WINCHESTER-CLARKE GARDEN CLUB TOUR:CLARKE COUNTY
Sponsored by the Winchester-Clarke Garden Club and The Little Garden Club of Winchester
Saturday, April 24, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sunday, April 25, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Chairman:
Lockett Van Voorhis (Mrs. Jerry A.)
101 Smith St.
Berryville, VA 22611
Telephone: (540) 955-3377
E-mail: javlv@comcast.net
Co-Chairmen:
Donna Kitchin (Mrs. Llewellyn)
515 South Washington
St.
Winchester, VA 22601
Telephone: (540) 722-3079
E-mail:dkitchin@ntelos.net
Janet Sfeir (Mrs. Ramsey)
730 Merriman’s
Ln.
Winchester, VA 22602
Telephone: (540) 722-9708
E-mail:sfeirj@comcast.net
Bus Chairman:
Liza Adams (Mrs. Nate L. III)
139 Academy Ln.
Winchester, VA 22601
Telephone: (540) 667-8139
E-mail:liza@nadamslaw.com
INFORMATION CENTERS:
Kimberly’s
135 North Braddock St.
Winchester, VA 22601
Classic Touch Interiors
3038 Valley Ave.
Winchester, VA 22601
Telephone: (540) 722-2488
The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Museum Shop
901 Amherst St.
Winchester, VA 22601
Telephone: (540) 662-1473
Berryville Main Street
The Fire House Gallery and
Shop
23 East Main Street
Berryville, VA 22611
Telephone: (540) 955-4001
FULL TICKET: $30; single-site admission, $15. Children 13 and older, full price; ages 6-12, full ticket $15, single house $5; ages 5 and under, free of charge. Tickets may be purchased on tour day at any house open for the tour. An adult must accompany children younger than age 17. Houses need not be visited in the order listed. One property is fully handicapped-accessible.
ADVANCE TICKETS: At designated information centers (above) or online,www.VAGardenweek.org. Full-price advance tickets discounted to $25.
BOX LUNCHEON: 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday only, at Powhatan School, 49 Powhatan Lane, off of Main St. (Rte 723) west of Millwood, $12 per person. Reservations due by April 17; contact Anne Buettner (Mrs. Jeffrey B.) at (540) 722-0411 or buettneranne@yahoo.com.
TEA: Served at Randleston Farm 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. both days.
THE TOUR follows the Shenandoah River from Rte 50 on the south to Rte 7 on the north. Land on the south was devised in the early 18th century by Robert “King” Carter of Nomini Hall in Westmoreland County, agent of Thomas Lord Fairfax, to his heirs. After Carter’s death, Fairfax came to Virginia to manage his own land, devising some of that north toward and beyond today’s Rte 7 to his young surveyor, George Washington. Later, especially after the end of the Revolution, Carter and Washington descendants settled to claim their inheritance and create a plantation economy successful because of fertile land that grew wheat, in worldwide demand, and because of the Shenandoah River, which gave access to the Atlantic. At least two cavalries were raised in the neighborhood during the War of 1812, Stonewall Jackson camped near one of the properties below in 1862, and the renegade Colonel John Mosby was in and out of Millwood until the end of the Confederacy. Agriculture and the river maintain the rural area’s early ambiance, as does footing: walking shoes are strongly recommended. With one exception, the houses are near Millwood, off Rte 50, but visitors may approach north or south on Rte 7 and Rte 50. The sweeping views of the Shenandoah, the Blue Ridge, rolling pasture land, and tree-lined roadways make this drive a joy.
Properties may be visited in any order.
ROSEMONT ON THE SHENANDOAH, 1520 Swift Shoals Rd., Boyce, VA 22620. Travel Rte 50 to Rte 622, Swift Shoals Rd. Turn right onto Rte 622 and go 1.4 mi. to stone entrance on right. Above the west shore of the river, this secluded house remains true to its beginnings as a pre-1770s oak-log, two-room dwelling with the upper room reached by ladder. The desirable site caused owners to create over time a remarkable example of preservation, growth and adaptive use of space. The property was referred to as Rosemont in a will dated 1849. The 216-acre land was owned almost a century, from 1859, by John M. Gibson and his heirs, who are assumed to have added the southern section with a porch, and passed from them in 1966 to Weldon Conroy Wilson and his wife. The Wilsons moved a chimney to the north end, balancing the façade; paneled inside with pine boards from the attic; added gables and dormers, and enclosed the southern porch.
The present owners have restored and imitated the skilled craft of the 1960s artisans in paneling, floors and double-hung windows, and added a family kitchen and master bedroom with a geothermal HVAC system. Kitchen technology is largely out of sight, so that heart-pine doors and paneling, stained terracotta floors, and a fireplace surround made with stones on the place, blend with the old wings. Vistas of a reconstructed log smoke house, and an outdoor seating area facing the view, are seen best here. Décor that suits the house includes a particularly pleasing dining room mural of nearby Ashby Gap. Open for Historic Garden Week for the first time by the present owners. Mr. and Mrs. Charles K. Nulsen III, owners.
ERCHLESS, 3616 Millwood Road, Millwood, VA 22646. Exit Rosemont on the Shenandoah and turn left. Retrace 1.4 mi. to stop sign at intersection with Rte 50. Turn right. Travel 0.2 mi. Turn right onto Rte 723. Travel 0.8 mi. House is on left. Native materials and local craftsmen are celebrated by this 2006 house designed wheelchair-accessible for the owners’ future retirement. The stone is from a West Virginia quarry, mortar and millwork are from Winchester; and the long-established family of contractors is based in the village of White Post a few miles south. The main floor plan moves in a circle, with no square room, few doors and an open kitchen. Light defines the primary space, as well as an intimate den and a sitting-room retreat with views of the back meadow and woods. For some 30 years, the owners have collected contemporary paintings, sculpture, tapestries and crafts, many acquired during extensive travels.
Furniture dates from three centuries: a French chest decorated with ironwork, 1770, a Chippendale-style English mahogany armchair, an English inlaid mahogany laptop desk, 1840, and Dresden Rococo candlesticks, 1920, are at home with seating areas of solid comfort. The ground floor below houses the mechanism required for geothermal HVAC as well as entertainment space that opens to a terrace on the meadow. Here recent work offers a lesson in contemporary landscape design. The 53 acres are protected by a conservation easement to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. Open for Historic Garden Week for the first time. Dr. and Mrs. Lionel D. J. Chisholm, owners.
CAVELAND, 1253 Ginns Road, Boyce, VA 22620. Exit Erchless and turn left onto Rte 723. Travel 5.7 mi., through Millwood and Boyce, straight across the intersection of Rte 340 and Rte 723. Continue on Rte 723, Main Street. Turn left onto Rte 655, Ginns Rd. Travel 0.4 mi. Entrance is on right. This reconstruction achieves country living and vernacular architecture at its best: a 19th-century stucco-over-stone dwelling that grew under the present owners from hall, staircase and dining room with two bedrooms upstairs to today’s additional library, country kitchen, sunroom and bedrooms, without sacrificing indigenous style. Re-stuccoing exhumed a Confederate hat, and the old road name suggests that the builder may have been named Ginn.
Today the owners, horsemen and county leaders with backgrounds in early New York and in England, possess a flair for gardening and art, a knowledge of fine furniture, a passion for painting and sculpture (one is a painter), and a love for country views that combine pond, mountains and rolling fields. Of special interest over the old dining room mantel are two works by miniaturist Archibald Robertson, an ancestor who came from Scotland who was commissioned to paint George Washington; these are of the artist himself and his wife Eliza, dated 1802; other art here includes local landscapes. England reigns in the library, with a mantel, Chippendale desk, inlaid demilune table and 19th century oils. A third fireplace in the large kitchen is stone; copper pots hang from the ceiling, and work space is ample. The sunroom, shaded for summer comfort, has light on three sides. The stairway from the porch frames, in boxwood and flowers, a stunning view of a pond set in green pastures. Open for Historic Garden Week for the first time. Mr. and Mrs. Archibald Robertson Dunning, Jr., owners.
APPLE HILL, 255 Carter Hall Lane, Millwood, VA 22646. Exit Caveland and turn left. Retrace 0.4 mi. to Rte 723, Main St. Turn right and retrace back through Boyce and into Millwood, 4.2 mi. Turn left onto Rte 255, Bishop Meade Rd. At the top of the hill, turn right into Project Hope. Follow arrows to parking and shuttle. Tucked into a hillside overlooking historic Carter Hall spring, this native fieldstone house was built in 1937 within an orchard, now cattle fields, for the daughter of Gerard Lambert, then owner of Carter Hall. The builder, her husband, chose a traditional country-house style, without any attempt at reproduction of nearby 1790s structures, achieving a distinction that suits perfectly the neighborhood and the site. Entering from an informal courtyard, the visitor looks straight ahead through a garden entrance toward the spring, where in 1864 Stonewall Jackson camped with his troops and refused an invitation to leave them and stay at Carter Hall. Looking to left and right down hallways that lead to a formal dining room and living room respectively, one is struck that each of these opens on three sides to admit all the four exposures to sunlight.
By the time the 1940s residents, a family of seven, left Apple Hill, Project HOPE occupied Carter Hall, and in 1980 Dr. William B. Walsh, HOPE’s president, raised funds to acquire and furnish the house with a major gift from the original owner, the present Mrs. Paul Mellon, and Mr. Mellon. Exceptionally fine antiques and Oriental carpets were donated then and into the tenure of Dr. John P. Howe III, HOPE president and CEO since 2001. Among the fine paintings and prints are a J. F. Herring oil of Eclipse, the celebrated 18th century English racehorse who also stood stud in America, over the sofa in the library, and an elephant folio James. J. Audubon, Long-Billed Curlew, over the living room mantel. With 11 bedrooms, Apple Hill is used today for those attending medical and related non-profit conferences. Open for the first time for Historic Garden Week. Project HOPE, owner.
RANDLESTON FARM, 445 Randleston Lane, Bluemont, VA 20135. Exit Apple Hill and turn right onto Rte 255, Bishop Meade Rd. Travel 2.7 mi. until the intersection of Rte 255 and Rte 340, Lord Fairfax Hwy. Turn right onto 340 N. Travel 4.1 mi. to Rte 7 E, going through Berryville. Turn right onto Rte 7 E. Travel 5.6 mi. to Rte 606, River Rd. Turn right immediately after crossing the Shenandoah River Bridge. Go 1.l mi. House is on the left. When exiting, follow the arrows. Turn left onto Rte 604, Ebenezer Rd. Travel 2.1 mi. to Rte 7. Approached from the east bank of the Shenandoah River and thence up a winding road, this Arts and Crafts house is more majestic than its period implies and has a 20th century history unique in Clarke County. The 20s were roaring when New York magnate Phillip Dugrow, judge on the New York Supreme Court and owner of the Savoy Hotel, planned for his daughter Antonia a showplace in the grand manner. Its two-story great hall, large enough to turn a four-in-hand team, is surrounded by balconies and flanked by rooms of more traditional proportion. To the dining room, Judge Dugrow brought elaborate 16th century paneling from Samuel Guggenheim’s penthouse suite at the Savoy. His daughter established a formal garden with a small arboretum.
The Crash of 1929 ended Antonia Dugrow Scholer’s glory. She was forced to evacuate. Furniture was sold or lost. Vines grew through the windows. Although later buyers reclaimed the place, the present owners are the first to restore the building to its intended grandeur, a meticulously performed undertaking that includes the gardens, with furnishings, appointments and art that more than complement it. They discovered that the hall chandelier, from the estate of famed architect Stanford White, is original to the house and, from the Scholers’ gardener’s grandson, that the garden pillars also are original. The old horse barn is a foaling barn now, while more recent stalls and paddocks are sited and designed to blend with the landscape. The property is an exemplary achievement in preservation, reconstruction and adaptive use. Open for Historic Garden Week for the first time. Mr. and Mrs. James S. Carter, owners.
OTHER PLACES OF INTEREST (National Historic Landmarks):
STATE ARBORETUM OF VIRGINIA. Rte 50, 2 mi. west of Millwood. The property of the University of Virginia since 1926, operated now under its Department of Environmental Sciences, 175-acre Historic Blandy Experimental Farm (ca.1825) is a Garden Club of Virginia restoration site: original stone walls were rebuilt (2004) along Dogwood Lane that once led from the manor house to the farm.
BURWELL-MORGAN MILL. In Millwood. Built by Revolutionary hero Daniel Morgan and operated continuously from 1785 to 1943, this working mill was landscaped by the Garden Club of Virginia, 1971-72.
BELLE GROVE. On Rte 11, one mile south of Middletown. The 1794 dressed-stone, Jefferson-influenced manor house overlooks the site of the Battle of Cedar Creek (1864). Owned by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, it was a Garden Club of Virginia restoration, 1983-86.
LONG BRANCH. Off Rte 50, 2 mi. south of Millwood. The 1812 Federal manor house updated in 1840 to Georgian Revival boasts a near-360-degree mountain view, with more than 400 acres in conservation easement and a formal garden dedicated to British floral designer Sheila Macqueen.
MUSEUM OF THE SHENANDOAH VALLEY, 901 Amherst St., Winchester. The Museum of the Shenandoah Valley (MSV) interprets the art, history and culture of the great valley for which it is named. This regional museum complex includes a historic house dating to the 18th century, six acres of spectacular gardens, and a museum designed by internationally recognized architect Michael Graves. www.shenandoahmuseum.org.
As a courtesy to homeowners, please refrain from using cell phones, wearing high or sharp heels, taking pictures inside the houses, smoking, or touching the furnishings. Participating homeowners, the Garden Club of Virginia, and/or its member clubs are not responsible for accidents occurring on the tour.