Operated with the forced labor of enslaved people,[3][4] it was located on the west bank of the Potomac River on the present site of Fort Belvoir in Fairfax County, Virginia.

The site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 1973 [1] as "Belvoir Mansion Ruins and the Fairfax Grave."

Although this property was sub-divided and sold in the early 18th century, it was reassembled during the 1730s to create the central portion of Col. William Fairfax's 2,200-acre (8.9 km2) plantation of Belvoir Manor.

Lord Fairfax came to Belvoir, to help oversee his family estates in Virginia's Northern Neck Proprietary between the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers, inherited from his mother, Catharine, daughter of Thomas Culpeper, 2nd Baron Culpeper of Thoresway; and a great portion of the Shenandoah and South Branch Potomac valleys.

The northwestern boundary of his Northern Neck Proprietary was marked by the Fairfax Stone at the headwaters of the North Branch Potomac River.

On September 1, the British attempted to run the deep-water channel below the Belvoir house site, a position that previously had been identified as a strategic defensive location on the river.

A hastily assembled American force, composed of Virginia and Alexandria militia under the command of U.S. Navy Captain David Porter, hurriedly began to mount a battery on the bluff above the river.

Herbert's continued inability to pay his debts eventually led to the sale of Belvoir at public auction in 1838.

As a new generation of landowners took up residence in southeastern Fairfax County, patterns of land use and ownership were altered.