Here I'll share Appendix A from the research paper on 811-819 South Cathedral Place, in Richmond, Virginia. It covers the 5 unit row and a history of events, residents and ownership from construction to VCU acquisition. Also included is a narrative description of each unit's architectural details.
Tag: history
Cathedral Row, Richmond VA: The Movie!
Here is the presentation I gave to my group after finishing the project.
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 [...]
New Blog Name
This blog originally set out to chronicle the findings made while researching the history of 811-819 South Cathedral Place in Richmond, Virginia, for a historic preservation and architectural history course at Virginia Commonwealth University. Since completing that research, I anticipate future coursework in this field, and additional research topics as well. I am broadening this [...]
The Paper
Please see below for the title page, table of contents and main body of the paper.
Works referenced during research
Straightforward... here is the bibliography for the project.
A chronology of events
Now that I'm completely finished with the report, I can relax a little and share the findings here on the blog. There are a lot of parts and pieces to the research, so I'll be adding them as posts over the coming weeks. I also hope to create a version of the full presentation to [...]
Gilbert J. Hunt makes headlines, 1901
Although we know that Gilbert J. Hunt was responsible for many handsome residences in the lower Fan area and that it is looking more and more like he was the man responsible for the 811-819 Floyd Avenue row, he was also building in other parts of town. An article on April 28, 1901 in Richmond's [...]
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 [...]
Land transactions between Shafer and Hunt
Got back from the circuit court records room a little while ago, and although I did not find the rosetta stone I was hoping for, I did learn that there was a history of substantial business transactions between John C. Shafer and Gilbert J. Hunt in the conveyance of undeveloped land tracts. After a successful [...]