A plan to make James Monroe's Virginia estate a state park was rejected. Now, it's in limbo.
Loudoun County, Virginia — The fate of a historic property once home to one of America's Founding Fathers is uncertain after the Virginia state legislature rejected efforts last month to make Oak Hill, home of President James Monroe, a public park.
Loudoun County's Oak Hill is the only home belonging to one of the country's earliest presidents which remains in private hands.
"I think he loved the place," Gayle Delashmutt, whose family has owned and cared for the property for more than 70 years, told CBS News.
Delashmutt said there was "quite a bit of correspondence" between Monroe and President Thomas Jefferson "about the design of the house."
The family is ready to move on, but there's just one catch.
"I had no idea it was going to be so hard to give this place away," Delashmutt said.
Since acquiring the property in 1948 at auction, the Delashmutt family has carefully maintained the home and its 1,200 acres. Walking through the home, which was built by enslaved people more than 200 years ago, its history can be felt. The office where Monroe drafted the Monroe Doctrine, which established the tenets of U.S. foreign policy, was in what is today Oak Hill's dining room. Over the years, the family has received top-dollar offers from developers. But the family wants the house and expansive grounds to be preserved as a state park.
"They could probably sell it for three times as much money as we're paying for it," said Heather Richards, Virginia director of
the Conservation Fund, a nonprofit preservation group, which has agreed to purchase the property for $20 million.
The Conservation Fund has helped put together another $32 million to turn it into a state park and museum, as well as fund operating expenses for at least a decade. Of that $52 million total, Loudoun County has agreed to provide $22 million in public money to the Conservation Fund in the form of a grant.
According to Richards, a recently completed feasibility study commissioned by the Conservation Fund determined that the property could be operated without public funding for at least the next 10 years.
"The study shows that this property can be acquired, opened and operated with the funding that is being provided well into the future," Richards said.
But in February, the Virginia General Assembly rejected a bill to authorize the plan, which Delashmutt admitted left her "surprised."
"Because we're practically giving it away," Delashmutt said. According to Richards, the family received offers of close to $60 million to purchase the property.
Virginia state Sen. Scott Surovell supports the proposal, but said other lawmakers worried the state would end up footing the bills.
"There's a lot of concern amongst some of the finance committee members about the future economics of the property," Surovell told CBS News. "I think there's a way to figure all this out, but I think it might just take a little more time."
One option involves Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who could include Oak Hill in an amendment to the state's budget. A vote is expected in the state legislature next month.
"1,200 acres of open space in Northern Virginia just will not come along again," Richards said. "And we're very hopeful that Governor Youngkin will see that and take advantage of this opportunity."
Delashmutt sees this property serving as a "wonderful teaching tool" to the public about one of the Founding Fathers.
"We saw over the 32 years that we were here, how much it was appreciated when people had a chance to come in and learn the history," Delashmutt said.
Still in the home are two mantels that were a gift from Revolutionary War hero the Marquis de Lafayette, who visited Oak Hill twice in 1825 as part of his famous tour of the U.S.
"He sent these two wonderful Italian marble mantels to Mr. Monroe, which was a pretty, pretty nice house present," Delashmutt said.
The history is more than presidential, it's prehistoric. On the porch are stones excavated from a quarry on the property that reveal evidence of the dinosaurs who once roamed the land.
Says Richards: "There are untold stories here that can be told through the mechanism of a state park where people can come and learn about the incredible history, of not just the Monroes, but the entire breadth of our history here in the Commonwealth."
