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Two months after her husband’s death, Marjorie Leighey learned that Virginia planned to condemn her Falls Church home and clear the property for Interstate 66. The state offered her $25,605 in 1964, but Leighey refused to let the distinctive Frank Lloyd Wright house be demolished.
She asked Gov. Albertis Harrison to reroute the highway. After he declined, she contacted Interior Secretary Stewart Udall, rallied supporters and donated the 1,200-square-foot house to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The Trust dismantled the building and reconstructed it at Woodlawn in Alexandria, preserving what is now the only Wright-designed house in the Washington area open to the public.
An exhibit marking the 60th anniversary of the move, “Saving Pope-Leighey House: How Marjorie Leighey Rescued Her Frank Lloyd Wright Home,” shifts attention from the celebrated architect to the determined homeowner who protected his work.
The woman behind the rescue
Leighey grew up in Washington and graduated from George Washington University in 1931. She met Robert Leighey there, and they married before graduation. Both participated on the university’s rifle team. The couple had no children, and Robert died in 1963.
Virginia transportation officials maintained that the proposed highway could not avoid the house. Leighey was equally firm that it could not be destroyed, even meeting with officials inside the threatened building.
When she transferred the title to the National Trust, Leighey also gave the organization a $31,500 check representing the money Virginia had paid her. The contribution covered part of the $46,087 cost of moving and reconstructing the house.
She selected Woodlawn because its wooded surroundings resembled the original Falls Church lot, where Wright had designed the home to blend with nature.
Unable to watch the building being dismantled, Leighey traveled to Japan for three years, working as a missionary and teaching English. She lived in the reconstructed house at Woodlawn from 1965 until her death in 1983. She is buried at Pohick Church.
Preservationists have credited her campaign with helping build support for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, which established a national preservation program and protections for historic properties as infrastructure and urban-renewal projects were eliminating significant sites.
A modest home with an architectural legacy
The house began with Loren Pope, a 28-year-old Washington Evening Star journalist who wanted an affordable home for his Falls Church property. He approached Wright in 1939, and the architect agreed to design it.
Pope initially expected to spend $5,500, described as roughly $86,000 in present-day value. The final cost was $7,000, and the Pope family moved into the house in 1941.
Now known as the Pope-Leighey House, it is one of approximately 100 Usonian homes Wright designed between 1936 and 1959. These houses were intended to provide efficient, practical and relatively affordable architecture for middle-income families, using accessible local materials and designs suited to their surroundings.
The exhibit includes letters from people who supported Leighey’s preservation effort, George Washington University yearbooks featuring Marjorie and Robert, and personal belongings from their lives. Recordings also allow visitors to hear Leighey describe the home’s close relationship with nature and what she called its “real union of the outdoors with the inside.”
The exhibit continues through Dec. 29, 2025, Thursday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., at Woodlawn & Pope-Leighey House, 9000 Richmond Highway in Alexandria. Woodlawn will also hold a commemoration with tours on June 7 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tickets are $60.