Restoring Thirteen Acres For Richmond Public Schools

by Charles McGuigan 01.2023

We are dressed for the weather, bundled up, maybe twenty of us, waiting on the weathered porch for the key to turn. All of us want to have a look inside this historic building the city of Richmond has allowed to fall into a state of decay for well over a decade. Bob Balster, president of the Hermitage Road Historic District, put together this interior tour of Thirteen Acres, a two-story building with a rich historical past that sits on the campus of Linwood Holton Elementary School in Bellevue. Bob turns the key and unlocks the door, and we all enter in single file. Bob passes out small LED flashlights because the interior is bathed in a permanent moonless midnight, thanks to the sheets of plywood shielding every one of the windows, an attempt to keep vandals out. Which seems to have worked well. Rabbits on the other hand had no problem getting in, though getting out was another story. Over the next half hour I will count a total six rabbit carcasses, all with gleaming coats, all mummified, and hollow as puffballs.  

The air inside is heavy with rot and mildew. Room after room bears witness to the former uses of this structure which began as a family farmhouse. 

Built in 1885, Thirteen Acres is one of oldest remaining homes in the Northside, and is the second oldest house on Hermitage Road. Back in 1967, the house and an accompanying thirteen acres was sold to the City of Richmond for $475,000 by the Virginia Methodist Home for the Aged, which operated its facility there. Richmond Public Schools (RPS), at that time, planned to build an elementary school on the site, but there was fierce opposition from the adjoining neighborhoods. They argued that the location was too close to the dense traffic along Laburnum and Hermitage, and children might be hit by speeding cars. 

For the next four years, the old house served as a school for children with special needs. Then, from 1973 until 1978 the building became home to the RPS community relations department. In 1978, RPS proposed using the site as a residential school for adolescents. The surrounding communities—Rosedale, Bellevue, Ginter Park—were vehemently opposed to the proposal, but two years later Thirteen Acres opened a five-day residential program for emotionally disabled students, ranging in age from six to twelve. It continued as a residential school until 2007, eight years after Holton Elementary School first opened its doors.

Another note of interest: during the Second World War, Thirteen Acres was home to one of the largest victory gardens in Richmond. That victory garden continued producing vegetables for the full duration of the war.

Not long ago, a woman by the name of Helen Tripp reached out to me after reading a piece I had written about Thirteen Acres. “This was a wonderfully special home, a place my brother, sister and cousin spent MANY happy days,” Helen wrote about Thirteen Acres. “Our grandparents, the Moores, lived at Thirteen Acres for at least 30 years; our Mother and Aunt grew up there and both went to St. Catherine’s School. As kids, we spent Christmas there and had numerous birthday parties also. Grandaddy raised/sold boxwood and leaf mold on the land.” She was hoping the grand staircase had been preserved.

As our group moves out of what was once the grand foyer we come to the staircase Helen mentioned in her correspondence. Although the newel post and the raised panel wainscoting are preserved, many of the balusters are missing or snapped in half. 

Among those in our tour group are a City Council representative; the executive director of Historic Richmond; Richmond writer and architectural historian, Eddie Slipek; and two School Board members.

One of those School Board members, Kenya Gibson, who represents the Third District, is mounting the stairs when I catch up with her. She pauses and turns to face me. 

“What would you like to see done with this building,” I ask her.

“I want to see the building preserved, and presuming that the building stays next to Holton I would love to see it used in an educational capacity,” says Kenya. 

More than ten years ago former Holton Elementary School Principal David Hudson suggested a similar use for the property. “We put together a proposal to get it as a school for humanities during the regular school day,” David had told me. “And then to use it for the extended, after-school programs in the afternoons.”

But if that is not possible, Kenya, an ardent supporter of architectural preservation, wants to ensure that the old farmhouse is completely restored to its former glory. “I would be totally in support of moving the building to front on Hermitage Road, where it could be sold as a private residence,” she says.

Bob Balster who spearheaded this tour, mentions to me that an assessment done about ten years ago concluded that moving the structure would present no problems. “It was considered very doable,” he says. “This is a very sound structure.”

It’s also an architecturally interesting structure. Among other things, this house features a wrap-around porch, broad eaves supported by decorative dentils, a two-story bay window, and a hipped, slate roof, which, incidentally, seems completely intact. While touring the second floor of the house I saw no evidence of leaks—the ceilings were spotless.

“Thirteen Acres is a remarkable property, one of the oldest in the Hermitage Road Historic District, and it is clear that the community would like to see it saved,” Cyane Crump will tell me later. Cyane is executive director of Historic Richmond, an organization that is steadfast in its mission to preserve historically and architecturally important structures. “We are pleased to be working with the neighborhood and the city to develop preservation solutions,” Cyane adds. “Having toured the property and seen its potential, I am confident that there are options for its rehabilitation and reuse, and Historic Richmond looks forward to working with all of the stakeholders to see it saved and achieve a positive outcome for all the stakeholders.”

I inspect room after room. There are a number of large pocket doors, exquisite mantlepieces, and the floors appear to be made of quarter sawn heart pine. Graffiti adorns most of the walls, and various depictions of male genitalia seem to be the most popular themes.

Upstairs in a lightless room I encounter Third District Councilwoman Ann-Frances Lambert. I ask her her take on Thirteen Acres.

“We are interested in the land around it and getting access to it,” she says. “And I know where the soccer fields are now, if we are able to get that strip to be able to put multiple single family homes on, that’s the option. Right now what is being proposed is just the house with nothing surrounding it, and we as a city don’t want that. We need to be able to discuss the other portions of the land to make it single family homes.”

Building new single family homes near the school would probably meet with stiff opposition from the neighborhood. That’s what 4th District Councilman Jonathan Young thinks, and he knows a fair amount about Thirteen Acres as well as other unused properties owned by Richmond Public Schools. He did, after all, chair the School Board’s vacant property committee. 

“I don’t think there’s any support for building houses there,” he tells me. “What my friend and colleague Kenya wants to avoid, and I concur with her, relates to razing that property and putting up some new development that would not comport with neighborhood interest.”  

Jonathan mentions another property Richmond Public Schools owns—Moore Street School. That building also has both historical and architectural features that need to be preserved. Moore Street School was built in 1887 as an educational facility built expressly for Black children. 

Community leaders from Carver banded together to form a 501 C3 called The Moore Street School Foundation. The sole purpose of the foundation is to purchase Moore Street School and redevelop it in a manner that would benefit the community at large. “What I’ve heard is that it’s something that would be complementary of what we do at Carver Elementary,” Jonathan says. “We’ve given the city the green light to put the RFP (Request for Proposal) out on the Moore Street project.  Presumably we could replicate the same thing pertinent to Thirteen Acres.”

There are those already interested in purchasing Thirteen Acres. “As recently as today I had a conversation with someone who said, ‘I think that that property and all of the acreage could accommodate a child care/school space absent additional development on it and still be financially feasible,’” says Jonathan. “The counsel I was provided with today, from someone who is very well known and highly regarded, was very encouraging. The only way that we’re going to be amenable is if the property’s preserved, and if it’s use is compatible with the elementary school.”