Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s boyhood home, in Old Town Alexandria, was sold earlier this month — at a loss.
The Potts-Fitzhugh House, at 601 and 607 Oronoco Street, sold for $4.2 million. The Washington Business Journal said that’s about $700,000 less than its assessed value, $1.8 million less than the listed price and a half-million dollars less than the sellers bought it for in 2020.
The buyer is David Jochum, the Washington Business Journal said. He’s the president of Tridentis LLC, a government contractor that sued Alexandria in January, claiming that a grant program to support businesses owned by Black, Indigenous people, and people of color was racially discriminatory against white people.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed a brief in support of the suit, and the city shut down the program in February.
The house comprises more than 8,000 square feet and has six bedrooms and four and a half bathrooms. Built in 1795, it’s one of the oldest houses in Alexandria. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register.
Lee lived in the house from when he was a young boy until he left to attend the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1825. Lee, who inherited enslaved people from his mother, left the U.S. Army at the beginning of the Civil War. He eventually became the commanding general of the army of the Confederate States of America, which seceded from the U.S. and declared war against it. More than 330,000 American troops were killed in the conflict over the future of slavery in the U.S. Nearly 250,000 Confederate troops died as well.
Feature image courtesy McEnearney & Associates
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