Did you watch?
The DIY channel has really outdone itself with the show America Rehab: Virginia. I caught an episode late one night when flipping thru the channels and was instantly hooked!!!!!! I had to binge watch all the episodes and was so disappointed that it is now over.
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The show follows the adventures of Tayloe Emery, his wife, Catherine Emery, and their sons, Tayloe, 8, and Thomas, 6, in bringing the main house and west wing of the Palladian mansion into the 21st century.
A little history about the family and plantation: The land where Mount Airy is situated was owned by the Tayloe family of Virginia for over one hundred years when Colonel John Tayloe II, a fourth generation tobacco planter, began construction of the house using a mixture of enslaved and indentured laborers combined with highly-talented masons and woodworkers. The project was started around 1758 with completion in 1764 and was a horse stud farm first and foremost. Local brown sandstone was quarried here on the property with the white accent stone coming from nearby Aquia Creek. Colonel Tayloe used reference books of the day to incorporate architectural themes that give Mount Airy a feeling of strength. Several of racing heritage's greatest horses lived and were bred while at Mount Airy and owned or partly owned by John Tayloe II and they included; Selima, Sir Archie and Grey Diomed. The original stable and a few outbuildings including a smokehouse and dairy/ice-house stand to this day. The oldest surviving Orangery in North America is also here. Mount Airy, an architectural masterpiece, owns a commanding view of the Rappahannock River valley perched upon a small hill looking westward towards the town of Tappahannock, founded itself in 1608 by Captain John Smith. The estate borders Catpoint Creek to the north and the Tayloe Wildlife Refuge to the west. Col. Tayloe's son-in-law Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, was housed nearby, in a manor built for him by Col. Tayloe, known as Menokin. The grave of Francis Lightfoot Lee and his wife Rebecca Tayloe are located in the Tayloe family cemetery on the Mount Airy estate. Beloved father, husband, brother and grandfather, the late Lt. Colonel Henry Gwynne Tayloe, Jr, a decorated veteran of WWII and Korea and a 1936 graduate of VMI, grew up in Middleburg, Va., retired to Mount Airy and lived happily here for many years with his wife Polly Montague of Charleston, SC and their children Anne, Courtenay, William and Gwynne, Jr. and an assembly of Labrador Retrievers, English Setters, German Shepherds and Dachshunds. Colonel Tayloe’s grandson, John Tayloe and wife Catherine, their two young children, a Dachshund, two German Shorthairs and multiple duck dogs live on and manage the estate currently.
Hopscotch in one the children's bedrooms
You can tour the plantation and gardens or go on a semi guided hunt for dove or turkey. Even better you can have your wedding there if you are newly engaged!!!!!!
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