Carr's Hill
In 1909 at the very top of Carr's Hill, McKim, Mead, and White's design for the home of the University's first president, Edwin Alderman, was completed. Mr. Alderman and his wife, Bessie Alderman, had fully participated in designing the house for both private and public functions, and lived in the house for twenty-six years. In the course of preparing for the house's centennial celebration, I learned that the six other presidents and their families, who followed the Alderman family to the house, have deeply appreciated the careful thought that went into planning it for presidential home life and work duties.
During the seven years I lived in Carr's Hill, my life was enlarged and given more meaning by welcoming visitors to my University of Virginia home. While John and I took vacations from Grounds, we thought of the house as both the location and expression of our purpose at Mr. Jefferson's University. John had a study in the house and did much work there. I too had an office dedicated to my University work-in the guest house behind the main residence.
In a home that served as the meeting place for nearly 14,000 visitors a year, event planning was a major operation. With wonderful staff, I spent my days preparing logistics, furnishings, and food for the many and varied social functions of the University's official president's residence. Students en masse arrived at the house for parties to celebrate their first enrollment and then graduation, and also in smaller groups to many other kinds of gatherings. Hundreds of alumni, faculty and staff visited on diverse occasions: Reunions, holidays, new employment and retirement, University historical celebrations, football games, fundraising events, faculty and staff meetings, and sometimes, sadly, after funerals and other memorials. Additionally, I had the privilege of being host to many public figures and representatives of institutions and countries around the world, who visited the University to learn about its history and about the present-day education and research that takes place on its grounds.
I loved Carr's Hill not only because I loved the University and its local and world-wide community, but also because it was a happy home for my family. John and I were married and two of our daughters were married here. I will always think of Carr's Hill as a blessed place, and my attachment to it as eternal.