Taylor Estate - Orange, Virginia

I spent a weekend in September, 2010 at the Taylor Estate near Orange, Virginia. I'm not sure what connection the 12th President of the United States has to the property but he was born about six miles north of this property in 1784. He moved to Kentucky with his family when he was a young boy.

The estate dates back to 1722 and was originally 30,000 acres. Over generations land was sold or donated and now the estate is 8,600 acres. The land the Orange Airport was once part of this estate, the Taylor family donated the property.

It's pretty hard to imagine an 8,600 acre estate still around just a couple hours from Washington DC. Anytime someone owns more than 7,000 acres they must employ a full time, live on game warden who must be a federal officer as well as a local police officer. This person lives on the property and investigates poachers and thins the herds of wild animals when needed.

The current family member that lives on the estate is a bachelor with no kids and no immediate airs and actually grew up in the main house. He lives in a nice rustic apt above the 5 bay garage and seemed like a cool guy. I talked to him briefly. This was the family's "country" house, their "city" house was a huge mansion on Monument Ave. in Richmond.

The main house is being painted and going through some light renovations. It's amazing how original the main house still is. It still has all the skeleton key door locks intact and working. The house has gone through a few additions over the years of course but still has the old feel. The main floor has 14' ceilings and the upper floor has 12' ceilings.

There is pretty much everything you could want on the estate, huge house, guest houses, big garage, huge pool, packed clay tennis court, shooting range, a winery, 3 ponds, a huge barn (2 other huge barns burned years ago), lots of animals including a black bear, acres and acres of soft grass to run around on and the stars at night are amazing.

The estate is privately owned. I am pretty sure it will never leave the Taylor family and will never be up for sale so enjoy the pictures because I'm sure this will never be a Bed and Breakfast.

An article on the current owner's mother

Pictures

Pictures taken Sept. 2010.