This evening I met with T. Tyler Potterfield, author of Nonesuch Place: A History of the Richmond Landscape, and Gibson Worsham, Architectural Historian at 3north and author of the blog, "Urban Scale Richmond," for a tour of the Clifton site. We began with a brief overview of the Capitol hill and walked over to the [...]
Tag: Franklin Street
Clifton in Google perspective
Here is an 1876 map showing the Clifton Hotel (red outline) in relation to modern day. The neighboring Ballard Hotel (just to the south of the red outline on the same block) was built in 1855, closed along with the Exchange Hotel in 1896 (after suffering from new competitor The Jefferson Hotel) and demolished around [...]
Rarely seen early 20th century Richmond

What a great site I just stumbled upon on the VCU Special Collections Online Exhibits! The "Rarely Seen Richmond" collection allows you to peruse through over 600 postcards of the Richmond scene from the early 20th century. These miniature works of art show us what was important for Richmonders to share with the rest of [...]
Narrowing down the builders
Just as an exercise in considering and narrowing down the possibilities, I made this chart recently. There certainly could be more names to consider, but I started with the most relevant possibilities. The men I considered mainly include builders mentioned in Drew Carneal's Richmond's Fan District, builders identified in the 1985 Historic District Nomination form [...]
Neighboring Shafer property ends up in Supreme Court
In 1914, a parcel of land - really a 20' alleyway - a block away from our row was once subject of an appeals case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Apparently, the parcel bound by Park Avenue, Franklin, Shafer and Harrison Streets that was once John C. Shafer's, held an alley connecting Shafer and Harrison Streets, [...]