Building Description Jones Point Lighthouse, Alexandria Virginia
The Jones Point Lighthouse is a small rectangular 19 by 38 foot frame two-story structure perched on the edge of the Potomac River at the outskirts of Alexandria, Virginia. From the center of its gabled roof protrudes a cast iron lantern, whose gaslight once guided boats up the Potomac River. Important because of its place in American river navigation, the building is located within feet of the number 1 boundary marker for the District of Columbia, placed in 1791. On August 7, 1963, the building was desolate, lost, forgotten and barely standing. Most of the siding, roofing, plaster and trim were missing.
The building is a rectangular block facing south on the edge of the Potomac. Siding is clapboard and the gabled roof has wooden shingles. The south or front elevation has the main entrance in the center. This being a 6-panel door with side lights and steps. On either side was one window with blinds and a basement window below. There are no second floor windows on the front. On the west end of the building is a porch which is a later addition. There is a chimney on each end of the building, inside the wall. From the center of the gable roof protrudes the lantern, which is cast iron. This has trapezoidal windows. The roof being also iron and the shape of a cone topped by a small domed cylinder with air vents. In the front of the lantern was a small door which gave access to a catwalk around the lantern perimeter.
All sides of the building are finished similar to the front of the building with clapboards and simple Greek Revival trim. The first floor had wooden blinds, the second floor had none. All of the windows were wooden double-hung 6 over 6 light sash. There is an ornamental deep cornice molding which contained a wooden eaves-trough, later covered over with shingles when semicircular metal gutters were added.
The lighthouse was constructed on brick foundations about 4 feet of which were exposed above grade.
From physical evidence and old photographs the original color of the lighthouse was very close to white. The brick foundations and the retaining wall around the lighthouse were also painted this light color. The shutters seem to have been painted a contrasting medium dark color and the lantern appears to have been close to, if not, black. The front door at the turn of the century was the same as the walls.
The lighthouse sits on an artificial mound held in by a stone retaining wall about 5 feet high and 30 feet by 80 feet in plan. Most of this site has been fenced in by a wooden picket fence up to the present. Until 1912, when the District of Columbia boundary marker was uncovered and put in a concrete box for view, it was under the retaining wall, which had been built over it in 1861. Prior to this interest in the boundary marker, there had been an open wooden stairway from the top of the retaining wall to the shore, this being directly on axis with the front door of the lighthouse.
About 40 feet to the west of the lighthouse and also on the mound is a small utility structure part of which was a privy. From old photographs this frame gable-roofed structure had a chimney at one time. This building is about 10 feet by 12 feet.
In a photograph taken prior to 1900 a small shed-roofed wooden structure with board and batten sides is shown. The utilitarian nature of the structure is obvious, especially because of the unglazed, unframed window facing the river. The high part of the shed roof is facing the lighthouse. The building was about 15 feet west of the lighthouse. The lighthouse was constructed on brick foundations. The walls are post and beam with diagonal knee braces in the corners. The joints are mortise and tenon throughout. The roof has a ridge pole and boards run parallel to it.
The interior of the lighthouse has two square rooms on the first floor, one to the east and one to the west of the central entry-stair hall. This hall gave access to the basement by means of a straight run stairway and to the second floor by means of 180 degree winder stair. Both first floor rooms contained fireplaces with hearths; these have been removed. The existing trim is a very simple Greek Revival style. The walls and ceilings here as in the rest of the house were plaster.
On the second floor there is also a center hall flanked on the east and the west by square rooms. This hall has the stair leading down to the first floor and a ship's ladder up to the lantern. Both rooms and the hall have plastered walls and ceiling. The trim is small in scale but more ornate than used on the first floor.
The interior of the lantern is a cylindrical room reached by means of the ship's ladder through a hatch. The walls up to the level of the trapezoidal windows, which are continuous around the perimeter, are finished in tongue-and-groove vertical boards. The floor in the lantern, as in the first and second floors, is wood board.
The basement of the lighthouse has exposed brick walls, which at one time were painted white. There is no finished ceiling. The floor seems to have been paved in brick. At one time there was a single board width partition closing off the eastern third of the basement. On the north side of the building in the center is an areaway which was an outside entrance to the basement. The areaway is of brick and is about 5 feet high from the basement floor. On the exterior the rim of the areaway is about 3 feet above grade. There was besides the usual stairway from the areaway to the basement one from the rim of the areaway back down to grade. This was no doubt done to prevent water from splashing into the basement. There are pintles on the basement windows, no doubt also part of a system to keep high water out of the basement. The basement windows, one of which was on the site at the time of this writing, were of the hopper type with three horizontal lights. There are two brick piers in the basement in the area of the stair well. These were built at different times, due to the fact that they are built of different sized brick.
Aside from the two first floor fireplaces there is no evidence of a heating system. Of the possible lighting systems, only a gas pipe to the lantern remains.
Little remains of the hardware. The pintles were found in place on the basement windows. There were also some found on the fragments of the first floor windows. The double hung windows have cast iron weights.
