{"nrhp_refnum":"70000823","name":"Bel Air","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"W of Rte. 640","address_restricted":false,"city":"Minnieville","county":"Prince William County","state":"VA","lat":38.64091221150005,"lon":-77.36017869024899,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1970-02-26","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["national"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Bel Air is a brick, one-and-one-half story house on a high stone foundation near Minnieville in Prince William County, Virginia. It was supposedly built in 1740 on the basement of an earlier house.","why_significant":"The house is tied to Mason Locke Weems, the first biographer of George Washington, who lived there for his last fifteen years and is buried in the family cemetery. It was thought to have been built by Captain Charles Ewell, whose family was related to Washington's mother. Architecturally, it shows structural evolution within a house measuring 38' x 51'.","narrative":"Bel Air is a brick house of one-and-one-half stories near Minnieville, Prince William County, Virginia. It sits on a high stone foundation and has small dormers, a large exterior chimney at the west end and a smaller one at the east. Tradition dates it to 1740, built over the basement of an earlier house, and it is thought to have been built by Captain Charles Ewell. The brickwork is mostly Flemish bond, with visible nineteenth-century rebuilding on the north front. Inside, a central hall plan, mid-eighteenth-century paneling and a removable wooden partition between the southwest room and the hall are notable. The property is best known for Mason Locke Weems, who married Frances Ewell in 1795 and moved to Bel Air around 1808 or 1809. Weems wrote a popular biography of George Washington that introduced the cherry tree story, and he was buried in the family cemetery. The house is a study in how a building changed over time.","period_of_significance":"18th Century","architect_builder":"Thought to have been built by Captain Charles Ewell","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Listed as in excellent condition, unaltered, on its original site, and used as a private residence. The statement of significance notes the house stood empty for long periods after Weems's death.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.528154-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/35/6827/41682735/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/70000823.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000823/030c80d259-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/70000823/030c80d259-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Virginiahistorian77","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bel_Air_Platation_Today.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Virginiahistorian77</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bel_Air_Platation_Today.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41682735","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_Air_(Minnieville,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15198191"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/prince-william-county/bel-air-70000823/"}