Servants' Hall

At twenty by forty feet in dimension and with two usable floors, the Servants' Hall was larger than the great majority of the houses lived in by Washington's fellow Virginia planters. That such a large and prominent structure was reserved only for the occasional use of the servants of visitors is remarkable.

The servants' hall is remarkable for its unusual function as well. Once the final design was agreed upon, it was always referred to in George Washington's writings and in other plantation records as the "Servants Hall." With the exception of a three-year period when plantation manager William Pearce took up residence, the Servants' Hall was reserved exclusively for the use of the visitors' servants.

The prominent placement of the Servants' Hall as a flanker to the Mansion, its mimicking of the Mansion by exhibiting rusticated siding on the facades facing the entrance circle, and its connection to the mansion by the open-sided colonnades, marks the building's importance within the scheme of the overall plantation layout at Mount Vernon.