Farmer's Delight – An Overview 

Farmer’s Delight Plantation, the headquarters of The McGhee Foundation, is both one of the most interesting – and also one of the least known – historical sites in the national capital region.

Located in Loudoun County, Virginia, some forty-five miles west of Washington, DC and about three miles north of the much-visited town of Middleburg, Farmer’s Delight is a country estate dating back to pre-Revolutionary America. The house itself was built in the 1790’s by Colonel Joseph Flavius Lane (1756 – 1803) on a five hundred acre parcel of land that can be traced to the original King Charles II 1661 land grant of 5,282,000 Virginia acres to seven English noblemen – all the territory lying between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers. On his 500-acre parcel, Colonel Lane incorporated a small pre-existing stone cottage into an imposing Federal-style mansion which survives to this day.

Having passed through a number of hands over the course of the Republic’s history, Farmer’s Delight came at last into the possession of Ambassador George Crews McGhee in 1948. McGhee (1912 – 2005) was a Texan who became imbued with the spirit of public service while attending Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship in the mid-1930’s. After receiving his doctorate in the physical sciences, McGhee returned to the USA and used his training in geology to become an independent producer of oil, a wildcatter. He discovered oil in several states and became independently wealthy by the age of thirty. Recognizing that he was free from Adam’s curse of daily labor, Dr. McGhee devoted his life to the service of his nation.

He joined the War Production Board in Washington before Pearl Harbor and served in World War Two as a naval lieutenant. After the war, he entered the U.S. State Department, where he began a twenty year career in the diplomatic corps. Serving under four presidents, from Truman through Johnson, McGhee was Ambassador to Turkey and to West Germany, as well as being the holder of numerous other posts with the State Department.

In 1948, the Ambassador and his wife Cecilia DeGolyer McGhee purchased Farmer’s Delight as an English-style country retreat from their weekday activities in Washington, DC, an hour and a half to the east. McGhee made many substantial improvements to the property which became his principal place of residence after retiring from public service in the late 1960’s. Among other uses, the estate became the repository for the numerous books and artifacts which the always intellectually curious Ambassador had collected during his years of travel around the world. Farmer’s Delight was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

Some years before his death on July 4th 2005, Dr McGhee established the foundation which bears his name -- a philanthropic non-profit 501 c 3 organization dedicated to educational purposes, particularly the furthering of the many political, historical and cultural interests which were at the core of his long life.

Farmer’s Delight today serves as the headquarters of The McGhee Foundation. The name itself, “Farmer’s Delight” derives, almost certainly, from the traditional children’s nursery rhyme – itself derived from Matthew 16:2-3 – predicting the weather. The observing character may be a Pharisee, a shepherd, a sailor, or a farmer, depending on the local variation:\

““Red sky at morning:
Farmer’s warning.
Red sky at night:
Farmer’s delight”

Farmer’s Delight has many splendid vistas for observing the eastern and the western sky. From Colonel Joseph Lane to Ambassador George McGhee to now, the place itself, beautifully landscaped and much of it still a working farm, remains a rural treasure, a true delight.