Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

None

Use Restrictions

Consult repository for information

Preferred Citation

Helen Snow Jones Photo Album on “Edgecombe” (McLean, Va.), Virginia Room, Fairfax County Public Library

Acquisition Information

Donated in May 2010 by Helen Lee Fletcher (1934-2018) of Winchester, VA, daughter of George A. Southall, the Jones’ chauffer who lived at Edgecombe.

Processing Information

Chris Barbuschak, October 2018
EAD generated by Ross Landis, 2023

Historical and Biographical Information

Edgcomb Lee Jones and his sister Helen Snow Jones purchased a 12.998-acre tract of land in McLean, Virginia on December 16, 1922, from Alexandra and Newbold Noyes, the associate editor of the Washington Evening Star. The Joneses named their estate “Edgecombe”.

The Edgecombe mansion, sometimes referred to as “Edgecomb” and “Edgemoor”, was built in 1922. The Tudor-style brick house was built to take advantage of the scenic setting of the Potomac River. The house has seven bedrooms, three full baths, two half-baths, a living room, dining room, tennis court, terraced garden, large detached garage, and several fireplaces (including one marble fireplace from an antebellum Richmond, Virginia house). Merrywood, the home of Jacqueline Bouvier’s family, adjoins the Edgecombe estate.

Helen Snow Jones was born on October 16, 1870, and her brother, Edgcomb Lee Jones, was born on November 16, 1874, in Chicago, Illinois to Judson M. W. Jones and Harriet (E. Snow) Jones. Their father, J. M. W. Jones, was a realtor, and made a fortune in Chicago real estate. Edgcomb attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and graduated from Yale in 1897. He went on to grow fruit at Midreivers Plantation in Waveland, Florida.

A prominent golfer, Edgcomb Lee Jones participated in the 1904 Olympic Games individual golf tournament held in St. Louis, but he did not reach the match play after ranking seventy-fourth. Jones later went on to be director of the Kebo Valley Club, one of the oldest golf clubs in the United States, and he was a co-founder of the all-male Burning Tree Club in Bethesda, Maryland.

Edgcomb Lee Jones and his sister, Helen Snow Jones, moved to Washington, D.C. in 1914, residing at 1622 Rhode Island Ave. N.W., until purchasing Edgecombe in McLean in 1922. The Jones siblings also maintained a summer estate in Bar Harbor, Maine known as “Foxwood” which burned in 1948.

Edgcomb Lee Jones died on August 11, 1937, from heart failure in the Mount Desert Island Hospital in Bar Harbor, Maine. The majority of his estate passed on to his sister, Helen Snow Jones. Helen died at age 77, on January 26, 1948, at the “Little House”, a smaller newer house built on the Edgecombe estate. They are buried side by side in Ledgelawn Cemetery in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Neither brother or sister had ever married or had any children. After the death of Edgcomb Lee Jones, his chauffer, George Southall (1890-1977), received $1,500 a year for the rest of his life. George and Evelyn Herl Southall had been living in the apartments above Edgecombe’s garage at the time. The Southalls had three children together, one of whom, Helen Lee Fletcher (1934-2018), donated this photo album to the Virginia Room.

When Helen Snow Jones died in 1948, she willed the “Little House” to George Southall along with 3-acres running to the Potomac River. She willed Edgcombe to a family friend, Alexandra E. Stone of Washington, D.C. In 1950, Lord Arthur William Tedder, marshal of the Royal Air Force, temporarily leased Edgecombe for his residence. In May 1951, Joanne B. Bross, former wife of Marshall Field IV, purchased the mansion from Mrs. Stone. She and her husband, John A. Bross, lived there for many years. The Bross estate sold the house to 750 Chain Bridge Road, Inc. for $7.1 million after her death in 2000.

In 2003, businessman Dwight Schar purchased the house and renamed the estate “Wind Falls”. Schar sold the house for $35 million in July 2017, the biggest Washington, D.C. area real estate sale of the decade. As of October 2018, the mansion is still extant at 750 Chain Bridge Road.

Scope and Content

The Helen Snow Jones Photo Album on “Edgecombe” (McLean, Va.) consists of 39 pages of photographs of her Edgecombe estate located in McLean, Virginia and spans the years 1932-1933. Photographs depict various scenes on the Edgecombe estate; Merrywood; Little Gables; the Potomac River; automobiles; horses; and a peach orchard on Chain Bridge Road. Individuals pictured include Edgecomb Lee Jones; George A. Southall; Evelyn Southall; Annie Southall; the Noyes family; Mickey the dog; and other unidentified individuals.

Related Material

None

Separated Material

None

Index Terms

• Edgecombe (McLean, Va.)
• Jones family
• McLean (Va.) - History
• Merrywood (McLean, Va.)
• Noyes family
• Southall family

Adjunct Descriptive Data