407 N. Allen Ave. was designed by Bascom Joseph Rowlett on commission from Mrs. W.D. Thomas in 1924. (Photo by Kyle Talley)
Bascom Joseph Rowlett came into the world on Nov. 1, 1888, but his father, James Bascom Rowlett, a Chesterfield farm laborer who became a Richmond streetcar operator, had little time to celebrate, succumbing to typhoid fever on Nov. 9.
Bascom’s mother, Mary Jane Osterbind, remarried to New York City native and Tredegar rolling mill laborer Henry T. Graves. The family lived at 717 1/2 Pine St., and several family members would also go to work for Tredegar. This arrangement managed to produce one of Richmond’s distinctive early 20th-century architects.
Rowlett’s works include the sophisticated, Mediterranean-style, triple-arched entry of Rixey Court apartments (1926), now condominiums, at Monument Avenue and Strawberry Street; the romantic Italianate Tuscan Villas (1926) on Arthur Ashe Boulevard, also now condos; and the enchanting English Village complex (1927) at 3418-3450 Grove Ave.
In a 2013 interview about Rowlett’s English Village, architectural historian Robert Winthrop observed how Rowlett and a cadre of peers bequeathed to Richmond a distinctive stylistic character. “Rowlett and Carl Lindner [the stage-set-like Byrd Park Court, 1922] and Otis Asbury [Ingleside Court on Davis Avenue, 1916] were all self-educated, as was D. Wiley Anderson [Holly Lawn on Hermitage Road, 1901],” Winthrop said. “This underscores how academic qualifications didn’t necessarily convey talent. These were very sophisticated architects working at their highest level.”
Winthrop, in an online essay about Rowlett, described how he graduated in the 1906 Richmond High School class of 28 students. “High schools were new to Richmond,” Winthrop observed, “and [it] was the only high school for whites in the city. It did not have a building as yet.”
Rowlett received his architectural education from the Virginia Mechanics Institute on the corner of 11th and East Broad streets. The institute predated the Civil War, but it didn’t enjoy a permanent home until 1901, thanks in part to funding from the estate of tycoon Lewis Ginter.
“It is the endeavor of this night school to provide a practical education for practical men,” the Richmond Times-Dispatch observed, probably paraphrasing the 1908 commencement address of its superintendent, Frank W. Duke. The paper stressed that the school’s enrollment of 548 white males studied a curriculum designed “to work as closely as possible to the needs of the individual.”
A circumstantial clue pointed to the next phase of Rowlett’s career, Winthrop argued.
Duke’s father, William Dabney Duke, served as secretary, treasurer and assistant to the president of the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad. He lived at 1503 Grove Ave. in a house designed by the renowned and prolific Albert Huntt. The elder Duke joined the railroad as its chief accountant in 1918.
“What we don’t know,” Winthrop mused in 2013, “is if [William] Duke’s association with Huntt, and Frank Duke’s having been the superintendent of the institute caused one or both of them to tell Huntt, ‘Listen, there’s a hot new architect coming up, you should get him in your firm.’ What we do know is that Rowlett is listed as the associate architect on several commercial and industrial projects before 1920.”
In that day, the “associate architect” title and partnerships often relied on the person’s skills as a real estate developer — whether in marketing or social savvy — rather than architectural skill. “Rowlett was the exception to this rule,” Winthrop writes.
Rowlett is listed as an associate with Huntt in the 1916 design of the impressive Georgian Revival Kenilworth and Stratford Court Apartments on the northside 2500 block of Monument Avenue. Now condos, the pair presents a mass of four triple-tiered porches supported by triple Corinthian columns. What Rowlett undertook here isn’t known. He also worked as an associate with fellow institute graduate Carl Lindner on St. John’s Church, completed in 1926.
In the intervening years, Rowlett became a family man following his 1917 marriage to Sue Frances Woolfolk. With their son, Rowlett Jr., they moved into the streetcar suburb of Barton Heights, ultimately residing at 2800 Dupont Circle, designed by Rowlett himself.
Called the “Westhaven,” 421 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd. was Rowlett’s first stand-alone design. (Photo by Harry Kollatz Jr.)
The first building of Rowlett’s own design stands at the present 421 N. Arthur Ashe Blvd., christened in 1921 as the Westhaven. Though it wouldn’t look out of place on a residential London street of the day, for Rowlett, the Westhaven represents a traditional design made before his imagination took flight.
Developers then hired him to turn out apartment buildings, each possessing a unique verve. There’s the 1922 Tuscan-flavored building at 1110 Grove Ave., which then featured a main-level apartment assayed with Medieval Italian Renaissance flair.
Then along Boulevard came a range of buildings: the attractive and idiosyncratic 103, sprouting small porches off its central pavilion; 111, designated in the historic nomination forms as “Colonial Revival,” with its porches and fluted columns and curved first floor shutters (with actual hinges); “the Sheppard,” 218-220, presenting bow-porches framed by leafy-capital Corinthian columns and crowned with a tiled roof; and the double-balconied Montclair at 2832 Monument Ave. Another curve-balconied Rowlett building stands at 3012 Monument on the former Maury Circle.
His triumphant trifecta starts with Rixey Court. The working-class son, designing living spaces for up-and-comers and new city dwellers, created Rixey with larger apartments up front and smaller ones in the back, which cleverly kept the place financially viable. The block-sized Tuscan Villa wrapped around three landscaped courtyards and offers pleasant balconies. The Tudorbethan fantasy of English Village is postcard-worthy. All of these, Winthrop says, provided high-density housing while appearing spacious.
These proved to be the last grand Rowlett residences, as the Great Depression dried up commissioned design in Richmond. Between 1932 and 1939, according to Winthrop, the city issued only five building permits.
Rowlett’s vision gave Rixey Court, 3010-12 Monument Ave., a Mediterranean flair in 1924. (Photo by Kyle Talley)
Rowlett became a building inspector for federal government projects. For the Works Progress Administration, he designed the cupola-topped Colonial Revival-style Warren County Courthouse at Front Royal (1936).
During his last nine years, Rowlett worked as a cost accountant for the Federal Housing Administration. He died on Oct. 29, 1947, age 60, and is buried in Orange County.
