City Centre

Petersburg’s Centre Hill Historic District fosters community with one foot planted firmly in the past

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The Centre Hill Historic District in the heart of Petersburg lay hushed one recent morning beneath a thick fog. The white blanket hugged the roof of Centre Hill Mansion and hovered just above the nearby bungalows and Colonial Revival homes.

Over centuries, the city beyond Centre Hill has turned the skeletons of tobacco warehouses into apartment buildings and the dirt streets into asphalt. But, this morning, as a city and its bustle hides beneath the mist, the Centre Hill Historic District can be seen as it truly is: a world within a world.

It’s an older world with roots that stretch back to the early 19th century, when it served as one of the original wards of Petersburg. Then, Centre Hill Mansion was the focal point of a fashionable 1840s-era residential district.

President Abraham Lincoln and President William Howard Taft both set foot inside Centre Hill Mansion (see page 64), which was known as Petersburg’s most stately home. It was only a year after Taft’s 1909 visit that Petersburg attorney Charles Hall Davis, the mansion’s then-owner, divided its grounds into plots and sold them to raise money after he found himself in financial straits. The homes that sprung up on the former mansion grounds were erected amid the rapid growth of Petersburg industry following the outbreak of World War I, when new home construction in the city rose 450 percent to accommodate new workers. City tax records show the neighborhood’s first homes were built in 1914 on seven lots.

What I really like about Centre Hill is that we are real people. Not everybody is rich, not everybody is white, not everybody is a stickler for the rules.” —Sarah Melissa Witiak

From 1914-23, according to the neighborhood’s National Register of Historic Places nomination form, a distinctive architectural enclave formed, as Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Queen Anne and early 20th-century eclectic-styled homes surrounded the early 19th-century mansion, “reflecting Petersburg’s evolution as a city from the mid-nineteenth century to the Progressive Era.”

Today, the Centre Hill Historic District comprises 83 buildings lining Centre Hill Court, Centre Hill Avenue and certain blocks of North Adams, Henry, North Jefferson, Franklin and East Washington streets. The mansion remains at its heart — instead of facing the street, the homes on Centre Hill Court wrap around the courtyard, facing each other and the mansion.

“It completely changes the character of the neighborhood,” resident Sarah Melissa Witiak says of the arrangement. “It makes it this little pocket.” Today, a tight-knit, diverse community lives within this enclave — tenants and homeowners, retirees and parents, professors and retail managers and military leaders.

There is a tree in the courtyard that residents planted to mourn the death of a neighbor’s child. Court resident Ella Dickinson hosts a ladies’ night every Wednesday, where women typically gather on her porch to discuss politics and life over drinks.

Witiak, a Virginia State University plant biologist, has lived in a 1916 American foursquare on Centre Hill Court for about eight years. She’s turned what seems to have been a servant’s quarters in the attic into her sewing room; a tunnel beneath the house runs into the street.

“It’s a historic district, and we do follow those rules,” she says. “But it’s not like living in a historic district elsewhere. What I really like about Centre Hill is that we are real people. Not everybody is rich, not everybody is white, not everybody is a stickler for the rules.”

Rosemary Funk’s Bungalow-style house was one of the original seven homes built on the Court. Its basement was constructed to accommodate a horse and carriage. The house sits across the street from St. Joseph School, which both Rosemary and her husband, Herb, attended, graduating in 1962. Each year, the school hosts a run around the courtyard as a fundraiser.

The Funks moved to Centre Hill Court two years ago from Prince George County. “We are older people, and it was time to downsize,” she says. “And my husband was born and raised in Petersburg. We wanted downtown Petersburg, where we can take pleasure walks to the Appomattox River.”

Down the street, within a yellow Craftsman-style house located steps from the mansion, Sarah Read sets out blueberry muffins from Buttermilk Bake Shop, just a five-minute walk down the hill from which the neighborhood gets its name.

Known as the Raleigh Powell House after its original 1918 owners, the home attracted Read and her husband, Jim, with its Craftsman style that values function over form. It features a kitchen with a tin ceiling and a formal room with upholstered walls and ceilings. This leads into a 26-foot hallway where the ductwork remains exposed. “I lived in an old house growing up, and I liked it better,” says Sarah, who is a lieutenant colonel in the Army. “They are built to last and have more character.”

While Jim, now a retired Army lieutenant colonel, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2016, she battled a sinking foundation, rotted beams and a hole that opened up in the master bedroom closet. The couple has now repaired the floors and retiled and renovated bathrooms, among many other projects. “Sometimes you pick the house projects, and sometimes the house picks the projects for you,” she says.

“I think Petersburg is slowly going through its own Renaissance.” —Denae-Marie Shepperson

Denae-Marie Shepperson, a hospital retail manager who’s rented her Centre Hill Court house for two and a half years, stops by Read’s home to share coffee and muffins. She recalls how she once came home to find that her neighbors had, for no particular reason, placed freshly cut flowers on her front porch.

“I don’t feel as if I’m in suburbia,” Shepperson says. “I think Petersburg is slowly going through its own Renaissance. Down here, we are slowly moving toward the future, and the prices are still really decent.”

Still, the neighborhood has one foot firmly planted in the past. At times, Read has stepped onto her porch to find horse-drawn carriages and actors dressed as militia soldiers. Both the movie “Lincoln” and the PBS original series “Mercy Street” have filmed at Centre Hill.

“It really made it feel like you were back in that time,” Read says. “That’s what’s different about this place. It doesn’t completely change with the times.”

Centre Hill Mansion

Five years ago, I moved back to my hometown of Petersburg. As I travel over the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Bridge nearly every day, I can see Centre Hill Mansion shining in all its glory, sitting high on a hill overlooking the trees and buildings that have been erected over the years. The mansion is now a museum for the City of Petersburg, featuring 19th- and 20th-century furniture and examples of decorative arts. I knew about the shows and movies that had been filmed there — PBS’ “Mercy Street” and Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln” — but I wanted to know more about its history.

I decided to take one of the many tours offered by volunteers.

Centre Hill was built between 1818 and 1823 by Robert Bolling IV, a tobacco industry heir and a captain in a Dinwiddie County militia when the British entered the city after winning the Battle of Petersburg in 1781. In 1839, Bolling’s son, Robert Buckner Bolling, changed the home’s simple Federal-style exterior to Greek Revival with the construction of porches and ionic columns. Inside, he added ornate moldings, plasterwork and Italian fireplaces. Around the same time, an underground tunnel was built at the back of the mansion, running 300 feet down to Henry Street. It was used to bring food and supplies into the mansion. Petersburg attorney Charles Hall Davis purchased the mansion in 1901, when he renovated the home and its grounds.

During the waning days of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln visited Centre Hill and spoke to the Union Army on April 7, 1865 — just a week before his assassination. In 1909 an all-male outdoor luncheon was held honoring President William Taft, while the women dined inside.

The house and grounds became a property of the city of Petersburg in 1972.

On Jan. 24 from 6 to 9 p.m. Centre Hill Mansion will host its annual Ghost Watch tour. Visitors can visit the mansion’s tunnel and attic and hear ghost tales associated with the home. Tickets are $15.

Centre Hill Mansion is open Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sundays from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 1 Centre Hill Ave., Petersburg, 804-733-2401. petersburgpreservationtaskforce.com —Brooke Chappell