re sold and Betty Lewis went to live with her daughter. She
died the next year.

After many vicissitudes in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
Kenmore was saved for posterity, in 1922, through the great enthusiasm
and hard work of a group of women who later formed the Kenmore
Association. Through the efforts of this association, the exterior and
the interiors of Kenmore were expertly restored to their original
charming appearance and it has been furnished with original pieces of
the period, many of which have an actual connection with the family.

Who the architect of Kenmore was, is unknown. It is very probable that
Fielding Lewis himself had much to do with the planning of it, making
use of books on English architecture. The mansion is typical of the
formal architecture of Tidewater Virginia in the mid-eighteenth century.
Flanked on each side by smaller service buildings, both of which are
identical in size and appearance, the group is symmetrical around the
central entrance. The exteriors present a picture of fine restraint and
dignity. Four uniformly placed chimneys in the end walls serve eight
fireplaces. The windows are well proportioned in relation to the main
walls. The walls, of brick laid in Flemish bond, or brickwork pattern,
are two feet thick--unusually heavy construction for a house of even
this size.

The principal rooms, of stately proportions, are remarkable for their
design and ornament. The richly modelled ceilings, cornices, and
overmantels are outstanding examples of ornamental plater-work--quite
unsurpassed by anything of its kind in America. It has always been said
and never contradicted that these ornamental features were planned by
George Washington himself.

To the right, as one enters the Reception Hall, tinted in pastel
blue-gray, is the well designed main stairway, a noteworthy feature of
which is the delicately carved lotus leaf ornament. In back is the
prized grandfather clock which originally belonged to Mary Washington.

Passing through the arched doorway at the rear of the Hall, one enters
the Great Room. For the magnificent ceiling of this room, Colonel Lewis
employed the same French decorator whom Washington had employed for the
ornamental ceilings at Mount Vernon. The design motif includes four
horns of plenty. Tradition has it that the overmantel in the Great Room
was done at a later time than the other decorations by two Hessian
soldiers captured at the Battle of Tr