Introduction
George Washington had the grounds around his home landscaped during the period between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and his election as first President of the United States in 1789. During this six-year hiatus, Washington replaced outbuildings, reshaped the gardens, created new lawns, and even realigned several roads and lanes. Washington took his basic designs from popular landscape books of the time, but it was his practiced surveyor's eye that brought so many different landscape elements together, creating a setting that was at the same time dramatic and tranquil, grand, and intimate.