Gari Melchers Home and Studio (Belmont)

The property Gari Melchers bought in 1916 for $12,000 had already been standing a century and a half — mid-to-late 18th century construction, Virginia timber framed into a two-story manor, five bays wide. The Ficklen family held it from 1825 until Melchers arrived. He was forty-six, European-trained, and in 1882 the Paris Salon had accepted one of his paintings — the most prestigious art exhibition of the period. He painted the War and Peace murals in the Library of Congress rotunda. He was popular, not particularly innovative, and his work helped pull American fine art into broader public interest. He and his wife Corinne, both artists, settled at the 27-acre Belmont estate that year and worked there until he died in 1932.

The house they made is not a period restoration. It's the working life of two artists with international taste left exactly where they kept it. The stone studio building and stone garage date to their tenure. After Gari died, Corinne added the summer house. When she died in 1955, she bequeathed the property to the state — the house, the studio, most of their possessions still in place. About 1,600 works of art remain: roughly 500 of Melchers' paintings, his sketches and studies, work by other artists he collected, paintings by Corinne. The furniture is the European antiques they bought. The objects are the objects they kept.

It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965 for Melchers' role in bringing American art to European attention. The University of Mary Washington administers it now. You go because the house still holds the work that made it.