Holly Lawn will make its public debut at a black-tie-optional preview party Friday, Sept. 14, 6 to 10 p.m. Stay tuned to R•Home for more details. (Photo by Jay Paul)
WHAT: A robust, free interpretation of the Queen Anne style by architect D. Wiley Anderson.
WHERE: 4015 Hermitage Road
WHY IT MATTERS: Having gone through successive owners, including a stint as headquarters for the Richmond Council of Garden Clubs, the present owners have maintained the estate despite floods and storm damage. This fall, Holly Lawn is the Richmond Symphony Orchestra League Designer House.
On the evening of June 16, 2016, Leslie Stack and Frank Rizzo delayed their departure from a downtown gathering of friends at Rappahannock Oyster Co. to avoid the brunt of a storm.
When they returned, they found the front of their D. Wiley Anderson-designed home demolished by an otherwise-healthy 175-year-old, 145-foot-high, 60-foot-wide elm with colossal branches.
Stack, standing in the reassembled but bare space, says, “Had we been home, it was late, we might’ve been exactly where the tree came down.”
Ever since, they’ve been meticulously putting Holly Lawn back together again.
Stack and Rizzo, and those who’ve been working on the house, refer to Holly Lawn as “she,” as mariners often do their vessels, and the house’s historic name lends itself to a female pronoun. (The timbering of the massive, house-long attic resembles nautical construction. “The Ark,” Rizzo quips.)
The fantastic riverboat jauntiness and musicality about the place is pleasant but not surprising; its architect, Scottsville native Anderson (1864-1940) enjoyed playing the piano and singing ditties during his 1920s heyday. His character makes it more appropriate, then, that from Sept. 17-Oct. 14, Holly Lawn will be open to the public as the Richmond Symphony Orchestra League’s Designer House.
The 14,500-square-foot, robustly interpreted Queen Anne-style house was originally — and coincidentally — built for prosperous insurance agent Andrew Beirne Blair. Construction was thought to have been completed around 1901, but, in sifting through the shattered remnants of the wraparound front porch and other parts, the rehabilitation crew of Restoration Builders of Virginia found signed timbers. A pair of carpenters left their penciled sentiments in 1899. “So it must’ve been a two- or three-year build project,” Rizzo says.
A project that would've been much like the current one embarked upon to return Holly Lawn to her original appearance.
After the ordeal of moving into the home in 2004 when Tropical Storm Gaston flooded the city — floating the furnace and many of their possessions — and then the extensive damage by the Uninvited Guest of 2016, were Rizzo and Stack tempted to chuck the whole thing, leave it to the next owner, and buy a condo? Maybe on a treeless beachfront?
Stack today smiles and allows a laugh. “We’ve been asked that many times. Especially by close friends.” And, no, she says. Not for a moment. The two of them are in love with Holly Lawn. “Nothing’s changed,” Stack says. “We just hit a hiccup.”
Most of their furnishings are in storage, which gives the RSOL Designer House designers a bare canvas. Susan Williams, chair of the program, recalls, “Leslie’s comment was, ‘You mean, you’re just going to come in and do all that?’”
Once the insurance situation was settled — the official cause of damage was “straight line winds” — interviews with contractors began in March 2017. Two looked at the ruins and determined the project beyond their abilities, another two were simply afraid of such an effort. Then came representatives from RBVa.
Thomas Flanagan, vice president of operations, says, “If in a project I don’t get to the point where I don’t think I can figure out how to do the next thing, it isn’t fun.” That said, “This was like trying to put together the world’s most complicated jigsaw puzzle and somebody threw away the box.”
The longest-dwelling past residents (1913-31) were physician and public health advocate Ennion G. Williams, wife Anna and their eight children. Flanagan and his restoration team, like Dr. Williams, sought to first, do no harm. The hand-painted foyer walls and pier mirror were boxed by a second wall, and the grand main stair was wrapped for protection. They collected and sorted through original materials, sifted the smithereens of original wavy glass, and when impossible-to-re-create brick couldn’t be found, they borrowed from inside where bricks weren’t otherwise seen. When working on the slate roof, putting back as much of the original slate as possible, they first put another roof over it, then strapped on harnesses and used rappelling gear to clamber around the peaks and valleys. The extraordinary plaster medallions of the ceilings, from which lamps and chandeliers were suspended, were removed and repaired by master plasterer Rebekah Jamerson.
When reconstructing the distinctive front turret and the “nose” of Holly Lawn, Flanagan and his team assessed the wooden support system that held it up. According to the calculations of structural engineering and the effects of gravity, the turret shouldn’t have stood there for 112 years before the bashing. Builders of a century ago used techniques that wouldn’t pass inspection today. They had tough first-growth wood and brick, but no structural steel or composite metals.
Holly Lawn faced all weathers for more than a century, and now — thanks to hidden carbon-steel I-beams running from the turret to the foundation — it should be good for at least another 112 years. She’s splendid, but Holly Lawn isn’t dainty.
Flanagan explains how a structural engineer can analyze an older building, and by all the math, it shouldn’t still be standing. “But there’s something about how it was built and the way it was built that gives the structure more strength than it should have. It’s the sum of its parts.” The technical term is “reserve capacity.”
Holly Lawn has plenty — like its current owners and those who worked to make her whole again.
