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This town house, located in the City of Richmond’s Grace Street Commercial Historic District, briefly served as the home of Robert E. Lee after the surrender at Appomattox Court House. Almost the sole survivor of the scores of Greek Revival dwellings that once lined the streets of downtown Richmond, the Stewart-Lee House at 707 E. Franklin Street was begun in 1844 for Norman Stewart, a tobacco merchant from Rothesay, Scotland. After the outbreak of the Civil War, Stewart’s nephew, John Stewart, rented the house to Gen. Custis Lee to serve as a bachelor officers’ quarters. In 1864 the house was given over to Robert E. Lee’s wife and daughters, left homeless after the federal government confiscated Arlington. In June 1865 Lee, seeking privacy after years of war, moved his family from here to Powhatan County. The Stewart family presented the house to the Virginia Historical Society in 1893 for its headquarters. The Stewart-Lee House is now owned by the Historic Richmond Foundation.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia
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