A Significant Discovery on B. Henry Latrobe’s “Clifton”, Richmond, Virginia

Following my research on Richmond’s South Cathedral Place, I was assigned a topic that had led many previous researchers to dead end after dead end: a long-demolished Richmond structure attributed to our country’s first professionally trained architect and first Architect of the Capitol, B. Henry Latrobe. Latrobe could be considered an architectural historian’s “rock god” for his heavy influence on Thomas Jefferson’s designs (University of Virginia), and his own contribution to many of our nation’s landmarks (rebuilding of the U.S. Capitol, the White House) as well as numerous surviving and lost neoclassical structures, both public and private.

“Clifton” is a long gone neoclassical villa turned hotel, turned hospital. The design of Clifton (built in the early 1800s and demolished in 1903) has always been attributed to Latrobe due to it’s striking resemblance to one of his perspectives that show a villa nearly identically positioned on a Richmond site. However, the connection of the built structure to Latrobe has always been shrouded in mystery because there is no reference to the project or it’s first owner in any of Latrobe’s immaculate journals, let alone anything on public record. The question for me was: how did Latrobe’s design result in this built structure? No historian has been able to propose a strong scenario of events… until now.

This was by far the most exciting and rewarding research quest I have experienced. It took me from on-site walks with some of our locally recognized history knowledge banks to private research appointments at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It took me from long periods thinking there was just nothing here to uncover, to pivoting into a floodgate of connecting the dots.

The final paper was presented at VCU’s 18th Symposium on Architectural History and the Decorative Arts, held at the Virginia Historical Society in November 2010.

Clifton Appendix C: Tolman Chronology

Appendix C: Tolman Chronology

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Clifton Appendix B: Harris Chronology

Appendix B: Harris Chronology

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Clifton Appendix A: Mayo-Harris-Clifton Chronology

Appendix A: Mayo-Harris-Clifton Chron

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Illustrations: The Biography and Design of Latrobe’s “Clifton”

Clifton Illustrations

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Bibliography: The Biography and Design of Latrobe’s “Clifton”

Clifton Bibliography

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South Cathedral Place, Richmond, Virginia (1889): Up From the Ashes | Illustrations

South Cathedral Place, Richmond, Virginia (1889): Up From the Ashes | Illustrations

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CAD Drawings of Cathedral Row

Appendix F: CAD Floorplans

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Sound familiar?

An excerpt from Samuel Mordecai’s Richmond In By-Gone Days eloquently reminisces on the “flush times” Richmond experienced after the War of 1812, during the mid-late 18-teens, and it sounds quite familiar to what many markets across the country are recovering from today.  He is quoting Washington Irving’s description of speculative real estate mania from the 18th century:

“Now is the time for speculative and dreaming or designing of men.  They relate their dreams and projects to the ignorant and credulous, dazzle them with golden visions and set them crazed after shadows.  The example of one stimulates another–speculation rises on speculation–bubble rises on bubble– everyone helps with his breath to swell the windy superstructure, and admires and wonders at the magnitude of the inflation he has contributed to produce.”

Walking The Clifton Site

This evening I met with T. Tyler Potterfield, author of Nonesuch Place: A History of the Richmond Landscape, and Gibson Worsham, Architectural Historian at 3north and author of the blog, “Urban Scale Richmond,” for a tour of the Clifton site.  We began with a brief overview of the Capitol hill and walked over to the neighboring hill — both among many “spurs” of the Shockoe Plateau — Council Chamber hill.  By referencing maps from 1809, 1817 and 1835 along with overlays of Latrobe’s proposed site plan and Sanborn maps of where the built structure actually stood, we were able to approximate the original streets and alley ways  as well as the buildings of interest.  It was pretty exciting!

Click here or below to view a photo album of the tour.  Below that is the where we identified clifton to have stood based on comparing Google maps to an 1876 Beers map with the actual footprint.

The Actual Clifton Site

Google over Micajah Bates, 1835, from Stephenson and McKee’s
Virginia In Maps: Four Centuries of Settlement, Growth, and Development.