Mount Airy Plantation

Mount Airy
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. National Historic Landmark
Virginia Landmarks Register
Mount Airy in 1971
Location	West of Warsaw on U.S. 360, Richmond County, Virginia
Coordinates	37°58′20″N 76°47′29″W / 37.97222°N 76.79139°W / 37.97222; -76.79139
Area	450 acres (180 ha)
Built	1758–62
Architect	William Buckland (architect)
Architectural style	Neo-Palladian
NRHP reference No.	66000845[1]
VLR No.	079-0013
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966[1]
Designated NHL	October 9, 1960[3]
Designated VLR	September 9, 1969[2]

Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed designer while William Buckland (architect) was the builder/architect.^[4][5] Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence (Richard Henry Lee being the other brother) are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River (comprising some 60,000 acres). Mount Airy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark as well as on the Virginia Landmarks Register and is still privately owned by Tayloe's descendants.