Page 46 - Allison's Magazine Issue #97

SHE KNEW IT, AND THEY KNEW IT. his later years, Bill could not afford
The destruction of the house would be a to care for the twelve remaining acres
heartbreaking loss. of property on which the home was
NAMES But the work Hildie Carney and situated. (Blenheim’s heirs had sold off
the majority of the land, once a vibrant
her four fellow preservation-minded agricultural landscape of 367 acres, for
WORTH neighbors in Fairfax, Virginia—Brad residential development in the 1950s.)
Preiss, Bill Jayne, Andrea Loewenwarter, As a result, the Greek Revival-style
SAVING and Fairfax mayor David Meyer—were home, built around 1859 by Albert
about to take on was a far greater
Willcoxon, was now shrouded by
commitment than a few weekends, and vegetation and “had a lot of trees and
written by elizabeth bellizzi
photography by elizabeth bellizzi time was not on their side. For over a overgrown bushes,” Carney says. Only
year, beginning in late 1997, they met a a narrow, dirt driveway—not the home,
couple days a week in Carney’s basement which was set two hundred feet back—
with a goal to save a nearby residence was visible from the road.
known as Blenheim. The home’s most
remarkable feature, a Civil War treasure Through her dining room window,
in what was once Confederate territory, Carney could take stock of the challenge
was untouched for 137 years: graffiti ahead for her and her neighbors. She
left by Union soldiers on the attic walls. had moved here in 1964, and, thanks
Carney and her neighbors didn’t know it to her boys discovering Blenheim after
at the time, but other walls in the house venturing through the woods, she had
contained their own hidden stories. met Barbara Scott. Over the years,
Carney and Scott became close. Scott
The owner, Bill Scott, died earlier in showed her the attic and expressed
1997. His wife, Barbara, the last direct concern about what would happen to
descendant of this historic property, the house after she and her husband
had passed away ten years prior. In died, as they had no children.

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