Al fresco dining on Grove Avenue
Westhampton is a jewel of Richmond’s West End, a hamlet marked by historic homes and a bustling commercial scene. Like so many parts of the city, the community is imbued with elements of old and new Richmond. Now, this neighborhood is writing its next chapter.
Richmond was the birthplace of America’s first electric streetcar system. From the late 1800s through the 1940s, a primary choice for intra-city transportation was the streetcar, with lines running from downtown to surrounding suburbs. One of these routes opened in Westhampton in 1901, terminating at an amusement park replete with “a merry-go-round, a dancing pavilion with a cafe and a shooting gallery,” according to Walter S. Griggs Jr., author of “Hidden History of Richmond” (The History Press). The site is the present-day location of the University of Richmond, which moved its downtown campus to Westhampton in 1914.
“Being from Louisiana and having family in New Orleans, I grew up familiar with streetcars, and it was another thing that drew me to this part of the city,” says Jason Guillot, a principal with Thalhimer Realty Partners and president of the Westhampton Merchants Association. Guillot moved to Richmond in 2003 and says Westhampton’s history as a streetcar suburb shaped residential and commercial development in the community. It is a history he has sought to enhance and further, he says, as one half of the partnership that developed Westhampton on Grove. The two-building mixed-use project built in the 5700 block of Grove Avenue is on the site of the former Westhampton Theater.
“I’d say Westhampton came from a time when the automobile was not the focus of community design, like now in the suburbs,” says Guillot about the area’s unique character. In Westhampton’s early days, “There was a real sense of small community; it’s what many planners and mixed-use developers are trying to achieve today.”
Jason Guillot of Thalhimer Realty Partners was one half of the partnership that developed Westhampton on Grove.
A Tale of Two Wests
Westhampton’s next-door neighbor is Westwood, a historic African-American enclave near the intersection of Patterson Avenue and Willow Lawn Drive founded circa 1870 by formerly enslaved black people and freedmen. Daisy Jane Cooper (now Jane Cooper Johnson), who became the first black student to integrate Richmond Public Schools when she began attending the all-white Westhampton School in 1961, is a daughter of Westwood, according to “African Americans of Henrico County” by Brenda Dabney Nichols. Cooper’s mother won a federal lawsuit filed in 1958 by legendary civil rights attorney Oliver Hill Jr. that allowed her daughter to attend the nearby Westhampton School. It was a significant moment in Richmond’s fraught history, and a step forward.
“Jane’s mom still lives here,” notes the Rev. Jeanette Brown, an associate minister at Westwood Baptist Church. “Her relatives still belong to our church, which was a critical hub, a support system, in our community,” says Brown. Though she did not integrate Westhampton School when her friend Daisy Jane did, Brown’s brother and sister were students there. Despite the racial tension bubbling up in Richmond and across the country in the 1960s, Brown says that on weekends, black kids from Westwood and white kids from Westhampton would hang out together at Westhampton’s playground.
“It was integrated, and we had several white friends in the area, says Brown. “We coexisted, the best we could. We all liked just having fun.”
After retiring as a senior executive at the Environmental Protection Agency (only the second black woman to earn the title) in Washington, D.C., Brown moved back to her childhood home in Westwood. She’s been seeking ways to build up her community, and in an effort to strengthen its local relationships, she and her church recently joined the Westhampton Merchants Association. Brown is also a member of a committee studying the history of the Westhampton School, located at the corner of Libbie and Patterson avenues. Brown and the committee will make recommendations to Bon Secours and Thalhimer Realty Partners, who are developing a mixed-use, multi-structure complex with retail and office spaces as well as apartments on the former school site.
The Rev. Jeanette Brown is working to ensure Westhampton School’s history is respected when the property is developed as part of a new mixed-use complex.
“The plan is for the 1917 building to stay and restore the building, which will be converted to office space,” Guillot says. Brown says her home was within walking distance of Westhampton School, and because she feels a personal connection to it, she wants to ensure “the rich, rich history of the school is respected and taken into consideration as all these projects move forward.”
The University of Richmond's Westhampton College is another notable educational institution of the community, founded in 1914 when the university moved to the West End. A host of notable women graduated from Westhampton College, including Theresa Pollak, a groundbreaking artist and the first painting and drawing instructor at what would become Virginia Commonwealth University’s art school, and Eudora Ramsay Richardson, a writer, state supervisor of the Virginia Writers Project during the New Deal era and an outspoken women’s rights advocate.
Catherine and Whit Whitham have lived in the same Westhampton house for 40 years.
Future Forward
Catherine Whitham and her husband, Wayne (known as “Whit”), moved to Westhampton 40 years ago from a small farm in Powhatan County. They still live in the circa-1907 frame home where they raised their family.
“When my children were babies, I could easily push a baby carriage around the street. [Westhampton] streets are wide enough to do this, and there was a sense of safety and community; there still is,” says Whitham, who is retired from a career in nonprofit fundraising.
Whitham cites the neighborhood’s historic homes as one of its lasting positive qualities. On Three Chopt Road, a distinctive brick and stucco home constructed in 1916 in the Tudor Revival style is an example of the early 20th-century architectural designs that define Westhampton; the home was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2012, reads a brochure by Virginia Garden Week, which frequently features the botanical beauty of Westhampton’s homes.
“Homes in Westhampton have a great deal of character, which I believe comes from their presence in the city over such a long period of time,” Whitham says.
Juxtaposed with Westhampton’s grand old beautiful buildings is a flurry of recent development, which has brought a slew of new social spaces, eateries and retail shops to the area over the past decade.
“We now have a yoga studio and a pet store, right down on Libbie [Avenue],” says Whitham. She rattles off a list of local businesses that cater to Westhampton residents’ needs and tastes, including women’s clothing boutique CCH Collection on Grove Avenue, and tableware and gift shop Hampton House on Libbie Avenue. Newer developments such as The Chadwick on Grove, a structure housing million-dollar condos, add a collection of exclusive living spaces to the area.
Westhampton’s Libbie and Grove shopping district is the social center of the West End neighborhood.
Westhampton on Grove is among the most controversial projects to be developed in the area recently. In 2016, a vocal contingent of residents launched a “Save Libbie & Grove” campaign ahead of the building’s construction, expressing a strong desire to see the Westhampton Theater saved from demolition. Neighbors also cited concerns that the project would not be cohesive with the visual aesthetic of Westhampton’s commercial district. Though she understood these worries, Whitham believes the new structure and other developments in the neighborhood enhance its appeal.
“It’s about preserving this community for the next generation, but also tuning into our modern needs and wishes.” —Catherine Whitham
“At some point, everything needs to change,” says Whitham, “even within our community. Otherwise, we run the risk of stagnating. It’s about preserving this community for the next generation, but also tuning into our modern needs and wishes.”
It’s a fine balance to strike, but Guillot, who co-developed Westhampton on Grove with Stefan Cametas, says it can be done. The key, he advises other developers, is cooperation.
“Have community members pull up a chair next to you, or you pull up next to them. Tell them you hear their concerns about traffic, or noise, or lighting, or landscaping, whatever it is. Say, ‘We are open to listening. We thought about your perspective, and we thought about other perspectives, so our ideas may not be perfect, but we are open to listening to yours.’ And be sincere about that, because the community will hold you accountable.”
Whitham agrees.
“Our collective voice — including all of our views being heard and respected — has shaped the Westhampton we see today,” she says.
