RELEASE ON RECEIPT




   U.VA. PROFESSOR GIVES TALK ON MENOKIN, THE 18TH-CENTURY VIRGINIA HOME OF 
                           FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE

	CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va., Oct. 24 -- How do old houses speak to us about 
the past? Camille Wells, assistant professor in the Department of 
Architectural History at the University of Virginia and past resident fellow 
at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, will give a talk, "God is in 
the Entails: The Social Context of an Early Virginia House," at Campbell Hall, 
the University of Virginia's School of Architecture, on Tuesday, Oct. 28, 
6:30 p.m.
	Wells' specialty is in the domestic architecture and rural landscape 
of colonial and early national Virginia. Her study of architecture reveals 
clues to the past functions and significance of colonial houses and offers a 
"view into a vanished society which is quite foreign to modern eyes." In her 
talk she will show how Menokin, the 18th-century Richmond County dwelling of 
Francis Lightfoot Lee, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, 
articulates Lee's role in the society of his time.  The Virginia dwelling 
form, facade and spatial components signaled the social roles and issues 
which Virginia householders found most compelling.  As owners became 
prominent in the community, so their houses became equally prominent, 
settings for public and semi-public interaction, statements of segregation 
according to class as well as race and shelters for displaying valuable 
assemblages of possessions.
	Menokin was built for Lee as a generous dowry gift from his father-in-
law, John Tayloe II. Construction began in 1769 and was completed around 
1775.  A series of documents written by Tayloe, "entailed" or prevented Lee 
from owning the property outright.  "This is an arrangement which is said to 
have existed often in Colonial Virginia where the bestowal of land and the 
building of great houses was concerned." Wells said.  "But this is the only 
documented case of such an arrangement -- and an extremely well documented 
case it is."   Menokin is also the only 18th century house for which 
presentation drawings -- floor plans and elevations of the house and out 
buildings -- survive. "This unique drawing even tells us what functions the 
rooms served and how the house was used in formal situations as well as in 
everyday life," Wells said. 
	A founder and past president of the Vernacular Architecture Forum, 
Wells also established the series Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture and 
edited its first two volumes. 
	The Thomas Jefferson Chapter of the Society of Architectural 
Historians is sponsoring the talk. 
                                  
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                                                              October 23, 1997
For more information please contact Camille Wells at (804) 924-6440. 
Television  reporters contact our TV News Office at (804) 924-7550.