Plantation Home
Main Floor Plan

This small chamber was called the Cherry Tree Room in Philip Ludwell Lee's estate inventory of 1776, possibly because a majority of the furniture was made of cherry wood. It was listed as the Parlour in the 1758 inventory of Thomas Lee's estate. During the Federal period, the arched entry into the Dining Room replaced an earlier doorway.

This room may have been used for reading or entertaining. It was the custom after dinner to retire to a nearby room to drink tea, coffee or chocolate and to sip port or Madeira. Musical instruments would be brought out, and the young people would take turns entertaining the company with a song. At present there is no documentary evidence that this was the room to which the Lees habitually retired, but its location seems to justify this interpretation.

In the mid-18th century the dining room, like most rooms, was multi-purpose in nature. The furniture, including drop-leaf tables and many chairs, was placed against walls and pulled out into the room only when needed. In the 1776 inventory of Philip Ludwell Lee's estate, appraisers listed in the Dineing Room: One large oval table, one small oval table, 12 Blackwalnut chairs with leather bottoms...1 Tea kittle...5 Glass salvers, 17 Glass Tart moulds, 12 dissorted Jelly Glasses...1 Plate warmer, 1 table. Also included were 138 pieces of Queens China, assorted glassware - such as water glasses, wine glasses, beer glasses - and flatware - coin silver, as well as ivory and black-handled knives and forks.

The dining room was the center of family life in most 18th-century households. Breakfast was a hearty meal consumed between nine and ten. Dinner, the main meal of the day, was served between two and three o'clock in the afternoon. Supper was light, at about eight o'clock.

Dinner usually consisted of two courses, carefully planned by the mistress of the household. Soup, along with large cuts of meat such as venison, ham, goose, duck and fish, were the main fare of the first course. This was followed by servings of smaller cuts of meat - little game birds and other seafood dishes. A variety of vegetables such as "sallet greens," potatoes, parsnips and artichokes accompanied sweetmeats, puddings and pastries. The serving dishes were usually arranged in an attractive, symmetrical pattern. To the Virginian plantation mistress, the presentation of the food was as important as the food itself.

Visitors today enter Stratford much as family and guests probably did in the 18th century, from the south steps. Until the 19th century the upper level of the house was the family's living area; the lower level was used primarily for storage and service.

In the 18th century, the Great Hall was the most public area in the house. Guests were received here, and on special occasions it was used for dances and receptions. During the summer months it would have afforded a pleasant living area for the family, with doors opened north, south, east and west to provide refreshing cross breezes.

The Great Hall has been described as one of the most beautiful rooms in America. With a high tray ceiling, four tall windows, two double doors and two passage doors, the room is an outstanding example of Georgian symmetry. Four closets contain shelves which held some of the family's library.

Chandelier

According to the 1758 estate inventory of Thomas Lee, a "Chandeleer" lighted the Hall. Though not the original, this chandelier is typical of the period, and was hung using an iron hanger reproduced from the original in Stratford Hall's architectural fragments collection.

Listed as the Chamber in the 1775 inventory of Stratford, this bedchamber is where the mistress of the plantation would have visited and read with her children, conferred with the housekeeper, and entertained friends at tea. It is also the likely location of many Lee family births, including the birth of Robert Edward Lee in 1807.

The Chamber retains its original Federal period woodwork. Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee enlarged this corner room during his renovations of the late 18th or early 19th century, taking space from the adjoining nursery. The windows have raised paneled interior shutters, which fold into the window recesses and were used to monitor both light and heat.

Julia Calvert Stuart

Oil on canvas, America, 1833, a gift of Mrs. B. C. Grymes (1958.21)

Above the mantel hangs a portrait of Mary Custis Lee's cousin Julia Calvert Stuart. She was a bridesmaid at the wedding of Mary Custis and Robert E. Lee.

Linen Press

Made from Yellow pine, likely in Williamsburg, Virginia, c.1795. Purchased (2004.2).

Linen presses were useful case pieces--providing a secure central location for the storage of the household's costly textiles including bed sheets, tablecloths, and napkins. The key was likely under the protection of the mistress of the house or the head housekeeper. This press is carpenter-made and represents a type of case piece that may have been constructed by highly-skilled hired and enslaved craftsmen at Stratford.

By 1775, the former library and dressing room spaces had been converted into a chamber and adjoining nursery. When Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee enlarged and renovated the chamber in the late 18th century, he also removed a closet previously occupying part of the nursery area. Young Robert E. Lee would have probably been very familiar with the nursery since he was the last of Henry and Ann Lee's children to be born in the Great House. The nursery still retains two Federal period doorways leading into the chamber.

Fireback

The iron fireback in the small fireplace depicts two winged cherubs over the date 1745. The significance of this date is not known. Tradition holds that when young Robert E. Lee, not quite four years old, was leaving Stratford to move to Alexandria with his family, his last farewell was to the cherubs on the fireback.