About: Mount Airy Plantation

Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed architect and builder. Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence (Richard Henry Lee being the other brother) are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River (comprisin