Belle Air | |
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Location | N of VA 5, Charles City, Virginia |
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Coordinates | 37°20′49″N77°3′40″W / 37.34694°N 77.06111°W |
Area | 135 acres (55 ha) |
Built | c. 1700, c. 1800 |
NRHP reference No. | 74002232 [1] |
VLR No. | 018-0036 |
Significant dates | |
Added to NRHP | July 18, 1974 |
Designated VLR | January 15, 1974 [2] |
Belle Air Plantation is an estate located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia, United States. It is located along State Route 5, a scenic byway which runs between the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg. Belle Air is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Belle Air is a unique surviving example of a wooden house with postmedieval-style exposed interior timber framing. It is probably the oldest plantation dwelling along State Route 5. Daniel Clark purchased the Belle Air tract in 1662. The original five-bay portion of Belle Air possesses architectural details characteristic of seventeenth century construction with a floor plan and façade fenestration characteristic of 18th-century design. The post medieval-style exposed interior timber framing is the only example found in a frame building in Virginia. The hand-hewn timbers serve as both structural framing and decorative woodwork. Summer beams, which run through the center of the ceilings into the chimneys, serve as the principal supporting members for the floor joists above. Also on the property are a contributing frame smokehouse with a pyramidal roof, and a frame kitchen. [3]
Belle Air began in the Bradford family with Richard Bradford. In 1657, following the period of his indenture, Richard I was assigned the first half of a 1,197 acre Charles City County plantation by Howell Pryse. Richard acquired the entirety of that plantation in a deed dated August 4, 1662. While it is unclear how much Richard paid for that land, it is recorded that he paid Pryse 3,500 pounds of tobacco “being in parte” for the land Richard I had “lately bought” from Pryse. 49 That plantation stayed in the Bradford family for the next sixty-five years.. It was later purchased by Col. William Green Munford, who had served as a colonel in the Continental Army. Inherited by his son, John Munford, at the Colonel's death in 1786, it was sold to John Cocke in 1792. The property was purchased by Hamlin Willcox, a prosperous Charles City County planter, in 1800 and he added the three-bay western portion of the house. The house remained in the Willcox family, which also owned nearby North Bend Plantation at the time of the Civil War, until 1945. Belle Air was restored by the current owner, Mrs. Walter O. Major. [3]
The house is open for guided tours during Historic Garden Week and by appointment.
Berkeley Plantation, one of the first plantations in America, comprises about 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the banks of the James River on State Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia. Berkeley Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred, named after the Berkeley Company of England. In 1726, it became the ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia, after Benjamin Harrison IV located there and built one of the first three-story brick mansions in Virginia. It is the home to two presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, and his grandson Benjamin Harrison. It is now a museum property, open to the public.
Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. The main plantation house, built in 1730, was the home of the tenth president of the United States, John Tyler (1790–1862) for the last twenty years of his life. It is located on State Route 5, a scenic byway which runs between the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg. The house is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the river. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
Shirley Plantation is an estate on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located on scenic byway State Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg. It is the oldest active plantation in Virginia and the oldest family-owned business in North America, dating back to 1614, with operations starting in 1648. It used about 70 to 90 African slaves at a time for plowing the fields, cleaning, childcare, and cooking. It was added to the National Register in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. After the acquisition, rebranding, and merger of Tuttle Farm in Dover, New Hampshire, Shirley Plantation received the title of the oldest business continuously operating in the United States.
Westover Plantation is a historic colonial tidewater plantation located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. Established in c. 1730–1750, it is the homestead of the Byrd family of Virginia. State Route 5, a scenic byway, runs east–west to the north of the plantation, connecting the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg.
Chippokes State Park is a Virginia state park on the south side of the James River on the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail. In addition to forests and fossil hunting on the beach, it includes three historic houses as well as an open-air agricultural and forestry museum with seasonally appropriate events. Other recreational facilities include a visitor center, swimming pool, hiking trails, cabins, yurts and campgrounds). It is located at 695 Chippokes Park Road, in rural Surry County, Virginia off Route 10.
Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed architect and builder. Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River. Mount Airy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark as well as on the Virginia Landmarks Register and is still privately owned by Tayloe's descendants.
Lower Brandon Plantation is located on the south shore of the James River in present-day Prince George County, Virginia.
Kenmore, also known as Kenmore Plantation, is a plantation house at 1201 Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Built in the 1770s, it was the home of Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis and is the only surviving structure from the 1,300-acre (530 ha) Kenmore plantation.
North Bend Plantation is an estate located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located along State Route 5, a scenic byway which runs between the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg.
Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation is a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Holdcroft, Charles City County, Virginia. The scale and character of the collection of domestic architecture at this site recalls the vernacular architectural traditions of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries along the James River.
The James River Plantations – Charles City County, Virginia is a local tourism association organized in 1993 by nine historic landmark plantations and two fine dining establishments, as the first tourism organization in Charles City County, Virginia. The original membership included Belle Air Plantation, Berkeley Plantation, Coach House Tavern, Edgewood Plantation, Evelynton Plantation, Indian Fields Tavern, North Bend Plantation, Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation, Sherwood Forest Plantation, Shirley Plantation and Westover Plantation. The association operates under bylaws and the current members of the association, as of 2006, include Belle Air Plantation, Edgewood Plantation, North Bend Plantation, Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation and Westover Plantation.
Flowerdew Hundred Plantation dates to 1618/19 with the patent by Sir George Yeardley, the Governor and Captain General of Virginia, of 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the south side of the James River. Yeardley probably named the plantation after his wife's wealthy father, Anthony Flowerdew, just as he named another plantation "Stanley Hundred" after his wife's wealthy mother, Martha Stanley. A "hundred" was historically a division of a shire or county. With a population of about 30, the plantation was economically successful with thousands of pounds of tobacco produced along with corn, fish and livestock. Sir George paid 120 pounds to build the first windmill in British America.
Belle Grove is a historic plantation located on U.S. Route 301 in Port Conway, Virginia. The present plantation house was built in 1790.
Belle Grove Plantation is a late-18th-century plantation house and estate in the northern Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, USA. It is situated in Frederick County, about a mile southwest of Middletown.
Westover Church is a historic church located 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Charles City off Virginia State Route 5 in Charles City, Virginia, United States. It was built in 1731 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.
Dogham Farm, previously known as Doggams, is a historic home and farm located in Charles City, Charles City County, Virginia. In 1642, Joseph Royall patented 600 acres on the north side of the James River in Charles City County. The plantation he named "Doggams" later became known as "Dogham" in the 18th century. Following the death of Joseph Royall, his widow married Henry Isham. Dogham is notable not only for its antiquity but also for its continuous ownership and occupation by the same family - the property remains in the Royall and Isham lines today.
Spring Hill is a historic home located near Providence Forge, Virginia. It was built about 1765, and is a 1+1⁄2-story, five-bay, gable-roofed, timber-frame Federal style dwelling. It has a center-hall plan. An addition was built in 1947. Also on the property is a contributing smokehouse. It is representative of a typical mid- to late-18th-century farmhouse in the Tidewater area of Virginia.
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