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Conservator and paint analyst Susan Buck worked with homeowner Bill Nicholson to identify the appropriate paint colors for the house’s facade. Sandra Harrison, Jo Anne Davis and Kathy B. Hayes, members of the Petersburg Garden Club, made the floral arrangements seen throughout the house.
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The horse sculpture was created for an exhibition at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; “It requires little hay,” Nicholson jokes. Draped on its back is a Libeco Vourkari coverlet from Studio Sprezzatura showroom. The persimmon color used on the trim was determined by analyzing the stair riser. Nicholson left some of the beams exposed to demonstrate the period construction methods.
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The circa 1835 marbleized paint on the woodwork was applied by society painter Samuel Shelton. “It has never been repainted,” says Nicholson, “and won’t be.” The large painting is from Ethiopia and is Coptic Christian, estimated to be more than 300 years old. The pillows and ikat lamp are from Janet Brown Interiors, and the handblown glass goblets are from Boon. The painted terra cotta bowl is from Sheppard Street Antiques, and the marbleized ball is the stylist’s own.
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The painting behind the Thomas Day game table is “Pearly Kings and Queens Harvest Festival” by Sophie Charalambous of Great Britain’s Royal Drawing School, through King Charles’ Prince of Wales Foundation. The brass floor lamp is from Janet Brown Interiors. The chess set is on loan from Maggie Schubert.
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The large linen pillows are from Studio Sprezzatura showroom, while the striped pillows are from Janet Brown Interiors. The sheep hides are from runa.woolengoods on Instagram, and the ceramic jug is from Sheppard Street Antiques.
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The portraits to the left of the fireplace are by Los Angeles-based artist Tim Hailand. At right, the “Horse Study (After George Stubbs ‘The Anatomy of a Horse’)” is by Clara Drummond of the Royal Drawing School through King Charles’ Prince of Wales Foundation.
For Richmond native and philanthropist Bill Nicholson, it wasn’t love at first sight; it was love at second sight.
Nicholson has always had a passion for Petersburg, where his family ties stretch back to 1810. Although a highly successful career in the flooring industry led him to California 22 years ago, Nicholson’s connection to the Cockade City never diminished.
“I’ve gone to Petersburg all my life,” he says. “As a child, I used to go down there to visit my great-grandmother.”
Frequent visits between his home base in Rancho Mirage, California, and Petersburg to visit friends and relatives eventually convinced Nicholson to invest in a home there. Admittedly a relentless collector, Nicholson invested in several Petersburg properties, including an Italianate house sold in 2017 that he used as his residence for seven years.
“And then someone showed me the Thomas Day House and told me I should buy it,” recalls Nicholson, who splits his time between Virginia and California. “I said, ‘It’s so ugly. Who would want this house?’ But then I did a little research on Thomas Day and realized that the house needed me and I needed it.”
He purchased the historic house in 2019 with the intention of restoring it to its former glory. “My plan was to live there, but I needed a place to stay [during the restoration],” Nicholson recalls. In October 2020, he purchased a second High Street house, a historic row home built in 1836, where he lives while awaiting completion of the Day House.
Thomas Day, a free Black craftsman and renowned furniture maker born in Dinwiddie County in 1801, moved south in 1817 to Milton, North Carolina, where he established one of the state’s largest cabinet shops before the Civil War. He created unique furniture and architecture that survives today, including the Petersburg house.
It’s believed that the original house was built in 1828 in Halifax County for George W. Tucker, a lawyer, noted politician and novelist. Likely commissioned to oversee an expansion of the house in 1838, Day elevated the structure with unique, whimsical architectural features that led to its eventual rescue. Unoccupied since about 1950, the house was part of a 100-acre farm slated to be sold at auction in the 1990s.
“The auctioneer looked at the house and said, ‘Wait a minute,’” Nicholson says. Recognizing Day’s signature style — most notably an elegant S-curve newel post at the base of the central stairs — the auctioneer contacted a preservationist, who decided to purchase the house with a business partner after researching to confirm Day’s imprint.
In 1998, after carefully numbering each piece of wood and color-coding them by room, the new owners saved the building from demolition with a move and reassembly at its current location. Early restoration included the addition of a copper roof, restored windows and historically accurate cladding repairs, but further work ceased until Nicholson bought the home.
“I researched the house and looked up his furniture,” Nicholson says. “It’s basically the Empire period, but with whimsical flourishes.”
To Nicholson’s delight, the faux marble finishes Day applied to doors and mantels in the sitting room and primary bedroom remained intact. Original paint colors uncovered in other parts of the house revealed shades of persimmon and robin’s-egg blue.
Nicholson is an avid art collector, and his quest to restore and furnish the home has resulted in an almost unquenchable thirst for Day’s furnishings. “I have 13 pieces of the more than 80 custom furnishings that he made in the 1850s for North Carolina’s governor David Reid,” he says.
The circa 1851 hall tree behind Nicholson is one of 83 pieces of furniture that North Carolina Gov. David Settle Reid commissioned from Thomas Day.
In total, Nicholson has collected more than 35 pieces made by Day. A dining room table and 10 chairs, along with a hall tree commissioned by the governor, are displayed in the house. In the sitting room, a sofa and a walnut daybed flank a walnut bedstead bench with elaborately scrolled feet. Other tables and a dresser made by Day in Nicholson’s collection reveal the undulating, magical shapes and fluid lines Day applied to his designs. One can only imagine Day’s work to have been avant garde in the mid-19th century, says Nicholson.
“I just went to all of these auctions and started buying his furniture. Now I’ve got a warehouse full of Thomas Day furniture,” Nicholson says with a laugh. “It’s so outrageous and gorgeous, and I have tried to imagine who was buying this furniture in the 1850s. Clearly, they were wealthy people of high style. They had to be sophisticated, fashionable people. They had to be trendsetters, because they were way outside the box with Thomas Day.”
Nicholson restored the two-story front porches with the “picture frame” columns and benches Day designed for the 1830s renovation. White picket fencing around the front yard is joined by a custom-made gate that features a carved profile of the S-curve newel post found inside. Past the gate, brick paths lined with boxwoods also re-create the house’s Halifax beginning.
Additionally, Nicholson has installed part of his impressive art collection throughout the house. Works include pieces from Britain’s Royal Drawing School; prints by Los Angeles-based artist Tim Hailand; and, above the mantel in the dining room, a Roy DeForest painting.
While honoring Day’s craftsmanship with careful preservation, Nicholson found opportunities in the house to carve out a few places for modern comfort and design. A bespoke black-and-white kitchen with herringbone-patterned flooring and windows on three sides that look out at the garden occupies a former dayroom at the back of the house. He added a “funky” green-and-black powder room off the living room and a large wet bar adjacent to the dining room.
“I put in this ridiculous kitchen — which will probably never get used — just in case I have a party,” Nicholson says, “but the idea is that this house becomes a center or a place for people to come spend time and learn. I want people to see the house and know the house.”
