Gunston Hall Garden Restoration and Visitor Center
Location: Mason Neck, VA
Client: Glavé & Holmes Architecture
Owner: George Mason’s Gunston Hall
Size: 1 acre (Garden); 6,500 SF (Visitor Center)
Axias Role: Cost Estimating
Gunston Hall is an 18th-century Georgian mansion near the Potomac River in Fairfax County. Built between 1755 and 1759 as the main residence of George Mason and headquarters of a 5,500-acre plantation, the Georgian mansion was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
The riverside garden restoration design and construction was the culmination of more than four decades of archaeological research by Gunston Hall staff, consulting archaeologists, and additional research by Glave & Holmes and a landscape architect. The final design reflects the Mason era (1746-1792), and features four planting beds, a bowling green, and a fence. Construction began in 2019 and was completed in 2021.
Axias also provided a concept level estimate for a study to replace the visitor center with a new 30,000-square-foot building and estimated the cost of renovating the existing center with new lighting, a fire protection system, and an HVAC system upgrade to improve energy efficiency and provide humidity and temperature controls for sensitive historic exhibits.
Additional tasks included cost estimating for a site utility upgrade, which forged a new connection to the Fairfax County Water Authority water system at Gunston Road and installed 1,600 linear feet of water line extension to Gunston Hall. A pump was required for the fire suppression system, which is housed near Gunston Road in a new pre-fab precast concrete building linked to the main site by a connecting drive.
For more about Gunston Hall, click here.