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A sumptuous holiday feast is presented in vintage transferware with sterling silver serving pieces.
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Demas Boudreaux found his piece of Richmond history on Thanksgiving Day 2017.
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In the music room, a vintage cupboard serves as a bar.
Among the more modern homes in historic Manchester — “modern” meaning 1800s to the present day — stands a tin-roofed frame cottage on a broad bluff above a busy street. It looks like it’s been transplanted from a rural location, but it has occupied its site since 1765, making it one of Richmond’s oldest homes.
The Weisiger-Carroll House has hosted a Sunday school, a Civil War hospital and tavern patrons. Demas Boudreaux, a native of Boone’s Mill, Virginia, bought it nearly three years ago. He learned about the house on Thanksgiving Day 2017 and jumped at the chance to own a bit of Richmond’s history. Now he hosts friends and family for Thanksgiving in a place where children, soldiers and bartenders once walked the old floors.
“I have always loved old houses, especially architecture throughout Virginia,” he says. “This one fit everything I wanted: old, unique, close to downtown, a huge yard for gardening, mature plantings and canopy trees, a rich and well-documented history important to Richmond and Virginia, and beautifully preserved interior details.”
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Built in 1765, the Weisiger-Carroll house has served as a tavern, Sunday school, Civil War hospital and a private residence.
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Boudreaux added the period-appropriate garden shed at the entrance to his verdant backyard.
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In the music room, instruments are always at the ready for impromptu jams. The portrait was found at auction.
Passing through the rooms of his house, Boudreaux takes on the persona of informal tour guide. If his day job as an affordable housing advocate at the Virginia Housing Development Authority doesn’t work out, he could be a historic home docent. He points out the architectural details like a pro as he whisks a visitor from room to room, exuding affection for every aspect of the place.
“The house was originally symmetrical,” Boudreaux explains. Its Colonial front door is still flanked by windows, but in 1810, an addition was made to the left side of the house. Much of the home’s appeal is its intact original condition. The six fireplaces, the chair rail and trim, and the heart pine floors with full–length, random-width planks are all authentic. On each level are two rooms, with the staircase dividing them.
Only the basement kitchen has been altered by Boudreaux. “The kitchen as I acquired it was adequate but at the end of its service life,” he says. “I love to cook and entertain.” So the update streamlined its function and design to suit Boudreaux’s needs for groups small and large. “The result is a kitchen that is trimmed with luxury appliances,” he says, “yet matches the architecture and aesthetic of the house.”
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Across the hall in the chandelier room, Sheraton-style love seats are accompanied by a mahogany tilt-top tea table and an 18th-century grandfather clock.
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Boudreaux, who loves to cook and entertain, updated the basement kitchen with period-appropriate cabinetry, Buckingham slate countertops and sink, and luxury appliances.
The main floor is home to the “piano room” and the “chandelier room.” A 1926 Mason & Hamlin baby grand is rightfully the focal point of the piano room, a bright space with floor-length green velvet draperies that, along with books and chairs, create a warm atmosphere. A dulcimer is casually propped up against the piano, available to any passing musician. Boudreaux is steeped in music — he’s the organist and choir director at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Oregon Hill and has played a variety of instruments all of his life. He takes special delight in guests joining in for an impromptu tune or two.
“Mr. Weisiger had seven children,” Boudreaux says, describing the home’s first family. “The way houses are used today, with a room for each function, is a modern concept.” In the early days, the purpose of rooms shifted according to need, and that’s how he uses the chandelier room, so named for its imposing brass chandelier with real candles. He chose the room’s furnishings for their versatility. Sheraton tables, love seats and leather wing chairs can be turned toward the Federal-style fireplace or used to create a seating arrangement.
Outside the chandelier room, an open porch stretches across the back of the house, providing a view of Boudreaux’s lush yard and gardens. Vegetables, herbs, flowers and trees have been planted strategically to fill in as they grow. He’s laid a rock-lined path and has plans for more features.
“I love the grandeur of … entering through the front door into candlelight and the presence of a crackling fire.” —Demas Boudreaux
Weisiger, who lived in the house in the early 1800s, was a cooper (a maker of containers for commodities like tobacco and gunpowder), and it’s believed that he had a shop out back where Boudreaux’s gardens now grow. Historians say that more than 100 soldiers, patients from when the house was a hospital, are buried there, too. As rains have washed soil away, pottery, coins, glass and other remnants from the past have been found.
While most attics serve as in-home mini-storage, Boudreaux has made the most of his third floor’s two rooms. One functions as the main bedroom, with comfy chairs and an ottoman for watching TV. The other packs in a washer, a dryer, a guest bed and a rack for hanging clothes, as there are no closets. An interesting detail: The doors to each room have hardware on their jambs that enabled former inhabitants to bar the doors, perhaps to keep intruders out when the building served as a tavern.
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Boudreaux inherited the taxidermy fox in the fireplace from his uncle.
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The house has two rooms on each floor, with the original staircase in between.
Most endearing to Boudreaux is the way the house invites and accommodates guests. “There are so many ways that guests just flow throughout the home, and so many ways to set up for a party or dinner, large or small,” he says. “I love the grandeur of coming up from the street and mounting the long steps to enter through the front door into candlelight and the presence of a crackling fire. In warmer months, guests congregate in the garden and on the back porches with all doors and windows open, allowing the breeze to move through the bays — as the house was designed — to naturally cool and provide light and air. For a small house, it sure behaves like a large one.”
Reflecting his undeniable bond with this building that is now his home, Boudreaux waxes, “Maybe it's the reverberation of over two centuries of human interaction within those walls and on those grounds that fosters the very best of life, springing forth from the garden or among gathered friends.”
