The Bell House in Colonial Beach, Virginia
- cbhsmuseum
- Aug 24
- 4 min read
Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, owned this riverside summer cottage in the Westmoreland County town of Colonial Beach from the time he inherited it from his father, Alexander Melville Bell, in 1907, until in 1918 when he deeded it to his private secretary, Arthur McCurdy. The elder Bell, a distinguished British elocutionist, purchased the house as a retreat in 1886, following his 1881 move to Washington, D.C.
Although the younger Bell normally summered in Canada, he made visits here during his thirteen years of ownership. Local tradition has it that Bell experimented with kites or “flying machines,” launching them from the balcony here. The house was built ca. 1883 for Col. J.O.P. Burnside. It is a classic example of Stick Style residential architecture, a style popular in the northeast but relatively rare in Virginia. The Stick Style is characterized by its use of various lumber elements for decorative effects.
Historical Background from DHR application
The Alexander Graham Bell house at 821 Irving Avenue, Colonial Beach, was once part of the property that contstituted White Point Farm. In 1882, Henry J. Kintz platted the 650-acre farm and named it as the town of Colonial Beach. Kintz had purchased the property in 1878 from Jesse Hancock with the intention of developing it with other adjoining land. Tracts were offered for sale and, in 1883, Helen Burnside purchased from J. Harry Danforth property on Irviing Avenue, "30,000 square f feet mre or less." Helen Burnside was the wife of Colonel J. 0. P. Burnside. After Col. Burnside became involved in a scandal involving the misappropriation of government funds, the U.S. Government confiscated the Burnside's Colonial Beach property and sold it to Alexander Melville Bell of Washinqton, D.C. "for $2,500 conveyed by George A. Mushback, Special Cornmissloner." The dfed noted a "two story and attic dwelling house, a stable and other out buildings."
The notation of a dwelling would indicate that the house was erected between 1883-85, the period of Col. and Mrs. Burnside's tenure. At the time of Colonel Burnside and his wife's purchase of the property on Irving Avenue, wood-frame cottages were just beginning to spring up on the White Point Farm subdivision. While few of these early buildings have survived, early views of Colonial Beach show Irving Avenue lined with cottages. Indeed, by the end of the 19th century, the town had taken on a resort-like quality and earned the title of "the playground of the Potomc." Stylistically, 821 Irving Avenue is rare for its feature of architectural elements derived from the so-called "Stick style."
Popular along the east coast from the 1870s to ca. 1890, the style is characterized by steeply pitched gable roofs, cross gables, towers with pointed roofs and large ornamented porches and verandas. While examples of the style are typically found in seacoast towns and cities in the northeast, examples are rare in Virginia with the Bell House most certainly ranking among the best in the state. The second owner of 821 Irving Avenue was Alexander Melville Bell, father of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone. The elder Bell was born in Edinburgh, Scotland on March 1, 1819.
The son of Alexander Bell, a prominent instructor in elocution in London who educated him largely at home, the younger Bell in 1842 announced the formulation of a new t-heory of articulation and vocal expression. Bell subsequently taught classes in Scotland, eventually moving to London upon the death of his father. In 1868 he gave his first course of lectures in the United States at the Lowell Institute. At that time he held the appointment of Lecturer on Elocution in University College, London. In 1870 he returned to the United States to deliver a course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, supplementing it by a third course the following year. In 1870 he established residence in Canada where he held a professorship in Queen's Colleqe, Kingston. In 1881Bell took up permanent residence in a house on Thirty-Fifth Street in Georgetown. For the next quarter century Bell remained a Washingtonian, and maintained his summer residence at 821 Irving Avenue in Colonial Beach.
Alexander Melville Bell died in 1905 and on November 11, 1907 the property was deeded to Alexander Graham Bell, Mabel G. Bell, and Harriet G. Bell. The inventor Alexander Graham Bell was certainly the most distinguished owner of 821 Irving Avenue. At the time that Bell owned property at Colonial Beach, he resided in Washington, D.C., at 3131 Connecticut Avenue. According to Bell's biographer, Robert V. Bruce, Bell found one major drawback to life in Washinqton, D.C. : the hot summer climate. To escape Washinqton smrs Bell usually traveled north, ultimately buying property in Canada. Bruce's biography of Bell does not mention the house on Colonial Beach; however, the fact of its proximity by boat to Washington and its possession by the Bell family for thirteen years after the death of Alexander Melville Bell, suggests that Alexander Graham Bell remained attached t~o 821 Irving Avenue and continued to enjoy its hospitality. According to tradition Bell experimnted with kite2 or "flying machines" at his Colonial Beach residence, flying them off the balcony. Bell also gave land in Colonial Beach for the establishment of the Bell Home for underprivileged children. Later the name "Bell" was removed and the house renamed the "Episcopal HOE " . In 1918 the Colonial Beach property left. the Bell family when it was deeded to Arthur W. McCurdy, Alexander Graham Bell's private secretary from 1888 to 1905. McCurdy undoubtedly came to know 821 Irving Avenue as a quest of the Bell family. Following McCurdy's tenure the house had a variety of owners.