Gawkers peeking into the windows of historic homes in Old Town need look no further.
On June 16, publisher Simon & Schuster will release “Old Town Style: Inside Alexandria’s Most Beautiful Historic Homes.” In its 253 pages, Robert Weinhagen Jr., president of the Historic Alexandria Foundation, goes inside 44 homes built within the Colonial, Federal and Victorian periods.
Weinhagen spent more than a year writing and researching historic homes in the city for his coffee table book, taking his organization’s message of historic preservation to another level.
“We’re trying to let people see the inside of the houses that they normally would never see, even on a house tour,” Weinhagen told ALXnow. “We knew of certain houses that were obvious candidates, but others we just drove around or walked around and made a decision based on the front of the house.”
No addresses are included in the book, although some of the homes are famous attractions. These include the Carlyle House, the first actual mansion in the city, built in 1852 by city founder John Carlyle; and Wise’s Tavern, where George Washington learned to dance and gave his farewell address before embarking to New York for his first term as president. There are also no photos with automobiles in the background.
“Only two of them [historic homes] are after the Civil War, and two of the houses had started life as a bank,” he said. “One that’s fascinating, which I wanted in the book, started life as a little firehouse on Prince Street.”
The book is dedicated to Morgan Delaney, the foundation’s former longtime board chair, who died in 2024.
“His dying wish was that we do a coffee table of the historic houses of Old Town, something that had never been done,” Weinhagen said. “I was trying to get across the idea that people can live comfortably in the 21st century in an 18th or 19th century house without destroying the bones of the house. In other words, you can paint the walls and do all kinds of things, but don’t rip out the fireplace, don’t take the crown molding off, don’t replace the yellow pine floors.”
Weinhagen, who has lived in a historic home in Old Town since 1985, said that his position with the foundation helped him get approval from homeowners.
“I had the business card,” he said. “It gives me some, I don’t know, what do you call it, gravitas? I mean, it helps.”
“Old Town Style” had a soft release in January, with about 800 copies selling on the Historical Foundation’s website.
In the book, Weinhagen writes that Old Town’s colonial grid with Georgian, Federal, Greek Revival and Victorian architecture is a window into the country’s origins.
“Old Town, Alexandria stands as one of the most intact eighteenth-and-nineteenth-century urban ensembles in the nation — not a museum recreation, but a living town that continues to evolve within its original plan,” he writes. “Yet its authenticity remains fragile, continually tested by development pressure, shifting tastes, and the cost of preservation.”
All net proceeds from the book will go to the Historic Alexandria Foundation.
