Mount Vernon — To the Editor:
I read your article about the intended "transformation" of Woodlawn with interest. I spent many years as a "stable parent" with a daughter who rode and worked at Woodlawn Stables for 10 years, and before that had enjoyed seeing the fields of horses for many decades.
I quit my long-time membership in the National Trust for Historic Preservation over what I considered their mismanagement of the Woodlawn property: they've allowed the meadow and slope between the house and Route 1 grow up in trees, blocking the historic view of the house from the road. The Trust was instrumental in choosing the new alignment for the wider Route 1, destroying the historic alignment of the road. And
the Trust eliminated the stables and the historic use of the property for horses.
Now they intend to commercialize the property, apparently with restaurants and other commercial ventures, all while claiming some historical basis in market gardening and organic farming. While Arcadia may be a worthwhile organization, the destruction of the historic landscape surrounding Woodlawn is a travesty.
If the Trust wasn't up to managing the property as it was, they should have just sold it (their first historic property) with appropriate easements.
Robert McNeil
Alexandria