Image courtesy Library of Virginia
The intersection of Monument Avenue and Three Chopt Road would look quite different today if the Virginia state government had approved a proposed move of its agencies to Henrico County around 1950.
From 1946 to 1954, the state sought solutions for expanding departments outgrowing Capitol Square. In August 1948, the Richmond Times-Dispatch observed the “spasmodic, piecemeal process” of these attempts when the Virginia government pursued a unified approach that acknowledged the needs of Richmond’s administration and the nearby Medical College of Virginia while also considering traffic patterns and parking. The General Assembly tasked the State Office Building Commission with developing a long-range site plan.
The 1952 legislative session, calling the need for office space critical, combined departmental budget surpluses with general funding to hasten the project. The Public Buildings Commission, working with architect Merrill Clifford Lee, sought ideas for modern buildings during two trips to New York City. Among the buildings they toured were the Lever House by Gordon Bunshaft and Natalie de Blois for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. Bunshaft’s Richmond work includes the Reynolds Metals International headquarters (now the Altria executive offices) and the Philip Morris Manufacturing Center on Commerce Road with its Research Center that resembles a clutch of cigarettes.
The study proposed the westward migration to a 350-acre Henrico tract, citing the move as a good way to provide a “suitable ending for Monument Avenue,” for preservation of some Confederate fortifications, space for expansion and the potential for a “state park or a zoological and botanical garden.” The alternate idea was building a half-circle of five 15-story towers overshadowing Capitol Square and the Thomas Jefferson-designed statehouse.
Architect Merrill Clifford Lee proposed moving government buildings to Henrico or, as an alternative, building a looming half-circle of towers around Capitol Square. (Image courtesy Library of Virginia)
Lee came to the job with a vitae demonstrating his versatility. Educated at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Design in Paris and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he studied in the Boston offices of Ralph Adams Cram, a firm renowned for its Gothic Revival influences and whose notable designs in Virginia include the Byrd Park Carillon and major buildings of the University of Richmond.
Lee’s commissions included UR’s deanery; the Art Deco Sixth and Franklin parking garage (1927); the federal White House-esque Home for Needy Confederate Women (1932), now the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Pauley Center; the VMFA’s Mediterranean Court (1954), today’s Louise B. and J. Harwood Cochrane Atrium, and its Leslie Cheek Theater (1955); Randolph-Macon College’s Blackwell Hall (1952) in Ashland, part of the present institution’s center for performing arts; and the original Oak Grove Elementary at 2200 Ingram St. (1954).
Lee’s plans for Capitol Square stoked ire, especially the towers shown to loom over the Jefferson-designed statehouse. The Art Commission, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (today’s Preservation Virginia) and the James River Garden Club all condemned the proposed structures as unharmonious and injurious to the historic and aesthetic fabric of Capitol Square. They sent polite but strongly worded objections to the Public Buildings Commission and governors John S. Battle and Thomas Stanley.
Architect Merrill C. Lee (from right), with Northminster Baptist Church building committee chairs William White Jr. and Ed Phillips (Photo courtesy Dementi Studios and The Valentine)
As for the “far way country woods” plan, state Sen. Edward R. Fuller, a member of the commission, wrote to Battle on Jan. 19, 1950, calling that proposal “an idiotic idea.” He continued, “This whole proposition has been shuffled from pillar to post enough,” and urged Battle to “do something, get a building up,” but also to proceed “slowly and take care of the situation.” Only two of the eight-member commission voted for the Henrico location. The tract became the site of Epiphany Evangelical Lutheran Church (Ballou and Justice architects, 1960) and the Fort Hill neighborhood.
Fuller instead put forward construction on what was termed the Rountree Lot east of the monumental State Highways and Transportation Building by Carneal & Johnston. A bland high-rise addition went on the site.
The only approved new building of Lee’s on Capitol Square honored state Sen. Thomas H. Blanton of Bowling Green, chairman of the building commission. The building was also designated as the Jefferson Building because Lee, sensitive to the lack of adornment, allowed the installation of high-relief sculptures depicting the life of Jefferson above the eastern entrance.
But perhaps Lee was just ahead of his time. In recent years, several departments have relocated from the city, or soon will: Professional and Occupational Regulation, Wildlife Resources and Social Services have decamped to Henrico and the Alcoholic Beverage Control Authority and the labs and offices of the Department of Forensic Science and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner are in or headed to Hanover County.
