Estimated reading time: 10 minutes
A family retreat
A search for a family retreat in the Virginia countryside drew Anjana Ghosh and Sumit Bhatnagar to a small stone cottage in the Blue Ridge mountains that had once belonged to George Washington. The four-room dwelling sat on fifty acres of land, offering an artist’s dream view of the Blue Ridge mountains on one side, and sweeping vistas of vineyards and wheat fields on the other.
The estate, located in northwestern Fauquier County, was part of a tract that Lord Fairfax gave in 1775 to George Washington, who then was a young surveyor of land in Culpeper County, Virginia. In a twist of fate that only history can bestow, a house once belonging to a Founding Father was sold in 2022 to the Bhatnagars, first-generation immigrants from India, who feel a poignant pride in their ownership of this small slice of American history.
The Bhatnagars didn’t begin their search for a country retreat with an active focus on historic properties. They moved to the DC metro area in 1998 and fell in love with Virginia’s scenic beauty, especially its many lush vineyards. The pandemic sparked their desire to find a countryside getaway, away from the city.
“We had explored the vineyards in the Middleburg area extensively,” Anjana told me. “We particularly enjoyed the Sunset Hills vineyard, and our original intention was to purchase a vineyard along those lines. We both feel passionately about a connection to the land and sustainability, and we wanted a serene, away from the madding crowd type of retreat.”
Finding their country retreat, they believe, is one of the few positive outcomes after COVID.
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
George Washington’s old home
“In 2021, we happened to see an advertisement for the sale of this estate,” says Anjana. “And when we saw the property, we fell in love with it. The property had a stream behind the house and a path winding down over a bridge, and we were simply enchanted by it. Of course, it needed work, however,” she added with a wry smile, “I was clueless about just how much.”
George Washington is said to have stayed at the stone cottage, once known as the Greystone House, as attested to by a 200-year-old plaque that reads “Gentleman George,” hanging in front of the house. After Washington, the property changed hands several times, with additional renovations made in the mid- 20th century. At one point, in the 1980s, it was even run as the Blackthorne Inn. But when Ghosh and Bhatnagar acquired the property in 2022, they did not anticipate the three and a half years and team of specialists it would take to restore Washington’s cottage to its original state and to develop the buildings and land surrounding it.
(image courtesy: Anjana Ghosh)
“However”, says Anjana, a petite dynamo of enthusiastic energy, “We had the support of the Middleburg community when we committed to preserving the property and maintaining it as a part of the area’s heritage.”
The renovation
As one walks up the short, pebbled driveway, the original house with its grey, roughly hewn stone, stands apart from the more modern extension attached to it. The cottage is typical of its era, with narrow doors and windows (average sizes were a lot smaller two hundred years ago), and a pitched roof. However, the large, high-ceilinged modern extension has been designed to blend seamlessly in with the smaller footprint of the original cottage. It has exposed wooden beams, sanded wooden floors, and stone finishes. Elk antler chandeliers and a lack of built-ins like cupboards or bookshelves contribute to a rustic, uncluttered feeling. This is a home that fuses the past with the present into one idyllic, livable space.
We sit in the sun-drenched extension where French doors open onto a balcony with a view of a small shimmering lake, and Ghosh reflects on the couple’s journey to America as a young family, filled with hope for their future in a country of boundless opportunity.
Anjana grew up in an army family. “My father used to be posted to remote places on the Indian border, and we would watch and participate as he transformed entire parcels of undeveloped land into a self-sufficient army cantonment, where we grew our own food. I guess life has brought me back full-circle to my roots, by entrusting us with the restoration of a home rich with history, and with the development of the acres of land surrounding it.”
Facing history head on
The first hurdle was renovating a cottage with a two-hundred-year-old history that did not meet modern building codes. Uncovering the bones of the original house was the equivalent of an archaeological dig. Washington’s original cabin had layers of old drywall that each new owner simply covered up, creating a mass of moldy, rotten insulation behind each coat. The kitchen had three separate roofs, built on top of each other over a hodgepodge of additions from different eras, ranging from the 1970s to the 1980s.
“The house,” declared Anjana, “had sprouted like a branching ginger root, and all its mismatched parts had to be brought into one coherent whole.”
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
A passion project
The arduous process of excavating and preserving the original cottage required months of hard work and numerous nerve-wracking surprises. When they opened the main fireplace, recalls Anjana, a nest of snakes fell at her feet. Tardy contractors added to the stress of the two-hour commute from the Bhatnagar’s house in Great Falls, and everyone on the site had to wear N95 masks at all times to keep the haze of restoration dust and mold at bay.
Yet, rather than follow the easier path of razing everything and rebuilding, “The more we uncovered, the more rooted I became in the history of the place. I wanted to reveal the original wood and preserve the original stone walls of the cottage,” says Anjana. “In spite of how enormous the task was, I became passionate about it.”
After months of trying to conceptualize how to integrate the haphazard extensions with the original cottage, Anjana decided to tear the 1980 extension down and rebuild the space with her own vision in mind.
Fusing two & a half centuries into one remarkable home
The newly-restored stone cottage, now called The Hunt, retains its historic façade, and a polyurethane coat protects and preserves the original two-hundred-year-old window frames. Excavating and preserving the stone walls was particularly challenging because the original glue holding them together, a kind of compost of rubble and dust, had crumbled.
“We actually researched the original compost glue and recreated it with an eye to historical accuracy,” declares Anjana. “We preserved what we could, where the wood hadn’t been eaten by white ants.”
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
The restoration preserved the original staircase, which led up to the two upstairs bedrooms and the attic, as well as the original support beams and the iron tension rod that held the two sides of the cottage together. Anjana also restored both fireplaces on the main level to a Washington-era design, while rebuilding the haphazard mid-20th-century extensions with new load-bearing beams “in order to pass the building code!”
Inside, many exotic antiques – 100-year-old artifacts from India – decorate the walls, nooks, and living areas. A striking brass ceremonial spoon used in religious rituals in South India sits on the mantle of the front room fireplace, while a bronze mask of Shiva, reflecting the Godhead trinity of Hinduism, sits on the opposite wall. Antique Indian carvings decorate the mantels, and old brass inlaid doors from India rest against some walls.
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
(image credit: Jyoti Minocha)
Ghosh and Bhatnagar wanted a home that complemented its history, without the clutter of modern living. So carefully chosen Indian antiques, thoughtfully placed in the 200-year-old American setting, pay tribute to the fusion and synergy of their lives as immigrants in the United States. The interior has antique Indian armoires instead of built-in closets for clothes, Victorian-era buffet tables from colonial India, and fireplace mantels sourced from a local, 80-year-old lumberyard.
A tale of two histories
Stepping into the old stone cottage, one can sense the echoes of parallel histories on two continents, American and South Asian, stretching back over two-hundred years, woven together into a delightful celebration of the American dream.
“As immigrants, we couldn’t be prouder to be part of the American experiment and to have contributed to it,” the Bhatnagars tell me. “Our family is humbled by the fact that we, as immigrants, have the opportunity to preserve the history of the nation we have adopted as our home and where we have raised our children.”
