New Housing Developer Eyes Mullins Farm At Chancellorsville
By Deborah Fitts
April 2004

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. - Even as Chancellorsville was being named for a third time to the country's top-10 list of most endangered battlefields in late February, a new threat loomed in the wings.

At presstime in March Trust spokesman Jim Campi said he had "reliable information" that major homebuilder Toll Brothers was "nearing a deal" to purchase the 790-acre Mullins Farm, focus of a longstanding development threat.

Last year an attempt by owner John Mullins to sell the rolling farmland to a developer for hundreds of homes and major commercial development was rejected by local officials after a dogged grassroots battle.

Pennsylvania-based Toll Brothers has built extensively in Northern Virginia. Last year they planned to build 62 luxury homes on 80 acres within Valley Forge National Historical Park boundaries.

Congress approved $5 million as part of the 2004 Interior Department appropriations, to be added to $2.5 million from the National Park Service, to buy the site.

Campi looked on the bright side.
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"We're hoping this means we can sit down with Toll Brothers and work out a deal that allows key parts of the battlefield to be preserved," he said, "- which is all we ever wanted."

Campi said the Trust would like to protect about 330 acres where there was action on May 1, 1863, the opening day of the battle. The farm fronts Route 3 adjoining the Chancellorsville unit of Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park.

At present, a developer has the right to build 225 homes on 735 acres of the Mullins Farm, while another 55 acres are zoned commercial. If a deal were struck to save one-third of the property, Campi said, "very likely" a developer might be allowed to retain some of the lost house sites by clustering the development.

The Trust and other preservation groups "have tried to sit down with Mr. Mullins," Campi said, "but the price he's demanding is so extreme it makes no sense." Mullins cited a sale price of $40 million; the property is assessed at $5.6 million. Mullins had said he would develop the 273-acre Ashley-Orrock Tract portion of the farm himself.