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St. Margaret’s reached another milestone in the renovation of historic Brockenbrough House this spring, when work was completed to waterproof the building’s colonial brick foundations.
“It’s cause for celebration,” said Historic Campus Committee member Ellen Metzger LeCompte ’71, “because now we’ve protected the house from future water and termite damage.”
The circa 1763 building was stabilized in early 2003, she added. Quick action was made possible by private donors, as well as by support from the Marietta McNeil Morgan and Samuel Tate Morgan Jr. Foundation, the Northern Neck Branch of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, the Roller-Bottimore Foundation and EVB Bank.
More work remains, however, before Brockenbrough House can serve as the campus gateway, teaching tool, and community resource envisioned by the Historic Campus Committee. It includes further strengthening the building’s wooden frame, repairing the roof and plumbing, closing floors and resurfacing walls that were opened to access the building’s structure, painting, and installing insulation and a climate control system.
Conducting an architectural survey to support designation on the National Register of Historic Places also is part of the plan, as is building an endowment to ensure continuing maintenance. The estimated cost of completing the project is approximately $800,000.
To learn how your support can make further progress possible, contact Director of Development Kathleen S. Smith at (804) 443-3357 x3022 or ksmith@sms.org.
Below: Earlier this year, workers constructed a drainage system around the brick foundations of the Brockenbrough House. Water now is conveyed away from the house, toward the river. Keeping foundations dry is a crucial step in preventing
future structural damage, as termites are especially fond of old, moist wood.
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Blandfield Event Launches Renovation
More than 120 friends of historic preservation and of St. Margaret’s gathered early this spring at Blandfield, the Upper Essex home of Mrs. James C. Wheat, Jr., for a reception unveiling the school’s plans for the renovation of Brockenbrough House. Below are highlights of the address given by Calder Loth, Senior Architectural Historian in the Virginia Department of Historic Resources:
“Brockenbrough House...needs help, lots of it. The old lady’s bones are brittle and riddled. Her frame is getting stooped. At her age, she’s not supposed to be carrying banks of filing cabinets, holding up heavy copying machines and metal desks. Her skin is cracked and peeling, and has some sores. She’s being asked to do too much for her age, things she wasn’t brought up to do. And she’s getting little comfort.
She needs medication, surgery, therapy–an extreme makeover, just like cousin Blandfield here. (And indeed they are cousins: Robert Beverley originally owned the land on which Brockenbrough House stands.)
Well, we all know that hospitalization, therapy, medication, and reconstructive surgery is expensive. But how can you deny
necessary treatment to your patrician old friend, your revered mother–Alma Mater?
...consider what you have. You have something few other people or institutions can have. High-style colonial mansions don’t grow on trees. If we could calculate how many buildings there are in all America, and what proportion of them are high-style colonial mansions, I would estimate that a house such as B House represents as little as one one-millionth of America’s total building stock. You need to put it in perspective.
Besides being an old and rare work of architecture, the Brockenbrough House is also a witness to history. It was the scene of a protest against the Stamp Act, one of the events that led to Independence and the founding of our nation. It was attacked in the War of 1812. But B House has survived. Indeed, it has stood for nearly a quarter of a millennium.
We Virginians sometimes take these historic treasures for granted because we have so many. But these places are assets, not liabilities.”
Above, left to right: Head of School Margaret R. Broad, Monecia Helton Taylor ’77, Ellen Metzger LeCompte ’71, Calder Loth,
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