Hill on 10 January 1826.
• Mary Barnes Tutt (1815–1898), daughter of Charles Pendleton Tutt and Ann Mason Chichester, married John Aris Throckmorton at Locust Hill on 14 March 1839.