Why did George Washington Parke Custis build Arlington House?

Arlington House was built as a living memorial to George Washington. Commissioned by his adopted grandson, George Washington Parke Custis, a significant portion of the north wing of the house, completed in 1802, was used to store George Washington memorabilia that Custis collected, including portraits, Washington's personal papers and his command tent from Yorktown. The house was designed by English architect George Hadfield. Custis once intended to call the estate Mount Washington. The property's later association with Robert E. Lee had nothing to do with Custis' original intention.|||Arlington House and its beautiful grounds belonged to Robert E Lee the great general of the Confederate States in the Civil War. In an an act of revenge, the North decided to take over his house and use his garden as a graveyard for the Northern troops. Years after the War the Lee family went to court to get the house returned to them and it remains as a memorial to Lee, not to Washington.