Following my research on Richmond’s South Cathedral Place, I was assigned a topic that had led many previous researchers to dead end after dead end: a long-demolished Richmond structure attributed to our country’s first professionally trained architect and first Architect of the Capitol, B. Henry Latrobe. Latrobe could be considered an architectural historian’s ultimate celebrity [...]
Clifton Illustrations View more documents from Jessica Bankston
Clifton Bibliography View more documents from Jessica Bankston
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 [...]
Latrobe made his presentation perspective on the "Clifton" house on this particular piece of ground just come to life. Just as he had done with previous, important presentation drawings for residential commissions such as the Pennock House or Sedgeley Villa, he depicted the owners of the home engaged in some activity, and even illustrated the [...]
Spring break is past now and it seems I have been all too lax in reporting my research findings. Prior to the break I took a trip up to Washington, D.C. to visit the Library of Congress' Prints & Photographs Division, where the original Clifton drawings are preserved and housed in cold storage. My appointment [...]
First owner of Clifton, Benjamin James Harris, has an interesting, yet spotty history. I am working to uncover as much about him as possible, in the hopes of establishing a feasible connection to the commission from Latrobe. So far my chronology is: 1808, March Harris owned a house at 11th & Main, called “Harris’s High [...]
Part of my project research on Clifton revolves around the final recorded inspection of the property that took place in 1903 as demolition was taking place, and were subsequently published in a 1904 edition of American Architect & Building News (page 21 and previous pages). This documentation was conducted by a man by the name [...]
As I launch into the spring semester, along with new knowledge comes the research on a specially-selected topic by Dr. Brownell: The Clifton House. As I launch into the spring semester, along with new knowledge comes the research on a specially-selected topic by Dr. Brownell: The Clifton House. This house, attributed to Latrobe, once stood [...]
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