If you are looking to spend an afternoon immersed in the opulence and history of early 20th-century high society, look no further than Morven Park in Loudoun County.
Tucked away just north of downtown Leesburg, Morven Park’s 1,000-acre grounds are home to an international equestrian center, the Morven Park Center for Civic Impact, scenic gardens, hiking trails and, perhaps most iconically, the historic Davis Mansion.
Morven Park’s last private owners, former Virginia Gov. Westmoreland Davis (1918-1922) and his wife Marguerite, bought the estate in 1903. After her husband’s death, Marguerite established the Westmoreland Davis Memorial Foundation to open Morven Park to the public in 1967.
Morven Park offers frequent tours of the mansion, the oldest section of which dates to around. 1800. Guests can visit the drawing room, dining room, kitchen, library and even the Davises’ bedrooms – all preserved exactly as Marguerite Davis left the house in 1942.
While many historic homes feature reproductions of historic furniture, furniture generally of the time period or curated similar pieces, everything in the Davis Mansion was owned by the family.
“It’s as if Marguerite gave us the keys and said, ‘Here, I’m going away. Invite your friends to take a look,’” said Stacey Metcalfe, executive director of Moven Park. “This is exactly how it was, so I think that’s magical.”
Stepping into the mansion, visitors will discover perfectly polished silver on the dining room sideboard, books left open on the library desk and even cosmetics scattered around Marguerite’s vanity table in the second-floor bedroom.
In the dining room, visitors can peruse a copy of the Southern Planter Journal to find articles written by Westmoreland Davis.
The tour has no ropes or stanchions, so visitors are free to proceed at their own pace and examine items closely. This includes the early-20th-century refrigerator and Marguerite’s closet.
And although the tour is mainly focused on the Davises’ lives, it incorporates local, state and national history. Visitors can expect to learn about the poll tax, the grandfather clause and aspects of the Virginia Constitution.
“I just love this tour,” said Miranda Boljat, Morven Park’s museum and interpretation coordinator. “I feel like it’s very well written to go through the history, both chronologically and subject-to-subject, covering the people who lived here, also the building itself, but also [there is] all the stuff that’s inside it [authentic and displayed] as if they had ‘stepped out for the day.’”
Jackson Everline, 12, described the tour as “fun, immersive and unique.” He and his family traveled from Richmond to visit his grandmother and decided to take a tour after visiting the Morven Park grounds.
“The coolest thing I’ve seen on the whole tour is definitely the big chandelier in the front room,” Jackson said. “The tour was very interesting. There’s some very unique stuff. I learned a lot.”
For those really interested in getting up close and personal with the items, the mansion also offers tours that expand beyond the main rooms and standard narrative.
“The foundation opened its doors in 1967, and since then … they opened up more and more rooms,” Metcalfe said. “There are different stories that are told throughout the years. We’re always adding on little nooks and crannies here.”
As visitors travel from room to room, they often marvel at the elaborate tapestries and the Japanese folding screen. However, even the period stove and hot water tank – considered high-tech luxury appliances in their day – are met with fascination.
It is impossible to separate the Davises’ private lives from the history of the early 20th century, so the tour leans heavily into educating the guests about that time period.
In addition to stories about their cosmopolitan travels, tourists will hear how Gov. Davis worked to improve Virginia’s literacy rate, how Marguerite volunteered as a nurse in the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic and how the voting rate in Loudoun has changed over the years.
“Obviously we have a lot of the history of the location … but also just a lot of aspects of Westmoreland Davis’ life that feel very applicable,” Boljat said. “We cover a lot of topics, like voter rights and things like that, that a lot of people just don’t know or kind of take for granted.”
Whether you’re into regional history, civic engagement or just exploring the outdoors, Davis Mansion and the wider Morven Park offer something for everyone, Metcalfe said, adding that she thinks of the park as “Loudoun County’s 1,000-acre backyard.”
“This is a community gem,” Metcalfe said. “People take the tours, and they go to the gardens, and they just get curious, and that’s what we want. It’s a resource for everyone.”
Sixuan Wu is a rising senior journalism student at James Madison University who lives in Bristow.
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Specialty tours
Each month Davis Mansion also offers one of two specialized tours. The Nooks & Crannies tour invites visitors into parts of the mansion that usually remain closed to the public; the Cabinets of Curiosities tour invites visitors to view the rare objects hidden in the mansion’s wardrobes, chests and writing desks. Visit the InsideNoVaTix page for details.
The Davis Mansion is decorated for the holidays during the Christmas season.
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