Cyane Crump is the current director of Historic Richmond, which was founded in 1956 to preserve Church Hill. Today, the nonprofit group’s efforts are still paying dividends in the now-thriving neighborhood.
The 1818 Federal house on 27th Street was not quite a gem inside. Not in owner Renee’s eyes, anyway.
“There were no ooh-ahs when I walked in,” she says. “It felt very early American.” There was no central heat. There was, inexplicably, pine paneling in the shower. It wasn’t grand or imposing, she recalls; with 9-foot ceilings, it felt like a “humble house.”
But Renee appreciated the house’s charms, such as the working fireplaces and rim locks on the doors. And she liked a few practical things: the spacious lot, the many windows, the double curb cut and the absence of a rear alley. So, in the mid-1990s, she bought the house from the former rector of St. John’s Church. Decades of work would follow, during which Renee learned more than she ever wanted to know about Portland cement mortar and the porosity of heart pine. She also compiled details of the house’s history, with help from the descendants of James Parkinson, its first owner.
1 of 2
Historic Richmond purchased the 1818 Parkinson House on 27th Street in the early 1980s to save it from dereliction. Current resident Renee has lived in the house since the mid 1990s.
2 of 2
Archive photo courtesy Historic Richmond
Today, the Parkinson House has become Renee’s lovingly kept home. That’s the happy ending Historic Richmond had hoped for when it saved the house from dereliction in the 1980s. “Once restored, this will be one of the most important houses in Church Hill,” Historic Richmond wrote in its 1982 newsletter.
It was just one of 33 houses in Church Hill North that the nonprofit purchased in the early 1980s, in a massive effort to save a then-decaying neighborhood.
Historic Richmond (then called the Historic Richmond Foundation), founded in 1956 to preserve Church Hill, first confined its efforts to the district around St. John’s Church. It began by purchasing the “pilot block” bounded by 23rd, 24th, Broad and Grace streets, a mixture of Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate and Victorian homes. After the exteriors were restored, the foundation sold the houses to people who would continue the work on the inside.
Church Hill North was different. Houses there — from Marshall to Cedar streets and Jefferson Avenue to North 29th Street — had been built by working-class Richmonders. The area was primarily African-American, the result of white flight out of the city after schools were integrated. Most houses were frame, instead of masonry, and the area lacked the architectural cohesion of the St. John’s Church district.
“We still wanted to make an impact on that neighborhood, and that’s why we bought so many houses and worked on them together,” says Cyane Crump, the current executive director of Historic Richmond. The foundation went on a shopping spree, buying 33 houses between 1980 and 1982.
1 of 2
Justin Chesney
Charlton Lam and his partner, Jason Pickart, live in the Joseph Watts house on North 27th Street in Church Hill. Pickart decided to purchase in Church Hill after determining it was the best place in Richmond to buy a house built before 1910 that had a good chance of appreciating.
2 of 2
The Joseph Watts house on 27th Street in Church Hill, as it appeared in the 1980s (Archive photo courtesy Historic Richmond)
“Thirty-five years later, there’s a 35-year-old living in one of the homes,” notes Jason Pickart, the current owner of the Joseph Watts House at 701 N. 27th St. Pickart still has the original 1854 deed, as well as a black-and-white snapshot from the 1980s that shows the house freshly renovated by Historic Richmond, white woodwork gleaming and earth bare around the foundation. The new owners, a young couple with a toddler, stand squinting into the sun.
Pickart, who purchased the house in 2013, was swayed not by its charm but by his data analysis. He ran the numbers and decided Church Hill was the best place to buy a home older than 1910, that was likely to appreciate.
The work done by Historic Richmond has held up well, Pickart says; the only exterior repair he had to make was replacing a few boards on the screened porch. Inside, he just painted some walls and added smart-home devices. “Who says you can’t teach an old home new tricks?” he says. The only real challenge of owning such an old house, he says, is its geometry: “I don’t have a single square corner.”
1 of 2
James Butcher and Eric Huffstutler have lived in the Wills House since 1999, when there were still a lot of dilapidated houses on the block. Today, the area has stabilized as businesses and homeowners have invested in the area.
2 of 2
The Federal-style Wills House was the first home built north of Broad Street in 1809. Historic Richmond purchased the vacant property in 1981 and spent four years just shoring up its exterior. (Archive photo courtesy Historic Richmond)
The handsome Federal-style Wills House, at 407 N. 27th St., was the first house built north of Broad Street, in 1809. It narrowly escaped destruction twice, first when it faced division into three houses in 1898 and again in 1969, when a gas leak blew off the back of the house and killed two tenants.
In 1981, Historic Richmond bought the house, then vacant, and spent four years shoring up the exterior. James Butcher purchased it in 1999 from a developer who refinished the interior.
It has become a pleasurable place to live and is still evolving.
—Eric Huffstutler
“I fell in love with it the first time I came in the front door,” Butcher recalls: the high ceilings, the fireplaces in every room, the formal entrance hall and dining room. “I bought it on the spot.”
The block was rife with problems then, Butcher’s partner, Eric Huffstutler, says via email: questionable activities, dilapidated houses, frequent evictions. “Gunshots rang out every night, and holiday celebrations sounded like battlefields.” Now, Huffstutler says, “with the commitment and visions of those moving to Church Hill, and businesses willing to invest in our community, it has become a pleasurable place to live and is still evolving.”
Not all of the 33 Historic Richmond houses are in pristine condition. Many could use a fresh coat of paint or repairs to the woodwork. The nonprofit surveys the properties’ condition each year, but it can only “gently encourage” owners to make fixes, Crump says.
But the houses, once in danger, still remain. Crump marvels at Historic Richmond’s foresight in saving them. “It was so far beyond their imagination to see that North Church Hill could possibly end up the way it is,” she says: a desirable, diverse neighborhood with thriving local businesses. “While it may have taken decades and decades, that work has paid off.”
So You Want to Renovate an Old House?
In Church Hill North, opportunities remain for the interested preservationist, Crump says. It’s an Old and Historic District, which means the Commission for Architectural Review must approve exterior changes visible from the public right of way.
Tread carefully, warns John Johnson, a longtime Church Hill resident who has renovated and sold several old houses, including two in Church Hill North. “When you open the door, you just don’t know what you’re going to get.” Before you buy, he says, walk through with someone who knows a lot about old Church Hill houses. And ask:
- Are the bones good? The foundation and the structure should be sound, Johnson says. “If that’s not good, just forget it and walk away.”
- How are the electric, plumbing and HVAC systems? Many old houses don’t have modern systems, he says. If you can’t afford to update them all at the same time (so you only have to rip open the wall once), then don’t do it.
- Is the roof sound? If not, that’s an expensive fix.
- What cosmetic changes do you want to make? Typical floor plans are three-over-three or four-over-four, Johnson says. Taking down walls to create an open floor plan may be a big job.
