The third of a three-part series on historic Jackson Ward’s pivotal past and its future.
Zarina Fazaldin is restoring 508 St. James St. (Photo by Chet Strange)
A block of white graffiti stamps the front of the hulking house at 508 St. James St. Broken windows — glass-and-air checkerboards — dot its façade. Peeling wooden columns stand sentry at the front door, framing an orange-lettered “No Trespassing” sign. Zarina Fazaldin’s smile is warm as we step over the threshold into the dark interior, sunlight filtering through holes in the ceiling and illuminating motes of dust as they spiral to the creaking floor. “Welcome to the Russell House,” she says. “Watch your step.”
The house was designed by Charles Thaddeus Russell, one of Virginia’s first black architects and a son of Jackson Ward. His first commission came in 1910, when he designed the Saint Luke Penny Savings Bank. Maggie Lena Walker had established it six years earlier, cementing her place in history as the first African American woman in the United States to found a bank. The three-story building at First and Marshall streets was a beacon for financially savvy Jackson Ward residents — the neighborhood wasn’t called “Black Wall Street” for nothing. “[Russell] was certainly attuned to the wants and demands of the growing demographic of black professionals, the black middle class, that manifested in Jackson Ward after Reconstruction,” says Selden Richardson, author of “Built by Blacks: African American Architecture and Neighborhoods in Richmond.”
“Our folks, black Richmonders, did outstanding work here; we need to honor that.” —Zarina Fazaldin
Fazaldin is a developer who has lived in Richmond since 1987. Last year, when she was ready to move from her longtime Carver neighborhood, Jackson Ward beckoned. “I’m amazed by [Jackson Ward], and what [its residents] were able to accomplish during a difficult time for black people in American history,” she says, her voice lovely and lilting as we stand in the still-grand foyer of the home. She says she fell in love with the house when she first saw it, “but when I learned its history, I knew for sure it was my home.”
Charles T. Russell (Photo courtesy Six Mount Zion Baptist Church)
Russell designed the home, built in 1915, for physician William Henry Hughes. Hughes is identified by the 1920 census as a 49-year-old “mulatto” man and head of the home he shared with his wife, Annie, and two daughters, Helen and Grace. The presence of a live-in maid, 18-year-old Pearl, suggests the family was well-to-do. “The house … is an anomaly in Jackson Ward,” says Richardson. “It looks very much like foursquare houses you’d find in Woodland Heights, or other suburban neighborhoods. [Hughes] was clearly looking for a degree of luxury, a degree of dignity to imbue his home. [The home’s design] is Russell catering to the wants and needs of his client, but in this case, in a really unusual form. It’s another example of his design flexibility.”
The home, which in 1950 was converted into the Negro Training Center for the Blind, the only public school for blind black people in Virginia, landed on the City of Richmond’s Imminent Danger demolition list after sitting vacant for decades. “We were very concerned about it, in terms of its historical and cultural significance,” says Cyane Crump, executive director of Historic Richmond, a neighborhood revitalization nonprofit founded by Richmond architectural historian, the late Mary Wingfield Scott. The organization also educates residents on the best methods to make old homes livable without damaging them or sacrificing their character, which Crump knows Fazaldin understands. Citing some of Fazaldin’s successes in bringing historic properties in the Carver community back to life, Crump says, “It’s a relief to see the home in Zarina’s hands because she obviously recognizes its significance.”
In 1978, the house was used by Richmond Community Action Program. (Photo courtesy Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries)
Fazaldin plans to complete home repairs using historic tax credits and her own savings and move in next year; she may take on two or three renters. “We need to come and take care of our community,” Fazaldin says. “Our folks, black Richmonders, did outstanding work here; we need to honor that, teach our children that. I’d like to live here forever.”
