Mount Vernon, Virginia

After serving as the nation’s first president, Washington retired to Mount Vernon, and died there two years later, in 1799.

George Washington is mostly associated with Mount Vernon, a plantation house on the Potomac. Originally known as Little Hunting Creek Plantation, the site had been owned by his great-grandfather. Washington became a partial owner in 1754, and its sole owner in 1761. Between 1758 and 1778 Washington expanded the house into what we see there today. After serving as the nation’s first president, Washington retired to Mount Vernon, and died there two years later, in 1799. Owned by subsequent family members, by the 1850s the house was a ruin. In 1858, the Mount Vernon Ladies Association bought it, and opened the house to the paying public in 1860. The house is still owned and operated by Mount Vernon Ladies Association, and has been seen by more than 100 million visitors. This makes Mount Vernon the most visited historical residence in the USA, more than Monticello and Graceland combined. After touring the house and grounds, visitors head underground, into the Reynolds Museum and Education Center, the main part of the $100 million 66,000 square-foot visitor complex built in 2006. Inside are galleries with dioramas integrating video and other effects, as well as a number of theaters. At the end is a wrap-around cinematic extravaganza where historian David McCullough and choirs of schoolchildren send visitors off and aloft in waves of patriotism, before exiting through the 6,600 square-foot gift shop.