Edwin Martin "Pa" Watson (December 10, 1883 – February 20, 1945) was a U.S. Army Major General and a friend and senior aide to President Franklin Roosevelt, serving both as a military advisor and Appointments Secretary, a role that is now encompassed under the duties of the White House Chief of Staff.

[2] He attended the United States Military Academy at West Point, among contemporaries George S. Patton and Jonathan Wainwright.

[6] Shortly after America's entry into the First World War in April 1917, Watson requested an active duty assignment with the American Expeditionary Force that was heading for the front in France.

He served there for the remainder of the war, earning two Silver Stars from the U.S. Army and the Croix de Guerre from the French government.

He remained in France for the Paris Peace Conference to write the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the First World War.

The land, just beyond Monticello, was once owned by Thomas Jefferson, and the estate house was designed by Roosevelt's cousin, the celebrated architect William A. Delano.

On subsequent visits, including four days in June 1944 while he was awaiting the Normandy invasion, Roosevelt slept in the front bedroom of the main house.

These included a meeting about the Einstein–Szilard letter, which would eventually lead to the creation of the Manhattan Project, and Roosevelt's agreement to the Atlantic Charter alongside British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, providing a framework for those values that would guide the postwar world.