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Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va.
Old Loyd [i.e. Lloyd] House, Alexandria, Va. · Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division · http://www.loc.gov/item/2016803285/

Residence · Alexandria, VA

220
North Washington Street

Late-Georgian 1797 townhouse at the corner of North Washington and Queen built by merchant John Wise. Charles Lee, U.S. Attorney General and brother of Light-Horse Harry, lived here as a tenant; Benjamin Hallowell ran a school out of it from 1826; St. Agnes Episcopal School for Girls opened here in 1924; the Alexandria Library Association restored it in the 1970s as a research library. NRHP 1976.
Year built
1797
Style
Late Georgian
Status
Extant
Designations
National Register of Historic PlacesOld and Historic Alexandria District

Narrative

Place narrative


Lloyd House — also called the Wise–Hooe–Lloyd House for its three principal nineteenth-century owners — was built between 1796 and 1797 by John Wise, the merchant and tavernkeeper who already owned the neighboring City Hotel (later the Bank of Alexandria) and Wise’s Tavern, where George Washington was first toasted as President-elect in April 1789 [1] Source 1 City of Alexandria — Lloyd House History Website .

Wise lived at the corner of North Washington and Queen only briefly. By 1810 he had sold the house to Jacob Hoffman, who would later serve as mayor of Alexandria, and Hoffman in turn sold to James Hooe in 1824 for $13,000 [2] Source 2 Wikipedia, Lloyd House (Alexandria, Virginia) Website . Among the early tenants was Charles Lee (U.S. Attorney General) Person Charles Lee (U.S. Attorney General) b. 1758 · d. 1815 United States Attorney General (1795-1801) under presidents Washington and Adams; brother of and . Practiced law in Alexandria; married Anne Lee, daughter of Declaration signer . , younger brother of Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III Person Henry "Light-Horse Harry" Lee III b. 1756 · d. 1818 Continental Army cavalry officer, ninth governor of Virginia, and father of . Sold the Oronoco Street property in 1784 to his cousin that became the . and U.S. Attorney General under presidents Washington and Adams.

A schoolhouse in 1826 — and again in 1924

After Hooe’s death in 1826 his widow rented the house to Benjamin Hallowell, the Quaker schoolmaster, who used the building as his Alexandria boarding school for boys. Hallowell’s most famous pupil was Robert Edward Lee, who boarded with him for several months in 1825 to prepare for entrance to West Point. The Hooe widow died in 1831; the house then passed to John Lloyd, the family that gave the building its enduring name.

A century later — in 1924 — Lloyd House opened a second life as a school. St. Agnes School (a.k.a. St. Agnes Episcopal School for Girls), founded that year to serve Alexandria families who lacked a private-school option, took its first 45 pupils inside the Federal-period rooms with Miss Mary Josephine White as principal. St. Agnes outgrew Lloyd House by 1932 and relocated, but the founding chapter remained part of the institutional memory long after the school merged with St. Stephen’s in 1991 to form 1000 Saint Stephens Road Place 1000 Saint Stephens Road Upper School (grades 9–12) of St. Stephen's & St. Agnes School, occupying the Saint Stephens Road campus opened in January 1957 by St. Stephen's School for Boys. In 1961 the school … .

The library era

The house was acquired by the City of Alexandria and restored in the 1970s by the Alexandria Library Association Nonprofit Alexandria Library Association founded 1937 The private nonprofit operating Alexandria's first free public library, which opened on Queen Street in 1937. The association's segregation policy excluding Black patrons was the … as a local-history research library — a third life as a place of study. NRHP listed in 1976. It remains a city-owned historic site.

A Place in Time

Timeline

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Architecture

The building


Style
Late Georgian

Contemporary

Nearby in time


Geographically

Nearby in space


Current

Now


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Commonwealth Avenue

Named for The Commonwealth of Virginia, c. 1894.

On the ground

Interpretive signs nearby

All 250 city signs →

The City of Alexandria has installed 3 historical interpretive signs within walking distance of this place. Each links to the actual sign image on alexandriava.gov.

References

Sources


  1. 1.

    City of Alexandria, "Lloyd House History," alexandriava.gov, accessed 2026.

    Website https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic-sites/lloyd-house-history →

  2. 2.

    Wikipedia, "Lloyd House (Alexandria, Virginia)," accessed 2026.

    Website https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_House_(Alexandria,_Virginia) →

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