Lloyd House

Story

The Lloyd House is a historical building and library located at 220 North Washington Street in the Old Town of Alexandria, Virginia, United States. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on July 12, 1976. The house was built by John Wise, a prominent entrepreneur in the early town, who constructed the building in the late eighteenth-century Georgian architectural style.HistoryThe Lloyd House was built in 1796 - 97 by John Wise. It was a high status building and President George Washington was a guest there on one occasion. In 1810, Wise sold the house to Jacob Hoffman, who would later become Mayor of Alexandria. In 1824, Hoffman sold the home to James Hooe for $13,000. After his death in 1826, his widow rented out the house to an educator, Benjamin Hallowell, who used the building as a schoolhouse. When Hooe's widow died in 1831, it was sold to John Lloyd. John Lloyd's wife was the cousin of Robert E. Lee, who had been taught at the school. The Lloyd family owned the property for over 100 years until the 1930s. During the 1940s and 1950s, it fell into ruin, and in 1956 proposals were made to gut the building; there were opposed by the Historic Alexandria Foundation. A businessman from Wyoming, Robert V. New, bought the house, saved it from being destroyed, and financed its major renovation. Fully restored, in 1968 Lloyd House was sold to the government of Alexandria.Lloyd House currently serves as the administrative headquarters for the Office of Historic Alexandria, a department of the City of Alexandria government. The department is dedicated to the collection and preservation of historic sites, and since 1976 the building has also housed important historical and genealogical collections which are part of the Alexandria Library. Shelving space was tripled at Lloyd House in order to store the collection which has over 4,000 books.