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Hermitage Road Historic District
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Hermitage Road Historic District is a four-block section of Hermitage Road that is northwest of Richmond’s central business district and just south of the Henrico County line. The district developed between the late 1800s and early 1900s, starting out as an enclave of elegant country estates Richmond’s wealthy built and evolving into an upper and middle-class suburban neighborhood along a streetcar line. Hermitage Road has a landscaped median that replaced the tracks of the streetcar line in 1929. Trees, sidewalks, early-20th century street lamps, and fine homes that are setback on big deep lots line the boulevard. The district’s significance lies in its development patterns and with its largely intact collection of residential architecture dating from 1885 to the late 1930’s. Several buildings are noteworthy as the work of Richmond architect D. Wiley Anderson.
Montrose at 4104 Hermitage Road is another example of Anderson’s Late Victorian work. Built for the Edmund Strudwick family c. 1898, this Richardsonian Romanesque home is the only one of its kind on Hermitage. The three-story, four-bay residence has a mansard roof with parapet cross-gables, ashlar stonework, battlements, and Romanesque arches. The house faced the threat of demolition in 1988, but the community rallied and created a local historic district to protect it. Rosedale at 4016 Hermitage Road is an excellent example of Anderson's eclectic designs. Combining Queen Anne and Colonial Revival elements, Anderson juxtaposed a complex Queen Anne building form and roof form against a four-bay façade that gives the impression of Colonial Revival symmetry, and embellished it with Colonial Revival detailing. Anderson designed the c. 1897 home for John Pope, a prominent Richmond businessman and a real estate partner of Lewis Ginter. Shadyhurst at 4106 Hermitage Road is illustrative of Anderson’s more purely Colonial Revival style. The house dates to c. 1899 and originally belonged to J. Clements Shafer, a private secretary to Lewis Ginter. Characterized by a large wrap-around shed roof porch supported by slender, square columns, it has a standing seam metal roof and a cornice with modillions. The home originally had a three-room servant’s cottage, a stable, and a carriage house, but only the servant’s cottage remains today. The Hermitage Road Historic District is still a peaceful, elegant neighborhood that remains in many ways a streetcar suburb from more than a century ago. Except for the wide, grassy median that replaced the trolley line running down the center of the avenue, little else has changed. Because of its timelessness, this area is one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in the city. |
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