95-07-12:  UNIVERSITY ARCHITECTS RESTORE HISTORIC GEM


     Just two blocks away from the old train yard in downtown
Charlottesville, a significant piece of Virginia history was
quietly deteriorating until a couple years ago, when it was
rescued from near-oblivion by architecture professor Michael
J. Bednar and his wife, Elizabeth "Jo" Lawson, an architect and
capital programs manager in facilities management. They are
now lovingly restoring what is probably the last surviving
example of Jefferson-linked architecture that had not been
restored in this area. "We feel very fortunate to have found
this house," says Mr. Bednar. "We felt, too, that this was a good
thing to do for the community."

Their new home and its property have deep connections to
extraordinary historical events and figures, from the
Revolutionary War and Thomas Jefferson, to the University's
earliest days and the founding of its Honor System, to the
Union occupation of Charlottesville by Sheridan and Custer in
the Civil War, to ownership by one of the city's most prominent
early 20th-century business and civic leaders. 

When house hunting a couple of years ago Mr. Bednar, a member
of the American Institute of Architects' College of Fellows,
and Ms. Lawson were looking simply for an older home with
some character, nothing especially historic, they recall.

During that time a colleague, architecture professor K. Edward
Lay, had students undertake an in-depth study of the
condemned house on Jefferson Street that was almost
completely hidden from view by overgrown brush and vines.
The 1826-vintage house, known as "The Farm," was listed as
"The Lewis Farm" on the National Register of Historic Places,
and had almost certainly been built by some of the same
skilled craftsmen who constructed Jefferson's original
buildings at the University.

Mr. Lay felt his architecture students should document the
physical qualities and history of the house in case it burned or
further declined. "It was deteriorating rather rapidly," Mr. Lay
remembers. "It was undoubtedly built by Jefferson's master
builders." Its owner was using the building for storage, and
though he would consider selling it, no one was looking after
it. Mr. Lay told Mr. Bednar, "You really ought to take a close
look at this place."

Mr. Bednar, a member of the U.Va. faculty since 1972, had
served on the city planning commission and had helped
establish the downtown architectural review board, and he
knew of The Farm. Like almost everybody else, he'd paid it
little mind because it was in such apparent bad shape. But he
and Ms. Lawson took Mr. Lay's advice and toured it.

Although it had some rotten eaves and missing downspouts,
and although its dusty, dilapidated interior had been
partitioned (it had in the last few decades been a nursing home
and then apartments), "You could immediately see it had kept
its overall integrity," Mr. Bednar recalls. "It is a pure example
of Jefferson-influenced architecture."

The massive outside brick walls were the same Flemish bond
pattern as the Rotunda and pavilions on Jefferson's Lawn. The
mortar joints were amazingly sharp and precise, with a unique
double shadow-line. The house also exhibited such Jeffersonian
architectural characteristics as triple-hung windows and, over
its Tuscan-columned front portico, Chinese Chippendale
railings. With ancient oaks towering around it, the house would
have been right at home in Jefferson's "academical village."

The two-story dwelling has a classic, four-square plan of
high-ceilinged rooms, with two rooms on either side of a stair
hall. The interior has the same classical woodwork and mantle
designs, as well as arches and pilasters, found in the Lawn
pavilions. 

Mr. Bednar, who with his wife and restoration specialists, has
now almost completely returned the house to its original
state, is researching a potential book about its history and
architecture. He and University architectural historians
believe one of its contractors may have been William B.
Phillips, one of Jefferson's most skilled builders. Phillips,
whom Jefferson said produced "the best work done" on the
Lawn, often teamed with carpenter Malcolm Crawford on
projects such as the Madison County, Page County and Caroline
County courthouses. The Farm is essentially the same design
as the Albemarle County estate, "Edgehill," which was built by
the pair. Although there is no record of who built The Farm,
"everything points to Phillips and Crawford," says Mr. Bednar.

In 1825, a 69-acre tract of the property, including the Lewis
House, was sold to John A. G. Davis, a Middlesex County native
and William and Mary-educated lawyer who had moved to
Charlottesville the year before to start a law practice and to
farm. A few years after the house was finished, Davis was
appointed to the law faculty at the University, and with his
wife, Mary Jane Terrell, a grand-niece of Jefferson, went to
live in Pavilion X on the Lawn. Even though he no longer used
his house as a permanent residence, he continued to farm the
property, purchased more acreage and went back and forth
regularly.

Later chosen chair of the faculty, the highly esteemed Davis
had much experience dealing with the notoriously riotous and
rebellious students of the University's early days. On the night
of Nov. 12, 1840, he heard gunshots on the Lawn. When he came
out to investigate, a masked student shot him, and Davis died
two days later. His death sparked the creation of the Honor
Code that governs University life to this day.

In 1848 Davis's widow sold the house to Charlottesville
resident William Farish, who transferred ownership to his son
Thomas Farish. Near the end of the Civil War, in 1865, when
federal troops under Gen. Philip Sheridan moved into
Charlottesville, Sheridan's dashing brigadier general, George
Armstrong Custer, set up headquarters at The Farm. Thomas
Farish, serving as a captain in the Confederate army, was
granted leave to go home and check on his family. Captured in
civilian clothes outside the city, he was brought before Custer
as a spy. The place they brought Farish to turned out to be his
own house. Sheridan ordered him executed, and a gallows was
erected on the front lawn. But Custer at the last minute
persuaded Sheridan to pardon The Farm's owner. 

"There is a feeling of history everywhere on the property," Mr.
Bednar says, gazing outside from one of its tall windows.

In 1909 The Farm was sold to George R. B. Michie, a Staunton
native who attended U.Va. and with his brother in 1896
established The Michie Co., a law publishing house. He was also
president of what was then Peoples National Bank of
Charlottesville, one of the oldest financial institutions in
Central Virginia. 

When Mr. Bednar went to NationsBank, today's successor to
People's National, to talk about a loan to restore The Farm, he
was pleased to see a portrait of the house's former owner,
Michie, watching over the proceedings in the board room.

After the Michie family sold the property in 1948, The Farm
was well known in the area as the Hillcrest Nursing Home until
the late 1960s, when it was converted for a time into
apartments. It had been uninhabited for more than a decade
when Mr. Bednar and Ms. Lawson saw it.

Although its interior was partitioned into smaller rooms, they
could see that "the original house was almost completely
intact," Mr. Bednar recalls. Except for its 20th-Century
radiators and energy-saving individual thermostats, the house
was essentially what John A. G. Davis had built. Even its
plumbing was concentrated in one compact, well-built,
19th-Century addition at the rear of the house.

Over the years, from the Davis era, the Civil War, the Michie
era, and its time as a nursing home, "thousands of people have
been associated with this place, have passed through here, or
stayed or visited here," says Mr. Bednar, sitting in one of the
same front parlors where Davis and later, Custer, would have
sat. "We think we're pretty lucky to be here and to see that it's
preserved. We really found a treasure."_WRITTEN BY ROBERT
BRICKHOUSE_