Virginia House

Virginia House is a country house and museum in Richmond, Virginia overlooking the James River, Virginia .

The house is the free reconstruction of a former British monastery building from the 16th century, which was demolished in 1925–1929 and rebuilt in the USA. The builders were Alexander and Virginia Weddell. Alexander W. Weddell was a career diplomat and, among other things, ambassador of the USA to Argentina and Spain, but also an enthusiastic local historian and aesthetician. The funds came from his wife, an extremely wealthy widow. The couple furnished the house with numerous antiques. Today it is the seat of the Virginia Historical Society , of which Alexander Weddell was president since 1943, and is run as a museum.

history

From the middle of the 19th century, the building, then called Warwick Priory, was owned by a banking family who wanted to auction it off in parts on September 23, 1925 as a "demolition sale". However, the Weddells managed to acquire the entire property. This led to protests among the British public, which were referred to as an act of vandalism. Nevertheless, the individual parts of the house, even entire parts of the wall that were blown loose, were shipped to the USA. It was the owners intention from the beginning to dedicate their home to the Virginia Historical Society. Construction began in November 1925 and the handover to the Weddells took place in 1929. The Weddells lived in their home until their death in a railroad accident on January 1, 1948. On June 13, 1990, Virginia House was added to the National Register of Historic Places . Virginia House is not an exact reconstruction. The west wing is based on the example of Sulgrave Manor in Northamptonshire , Spanish influences are also evident. The ensemble's architect was Henry Grant Morse . Adjacent is Agecroft Hall .

literature

Virginus Dabney: Richmond: the Story of a City. University Press of Virginia, 1990, pp. 310f

Web links

37.55354 -77.50305Coordinates: 37 ° 33 ′ 12.7 " N , 77 ° 30 ′ 11" W.