I have had the privilege of being born and raised in Loudoun County , and looking back , it feels as though the importance of preservation was instilled in me before I learned to walk . Preservation has always received tremendous attention in my family , and if it had fewer syllables , I wouldn ’ t be shocked to learn it was my first word . We have lived in Loudoun since 1811 and belief in preservation has driven our family for the last 220 years . Welbourne ( ca 1770 ) has been our family home for eight generations and the property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 . The Dulany family went on to build or live in several other homes in the area that have also been added to the National Register , but lamentably most of them have been sold out of the family . My home , Stoke ( ca 1840 ), came into the family when my grandfather , Nathaniel Holmes Morison , Jr . of Welbourne , married my grandmother Sarah Truax Harris of Stoke . We have owned the property for five generations , and it was listed on the National Register in 2015 , but my late uncle Nat , Welbourne patriarch of 50 years , was never shy in reminding us where we stood in the pecking order of historic homes .
Stoke and Welbourne have stayed in the family through generations of commitment to their preservation . Discussions were frequent during my childhood about how we could hold on to these two places and how we could best serve them as stewards for future generations . Letting them go was never an option , even when financial considerations pointed to no other choice . This struggle became the backbone of my indoctrination , and these homes were my first preservation obsession .
As I grew older , my preservation awareness expanded to our property lines when my father was forced to sell part of our land to save Stoke . The
property had been left to eleven inheritors when my great-grandfather passed in 1955 and my father , despite having only the income of an elementary school teacher and later principal , managed to keep everyone satisfied until property values increased significantly in the 1980s , leaving him no other choice . The sale was mourned like a death in the family and the wound did not fully heal until 2015 when he bought back the front 115 acres , restoring a major part of the property .
My preservation sphere grew again in 2010 when I moved back to Stoke from Washington to operate my finance business from home . My wife , Eleanor , and I began an extensive renovation of the barns and grounds , and through the process became increasingly aware that Stoke and Welbourne were only two small pieces of the canvas that make up our extraordinary historic landscape . This realization led to panic as other farms were being developed and it became painfully evident that the preservation of our own land would be irrel-
Built in 1840 , Stoke is listed on the National Register of Historic Places . Above : the original house ( ca 1880 ) and formal gardens as featured in “ Beautiful Gardens of America ” in 1928 .
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