Dodona's Fence Is Integral To Garden Club's Involvement

If the 6-foot tall, board on board stockade fence is not permitted to be built along East Market Street as part of the Dodona Manor restoration project, the Garden Club of Virginia said it no longer wants to be involved in re-creating the landscape around the historic home to the condition it was in when Gen. George C. Marshall lived there with his wife in the forties and fifties.

Mary Lou Seilheiser, chairwoman of the Garden Club of Virginia's Restoration Committee, attended Monday's Board of Architectural Review work session and said the club prides itself on accurate restorations.

"We're either going to do a restoration that's accurate, or we're not," Seilheiser said, adding that the fence is integral to the landscape.

"We have certain standards," she said about the club's mission. "Doing it halfway isn't part of our mission."

The multiyear restoration of Dodona Manor is nearing completion, with the landscaping being the primary outstanding project. Representatives from the historic home had received permission from the town's BAR in June 2004 to install the stockade fence, but let the 12-month permit lapse before erecting the structure.

When they went back to the BAR for a new permit earlier this year, they faced new board members who have indicated they will not support the tall, solid fence.

BAR Chairman Theresa Minchew said Monday that membership has changed and this board appears more concerned with enforcing the BAR guidelines, which prevent privacy fences in downtown, than accurately restoring the property.

"I am not optimistic about the chances of this board approving this same fence," she said Monday.

William Rieley, a landscape architect with Rieley and Associates in Charlottesville, is representing the Garden Club of Virginia in its restoration project. At Monday's work session, he said that photos and personal accounts reveal what the fence looked like when the Marshalls lived there.

"I don't think there's dispute about what the fence looked like," he said, or that its intent was to create privacy for the Marshalls. He said changes have been made already in the fence design-the chain link has been eliminated and the automobile access from East Market Street is being replaced with a smaller pedestrian access point-at the request of the BAR and for safety's sake.

But the whole purpose of today's fence is the same as it was when Marshall lived there, he said: to separate the home from the hustle of one of the town's main thoroughfares.

"When you're in the yard now, you're confronted with the same problem they were confronted with," he said, including noise, traffic and onlookers.

Ned Kiley, a BAR member, said the design "sends to me an exclusionary message from one of the main streets in Leesburg." He opposed its installation.

During Monday's work session, BAR members focused on whether the project was a re-creation or a restoration. Restorations are exact replicas, while re-creations strive to mimic what was there but integrate modifications into the design.

Minchew said her group needs to weigh its desire to re-create how the property looked with how a fence would affect the town, its historic district and comply with BAR guidelines. Privacy fences such as the one being planned for Dodona's property would not be permitted elsewhere in the Old and Historic District, BAR members said.

Kathryn Miller, who represents the town's planning commission on the BAR, suggested the same loop and wire fence that has been installed along the other sides of the property could be continued along the portion of East Market Street that was lined with a chain link fence when the Marshalls lived in the home. The BAR previously denied using chain link.

This would open up the property a little, she said, while still allowing some stretch to be constructed with the board on board fence. As proposed, the fence is 480 feet long.

Miller said flexibility has already been instilled in the project since some components of the fence are notably different from the original fence.

As proposed the fence would hide the home from the street.

The home is "not as open and as accessible from the outside. From an automobile you won't see anything; from a pedestrian viewpoint, you'll have to pause in front of the gate to get a view of the house," said one of the men representing Dodona at Monday's meeting.

Kirsten Hammer Dueck, executive director of Dodona Manor, said the intent is for visitors to experience the home from the inside.

"We want people to come in and experience it," she said.

Lyle Werner, who is a board member of the Historic District Residents Association, said the wall "creates a canyon, a wall, a sound barrier almost." She said she would not be permitted to put up a similar fence at her private home.

"We view the stockade fence as a monolith, opaque sort of design that we are not in favor of," she said Monday.

Minchew and other BAR members sent the team from Dodona back to its drawing table, saying the design needed work. The design, height and monolithic feel of the stockade fence are all concerns for Minchew, she said. "It's basically a wall."