In the dining room, a Tim Bessell Andy Warhol Series “Banana” surfboard
As a child Bill Nicholson would accompany his mother to Petersburg so they could visit his maternal great-grandmother — his family established their business on Cockade Alley in Old Towne in 1810. From those excursions grew what he calls an “inexplicable fascination” with the city, first incorporated in 1748. As an adult, in 1985, he decided to live in the historic city and rented a house with a roommate.
“I hated it,” he says. “I had to get out. I left and would come back and visit friends.”
Life took him across the country and around the globe, but 35 years later, Nicholson has returned to Petersburg in a big way: He’s now the owner of a dozen properties in the city, including a house designed and built by Thomas Day, a free Black craftsman and master cabinetmaker — North Carolina’s most in demand pre-Civil War furniture maker — and an 1836 row house that Nicholson has meticulously restored, repaired and filled with pieces from his expansive art collection.
“I’m an accumulator; I buy art that I like,” he says. “Everything I’ve collected … I’ve got a connection to that piece. Nothing for me is more disconcerting to think about than not being able to see art when I want to.”
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Bill Nicholson and his dog, Duke, in the living room with one of the two abstract paintings by Michael Tetherow that flank the fireplace
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A photo by Brazilian artist Ayrson Heráclito, with an American Sheraton console table and late 19th-century Irish Chippendale chair
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A portrait of Andy Warhol by Michael Childers, a founding photographer of Interview magazine
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A Thomas Day mahogany dining table made in 1851 for the governor of North Carolina, with George II carved armchairs
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Nicholson and Duke
Nicholson purchased his first Petersburg home in 2011 and sold it in 2017. “I was thinking I was done here, and I was looking [to move to] other locations around the world … but then some people showed me what I came to learn was the Thomas Day house.”
He began the process of saving the “awkward, misplaced” Day house, all the while commuting between Petersburg and his primary residence in Palm Springs, California, where he owns a flooring business. By early 2020, Nicholson was tired of rental living while waiting for work on the Thomas Day house to be completed, and decided to look for another home, one that would be “easy to move into.” Instead, he purchased a collection of 11 properties in Historic Old Towne.
“I knew I would live in this house,” he says. “It was built in 1836 and is one of the oldest row houses in Petersburg. When I first came in, I literally had to climb over boxes, and there were animal smells. But I looked beyond that and thought, ‘This place is wonderful.’ ”
Since July 2020, when he took ownership, Nicholson has replaced or redone the kitchen, bathrooms, floors, HVAC and electrical systems, and even reworked the house’s original windows, so they can open to let the breeze and neighborhood sounds in.
“Having the windows open projects such a friendly, happy, welcoming feeling,” he says. “Repainting the house’s exterior and shutters, which hadn’t been done in 20 years, sends a cheerful message, too. It elevated the mood and feeling of happiness when you enter High Street,” he says. “There’s nothing better than walking into a building that makes you feel good.”
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A bedroom in the original winter kitchen. The painting over the fireplace is by Forest Moses.
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A painting by Picasso’s lover Françoise Gilot crowns the Italian leather headboard.
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The Lollipop Scale, circa 1920, from the Petersburg pharmacy of Dr. Kilpatrick, is “still sadly accurate,” Nicholson says.
Inside, Nicholson turned to showcasing pieces from his extensive art collection, which includes a mix of international and Virginia artists. There are paintings by Frank Sinatra, Roy De Forest and Françoise Gilot (the mother of Picasso’s children), as well as a surfboard decorated with Andy Warhol’s artwork. He also has works by Richmond artists Samuel Richardson, Catherine Venable and Cynthia Erdahl; Danville native Forrest Moses; and Petersburg-based Mark Pehanich.
Nicholson consulted with Susan Buck, a renowned conservator and paint analyst in Williamsburg, for period-appropriate colors to use on the exterior. “I want it to be as authentic as possible,” he says. “She sent me the color palette, and I did exactly as she said to do.”
For the walls, fireplace mantels and moldings — recent acquisitions from the circa 1814 Hiram Haines house, where Edgar Allan Poe and his bride, Virginia Clemm, spent their honeymoon in 1836, now under renovation — Nicholson chose Fine Paints of Europe’s MV13, Large Dining Room Verdigris, a deep green reminiscent of the green used in Mount Vernon’s dining room, and installed spotlights.
“I knew this would be a good place for me to have my art; the dimensions of the house, the ceiling height and size of walls, and the rooms are fairly square and symmetrical,” he says. “What was more astounding is this color green — it worked for every piece. I discovered how much green there is in everything. I wonder, had I painted it pink, would everything have turned pink?”
Nicholson admits he is drawn to places he calls “broken down” — historic cities like Havana, Cuba; Lisbon, Portugal; and Asunción, Paraguay — and sees a connection between those better-known cities and where he now calls home.
“There’s a sense of renewal here; it doesn’t feel the way it felt in 1985,” he says. “Logistically, Petersburg is a great place to live because I can hop a train to Dulles [International Airport] and get anywhere in the world, and Richmond is 20 minutes away by car.
“Those [other] places don’t have anything on Petersburg.”
