Sully was built in 1794 by Richard Bland Lee and is one of the few surviving Federal-period plantation houses in Fairfax County. The main house is a modest, well-proportioned frame structure; the grounds include a smokehouse, a stone dairy, and slave quarters that the site interprets as part of the broader history of the plantation. Fairfax County operates the site and offers guided tours of the interior.
The house narrowly survived the suburban development that erased most of the surrounding landscape. It now sits hemmed in by office parks and a busy state road, which makes for an odd visit — the building itself is genuine, but the pastoral context it was built within is entirely gone. For visitors with a particular interest in early American domestic architecture or Virginia history, it's worth an hour; for others, the Udvar-Hazy Center a mile away will be the more compelling stop.