"Fancy Hill" Estate Has New Owners

The Generals Redoubt purchases historic site for local HQ

The Generals Redoubt (TGR), a non-profit alumni group, purchased Fancy Hill for $1,000,000 on May 5, 2023. According to TGR, the historic mansion “will serve not only as a permanent home, but as a welcome gathering place for students, alumni, and supporters.” 

The site will initially be used as the organization’s headquarters and the residence of its Executive Director. TGR hopes in the future to be able to host various lectures, class reunions, and dinners, and to promote a Turning Point USA chapter. The property will also “showcase valuable artifacts and memorabilia” from university namesakes George Washington and Robert E. Lee.

Since being established in 2018, TGR has been “dedicated to the preservation of the history, values, and traditions of Washington and Lee University.” They funded the “Retain the Name” campaign in Spring 2021 and have co-sponsored various conservative speakers on campus over the last several years, including Matt Walsh, Larry Elder, and Heather Mac Donald. As the largest private contributor to the 2024 Mock Convention, TGR was the sole underwriter of the March 21 Spring Kickoff event with former Vice President Mike Pence and Bret Baier.

The organization’s 12,000 person online following targets primarily alumni and parents, but they have had a harder time with student and faculty outreach. And without a physical office, TGR supporters have been unable to meet consistently in Lexington, limited instead to hosting occasional events — like Founders Day in 2022 — and funding various student organizations and merchandise.

TGR calls Fancy Hill “an important beachhead to reverse the direction of our university's active campaign to erase its history and relinquish delivering a classical liberal arts education.” Further, “it promises to be a ‘safe space’...for students and others no longer able to speak freely amid the repressive campus environment fostered by the university’s current leadership.”

They hope to make Fancy Hill “an active place of engagement where we can celebrate the history, values, and traditions of Washington and Lee University without interference from a currently unwelcoming faculty and administration.”

“The historic ambience” of Fancy Hill, says TGR, “will provide an ideal setting for us to tell the story of Washington and Lee and to celebrate our heritage and timeless values.”

Fancy Hill was listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1997 for its architectural, commercial, agricultural, and educational significance. One of the “Seven Hills of Rockbridge County,” the original brick house was completed in 1821 for Thomas Welch II and his family. Subsequent expansions and building campaigns resulted in the Federal-style house and several Depression-era farm structures seen today.

During its two centuries of use, Fancy Hill has changed hands and function several times; it has served as a dwelling, a tavern, a founding building for the first Rockbridge Agricultural Society, and a boarding school for boys. It was nearly destroyed in the 1930s, but upon intervention of local preservationists was renovated instead. It underwent additional renovation when new owners acquired it in the 1980s, and will undergo further renovation by The Generals Redoubt in accordance with county guidelines.