The Homes of General William ‘Billy’ Mitchell

Billy Mitchell. Photo is in the Public Domain.

Last week was kind of a big week for the man for whom Milwaukee’s airport is named. Vice President JD Vance made an appearance at Milwaukee Mitchell International Airport on July 8 to promote the efforts of the Trump administration’s White House Task Force to Eliminate Fraud.

Within a week, he was back in the news when it was confirmed that the vice president had rented two homes on a nearly 500-acre estate in Middleburg, Virginia, as a retreat from his 9,000-square-foot official residence on a 13-acre plot at Number One Observatory Circle in Washington. He will pay market rent for the country property from his own funds, Vance said.

This newsy bit attracted my attention, for I had spent a number of days in the Virginia hunt country for a family wedding in 2010. It is a delightful area — a River Hills on steroids, filled with historic places, like the inn my uncle rented in Paris, Virginia, for the rehearsal dinner. I looked it up on the map to jog my memory and to search for the veep’s new digs — and there it was, Wolver Hill Farm, lodged between the inn and the Salamander Middleburg, a Forbes five-star resort.

To call up a map of historic places in this amply historic region, once surveyed by George Washington himself, activates the screen like lightning bolts on the weather app during a thunderstorm. But one site caught my eye immediately: It was the National Register of Historic Places listing for Boxwood Farm, with the historic name of the General William “Billy” Mitchell Home (Click here to see the home).

I had never heard of it. Although I have been to the Wisconsin Club, the former home of the general’s grandfather, Alexander Mitchell, and have paid my respects at Billy Mitchell‘s impressive tomb at Forest Home Cemetery, disported myself at Mitchell Park and took my first flight from Mitchell Field in 1962, I had never researched where he lived following his February 1926 resignation from the Army until his death in 1936. He spent 10 years in the Boxwood Farm house — longer than any place in his adulthood. Such is an officer’s life.

Son of Senator, Grandson of State’s Wealthiest Man, Youngest Officer Appointed to General Staff

William Lendrum “Billy” Mitchell (December 1879-February 1936) was born in Nice, France, and spent his early childhood in the Milwaukee area, enjoying Meadowmere, his family’s 480-acre farm in the town of Greendale, where he engaged in various outdoor activities, including those of an equine nature, as his father was a noted breeder and trainer of trotting horses. Mitchell developed a lifelong love of horses. The family farmhouse, a three-story, 28-room mansion designed in 1878 by Edward Townsend Mix, remains to this day at 5301 W. Lincoln Ave. It became St. Joseph’s Home for the Aged in 1938 and is now known as Aria at Mitchell Manor.

Yet his time here was brief. We cannot fault young Billy for moving to Washington in 1891, leaving Milwaukee forever behind as a full-time home, for that year his father was elected to Congress, serving one term as a representative, followed by another six years as a senator. (Grandpa Alexander Mitchell, the state’s wealthiest person, had also served in Congress from 1871-75.) In 1898, with the advent of the Spanish-American War, Mitchell quit his college studies and joined the Army, becoming, at age 24, the youngest captain in the service, and shortly thereafter the youngest person to that time to serve on the general staff.

During World War I, Mitchell commanded 1,481 airplanes against the Germans, becoming the first person to fly over enemy lines. Yet airplanes were considered primarily reconnaissance tools. Mitchell, however, saw their importance as fighting craft, soon to overtake battleships as the primary offensive weapons. He proved his point in 1921 when his planes sank a captured German ship and a decommissioned American one in a test. Early airstrikes could wipe out distant bases in case of war, he thought. A posting to the Philippines convinced Mitchell that the Japanese would one day attack Pearl Harbor. Today, he is considered to be the father of the Air Force. He had ascended the heights, but ran into a lot of turbulence and even friendly fire from the brass.

Mitchell’s incessant — and very public — championing of the flying machine rankled his superiors. In 1925 he faced a court-martial trial on charges of insubordination. He was stripped of his brigadier general rank and busted down to colonel. He left the service in February 1926 and headed to Virginia, where his wife had bought Boxwood, an 1826 country estate in Middleburg, the year before. Work was underway on an addition to the large home when he arrived. Although it was never to be as big as the Alexander Mitchell Mansion or Meadowmere, it was certainly more comfortable than many of his overseas postings. He spent the final decade of his life here, promoting the use of airplanes, fox hunting, horse training and racing, along with the other genteel pursuits in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Following Mitchell’s death in 1936, a move was underway to name Milwaukee’s airport, established in May 1926, after him. That event happened in July 1941, when Mitchell’s widow was in attendance for the dedication of Mitchell Field, as it was then known.

Five months later, Billy Mitchell’s prophecy was fulfilled when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. In 1948 he was posthumously awarded a unique Congressional Gold Medal and had his rank restored. The rest is history.

The Home Today

Today the 120-acre estate operates as Boxwood Winery, established in 2001 by John Kent Cooke, the former president and one-time owner of the Washington Redskins (now Commanders) football team, until his father, Jack Kent Cooke, took it away from him shortly before his death in 1997. John would run the team from its offices, taking nonstop orders from his father, who preferred to remain at the home at Boxwood Farms, which remains a family residence.

In 2004 John Kent Cooke and his stepson Sean Martin planted 16 acres of certified French vines at the estate; this has since expanded to 26 acres. In 2006 they commenced a six-year process to establish the Middleburg Virginia Viticultural Area, which now encompasses some 30 wineries in the district. In 2006 Washington architect Hugh Newell Jacobsen built a four-building facility for the winery, encompassing production, aging, bottling, warehousing and a fashionable tasting room/restaurant. The design is modern, but the materials are those found in 18th-century buildings of the era.

JD Vance presents himself as a beer-drinking regular guy, but if he has a taste for Virginia terroir or for American history, he might pay a call at the former home of Gen. William “Billy” Mitchell.

Fun Fact:

Mitchell was not the only general to retire to Middleburg; George C. Marshall also spent his final years here. His home, virtually intact, including furnishings and personal papers, is a museum open to the public.