General George C. Marshall Home
Also known as Dodona Manor

Although built in the 1820s, Dodona Manor is a National Historic Landmark better known as the home of General George C. Marshall, an architect of the Allied victory in World War II, who became President Truman’s Secretary of State. He would later serve as Secretary of Defense and president of the American Red Cross. As Secretary of State, he championed American financing of European recovery after World War II—taking the unheard of position to extend recovery assistance to Germany and other vanquished countries. Truman and Marshall confronted the possibility that without a strong economic recovery, Europe might quickly become satellites of the Soviet Union. For an America dealing with its own post-war problems of housing and jobs for millions of returning servicemen and women, it was not an easy sell. President Truman recognized that only Marshall’s stature could sway the American people and Congress. The blueprint for recovery became known as the Marshall Plan. The achievement of the Marshall Plan made him the first career soldier awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

General Marshall and his wife moved into the house in 1941, after a transient life as a career military officer. He lived there until his death in 1959. In those years, while commuting to Washington and traveling the world, he was an enthusiastic gardener and an active member of his adopted community of Leesburg.

The George C. Marshall International Center is restoring the house and its surrounding acreage to their late 1940s-1950s appearance. It is a wonderful tour not only because of Marshall’s place in history, but because the hosue and exhibits portray a unique moment in American heritage, as the transition from a nation of small towns to one of suburbs and automobiles was just beginning.