Re: Old pictures of Fairfax county, love em!
Posted by:
Springfielder1
()
Date: May 29, 2015 03:20PM
fake screen name jim Wrote:
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> Was the Tysons mansion located in Tysons?
The Maplewood Manor was originally located at 7676 Old Springhouse Road and was demolished in 1970. Some old Washington Post articles follow with some Tysons Corner history.
Washington Post, July 30, 1956.
McLean Seeks U. of Va. Branch
A McLean, Va., group came forward with a last-minute proposal yesterday for the location of the Northern Virginia branch of the University of Virginia at the historic Maplewood estate of Dr. and Mrs. Sidney Ulfelder. They also suggested that the proposed Fairfax County Hospital be located on the property.
The 500-acre estate, which includes a 24-room mansion which at one time was the summer home of Woodrow Wilson, will sell for $2500 an acre, they said.
The McLean Group, made up of French Trammell, Robert A. Alden and O.L. Brandenburger, met yesterday with Col. Rudolph G. Seeley, manager of the estate and son-in-law of the Ulfelders. …
Washington Post, November 12, 1969.
Ethel Ulfelder, 84, a major land owner in Fairfax County and the widow of Dr. Sidney Ulfelder, a physician at the American-British Cowdray Hospital in Mexico City from 1900 until his death in 1959, died Monday after a brief illness in Mexico City.
She owned the 512-acre Maplewood Farm, part of which is now the Tysons Corner shopping center, the Westgate Industrial Park and nearby sections of what is now the Beltway and Dulles Airport access roads. The old Maplewood house itself is now the Westgate office, on Rte. 123 in McLean. …
Washington Post, February 25, 1970.
Wrecking Crew Steals March on History Buffs in Fairfax
Wrecking crews stole a march on history buffs last weekend. A 100-year-old Victorian mansion the buffs had hoped to preserve was demolished and apparently none of them know anything about it until it was too late.
The 24-room, yellow-painted brick home, known as Maplewood, was torn down at the Westgate Research Park near Tyson's Corner to make way for construction of another industrial building.
“We are just terribly depressed, surprised and shocked,” said Joyce Wilkinson, chairman of the Fairfax County Historical Commission. She and other commission members claimed that Rudolph Seeley, executive vice president of Westgate Corp., told them last October that the structure would not be torn down for up to three years and not sooner than one year.
Seeley said the demolition was ordered because the “house is standing on very valuable, highly taxed land” and was “not a particularly architectural gem under any stretch of the imagination.”
Washington Post, January 6, 1988.
Col. Rudolph G. Seeley, 72, a Fairfax County civic leader and developer who helped pioneer the explosive commercial growth of the Tysons Corner area, died of cancer Jan. 4 at his home in McLean.
It was not until after the war that Col. Seeley moved to the Washington area. The family of his wife, the former Martha Ulfelder, had been farmers in the Tysons Corner area since the 1920s, and the colonel became manager of their dairy business during the late 1950s. Construction occurred between 1958 and 1964. There were 14 interchanges on the highway in Fairfax County alone. The idea that major commercial development would take place so far from downtown Washington was thought to be preposterous. Where the Beltway passed near Tysons Corner there was a feed store, a gas station, a restaurant and a general store. Much of the Ulfelder farm was taken for the Beltway right of way. Mindful of development opportunities, Col. Seeley led a group in acquiring more acreage with a view to rezoning it for commercial use.
The wisdom of this move was affirmed with construction of the Dulles Airport Access Road. The Seeley-Ulfelder holdings were at the intersection of Rtes. 7 and 123, roads that had existed since Colonial times. With the building of the Beltway and the Dulles Access Road the land was better served by major highways than any location in Northern Virginia. In 1961 Col. Seeley and Gerald Halpin, a former officer of Atlantic Research Corp., combined land holdings to build a research and industrial park and they helped found the Westgate Corp. to carry out their plans. Col. Seeley also was part of a partnership that leased land to Maryland builders who erected the Tysons Corner Center. It opened in 1968 with three anchor stores and about 70 smaller businesses.