Sully, built in 1794 by Richard Bland Lee, developed alongside the history of northern Virginia. Its Federal-style house used materials shipped from Philadelphia, and red fieldstone for several outbuildings was quarried nearby. Sully was a well-established farm when the American Civil War brought social and economic upheaval to the region in 1861, and by the mid-1900s it had changed from a working farm to a country retreat. When the location of Dulles International Airport just across Route 28 threatened the house and outbuildings, local citizens led by Eddie Wagstaff worked with the Fairfax County Park Authority to save the property in 1959. Richard Bland Lee, Virginia's first representative to the newly formed U.S. Congress, supported moving the federal government from Philadelphia to a site along the Potomac River in the late 1790s. He and his wife, Elizabeth Collins Lee, left Sully in 1811 and spent their later years in Washington City, District of Columbia, 30 miles east of Sully.
