Febrey-Lothrop-Rouse Property

Febrey-Lothrop-Rouse Property. . , John and Mary Febrey , John E. Febrey (1831-1893) and his wife, Mary Frances Ball (1835-1914), built a farmhouse on 125 acres of Upton's Hill (Dominion Hills) in the late 1850s. The property became known as Fairmount. The Febrey family used enslaved labor to farm the land, growing corn and oats. During the Civil War, John established a private school in a cabin on the property. He later became the superintendent of the Alexandria public school system in the early 1890s., Alvin Lothrop , In 1898, Alvin Mason Lothrop (1847-1912), co-founder of the Woodward and Lothrop department stores, bought Fairmount. He hired prominent Washington, DC, architect Victor O. Mindeleff to modernize and expand the estate. The Febreys' original farmhouse was incorporated into the new design's rear wing., Randolph Rouse , In 1951, a local real estate developer, Randolph D. Rouse (1916-2017), bought the property the Lothrop property. He capt 9.5 acres for himself and built homes on the remaining 16.5 acres. In 1956, Rouse married actress Audrey Meadows (1922-1996), best known for her role in the popular 1950s television series "The Honeymooners." They divorced after two years. Rouse passed away in 2017 at the age of 100. The home and secondary buildings were demolished in 2021. The property was sold to build the community now called the Grove at Dominion Hills., [Caption:] , Mindeleff combined stylistic elements, such as the Shingle and queen Anne style, with a Colonial Revival-style dwelling, carriage house, and barn with an attached tower.2020 (Courtesy Julie Vaselopulos)