123 Henry Clay Road
BUILT: 1885ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Italianate/Second EmpireJ. Palmer and Ella Tinsley Gordon purchased this lot in 1885 and built their home in 1888. It was a two-story cottage with Italianate details, a Mansard roof, and a bow window in the front. One writer called it the Birthday Cake House. A one-story kitchen with a long laundry porch was located in a separate building to the south of the house. Kitchens at that time were sometimes separated from the main house because of the danger of fire. According to the Sanborn Insurance Maps, by the 1920s, the breezeway between the house and kitchen had been enclosed attaching it to the house.Palmer Gordon was a florist. Across James Street he installed greenhouses and a windmill for his business. On the lot where 200 Henry Clay Road now stands, he maintained an orchard. At his death in 1938, Palmer’s son Willie took over the business. He brought his son-in-law, Reginald Joseph Long, into the business renaming it Gordon & Long Florist. When Gordon & Long sold the business in the 1990s, it was one of the longest standing original businesses in Ashland.When Palmer Gordon died, the house passed to his second wife Alice, and then to his daughters Alverda Elizabeth Gordon and Alice Louise Gordon. The Gordon family owned the house for 75 years before selling it in 1963 to James and Patsy Dooley. Jay and Pat Pace followed the Dooleys in the house and lived here for 30 years until Jay’s death in 2004. He was a reporter, editor and then publisher of the Herald-Progress. You can see a wonderful statue of Jay Pace in the plaza in front of the Richard Gillis Library sitting on a bench reading his newspaper.
Washington & Franklin Literary Societies Hall
Built: 1872Architectural Style: ItalianateRandolph-Macon College (R-MC) considered the Ashland Racecourse property at the southern end of town which was for sale after the Civil War, but settled on the Ashland Hotel and Mineral Well Company property also for sale at the time as their new campus. The hotel property had buildings that could be used temporarily as lecture rooms and a dormitory. The first class met on the campus in Ashland on October 1, 1868. Led by president Rev. James A. Duncan, the college had 67 students and four professors.On the grounds of the former Hotel Company, Randolph-Macon College built a new campus. Washington and Franklin Literary Societies Hall, Pace Hall and Duncan Memorial Chapel formed a triangle with the railroad tracks to the west.These three R-MC buildings were made a separate Historical District in the 1979. At the dedication of the restored and renovated Washington and Franklin Hall in April 1998, this historic campus was named in memory of Jordan Wheat Lambert, class of 1872.Built in 1872 four years after Randolph-Macon College moved to Ashland, Washington-Franklin Hall was the first new academic building on campus and the first brick building in Ashland. Students, led by Jordan Wheat Lambert, started the building to house their Literary Societies. The students raised most of the $13,000 needed for construction and borrowed the rest from the R-MC Board of Trustees.Lambert was the son of an Alexandria, Virginia, banker and hired Benjamin F. Price an architect from his hometown. Price designed a building in the Italianate style.The first floor had a grand entrance hall flanked by two large rooms. Price devised a way to hide the trusses in the walls so the expanse of each room was not obstructed by supporting beams or columns. The rooms were decorated in high Victorian style. Busts of Cicero and Socrates along with portraits of Washington, John Wesley and other patriotic and religious leaders hung on the walls.The second floor had four rooms for the libraries of the societies and for the YMCA club.At least one wedding took place in Washington and Franklin Hall. In August 1877, Robert Emery Blackwell married Theela Epia Duncan here. Blackwell would become the 10th president of the College. Theela Duncan was the daughter of Rev. James Duncan, president of the College.Literary Societies acted as incubators for full participation in civic life, introducing the students to formal meetings, motions, minutes, and other necessary details of social and political organizations. With the decline of the Literary Societies as a vital force in the College, the building was used for classrooms and administrative offices.Ill-advised internal structural changes, caused Washington-Franklin Hall to deteriorate and it was condemned in 1953. In the 1980s, after narrowly escaping demolition, the building was restored by a grant from the Gerard B. Lambert Memorial Foundation. The grant was a result of interest in the building by Paul Mellon and his wife Rachel Lambert Mellon, who was president of the foundation named for her father, a son of Jordan Wheat Lambert.Reopened in 1987, Washington and Franklin Hall now houses the Department of History. On the first floor, the Washington Room is a classroom and the Franklin Room is used for special events.
Pace-Armistead Lecture Hall
Built: 1876Architectural Style: ItalianateAs the need for classroom grew, Pace Hall became the second new building on campus in 1876. Captain Albert Lybrock was the architect for the was building. It was named after James B. Pace, a generous College trustee. The building stands opposite Washington-Franklin Hall. For several decades, all subjects were taught here.After receiving a gift from M. William Armistead, Class of 1937, and his wife Polly Bridges Armistead, Pace Hall underwent a complete renovation in 1997. The building now houses the studio arts and art history department. With a gift from Carter and Betty Flippo, the Flippo Gallery, an art exhibition space, is located on the first floor.
Duncan Memorial Chapel
Built: 1879Architectural Style: Gothic RevivalAfter the Methodist-affiliated College moved to Ashland, the local Methodist congregation began to worship with the college faculty and students in the hotel ballroom-turned-chapel. After the college’s makeshift chapel burned, they scrapped their plans to build a church in town. In 1879, as a joint effort between the College and the congregation, Duncan Memorial Chapel was built on the campus. The second floor was the formal sanctuary, and the first floor was the college chapel. The chapel was designed by Richmond architect William West and named for Rev. James Duncan who had served as the fifth president of the College from 1868-1877. Duncan had also preached on occasion in the old ballroom-chapel.Oral history says that Samuel Rice, one of the founding members, was the sole member to vote against putting the sanctuary on the second floor. He argued the college boys would always be young and could easily climb the steps to the second floor. However, the church members would continue to age and a first floor sanctuary would be more practical. Rice was the first to buried from the second-floor sanctuary in the new church in August 1880.The Methodist congregation outgrew their chapel and in 1955, built a new church at 201 Henry St. The old chapel remains in use by the college as classrooms and a theater.
304 College Avenue
BUILT: 1912ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Classic RevivalAlpheus F. and Mary J. Sitman, brother and sister, built 304 College Avenue in 1912 or 1913. Alpheus was a farmer of some wealth in Hanover County and his sister lived with him. By 1912, the unmarried brother and sister were getting on in age and too old to farm, so they moved into Ashland with their beloved cook Eva Woolfolk Winston.The Sitmans hired architects E.A. and H.C. Smith to design a house in a newly developed neighborhood on College Avenue. William Perrin was the builder. The house has a symmetrical layout, with Ionic columns, Palladian windows, dentil molding along the roofline, and triangular pediments over the center bay of the two-story porch.In 1936, Mr. Edwin Newman, who lived at 302 College Avenue, purchased the house and divided it into two apartments. He removed the grand central staircase and created a side entrance and stair for the second floor apartment. Later, when his daughter Linda married Jack Ludwig and began a family, her father gave the house to her. The Ludwigs added a master bedroom addition to the first floor apartment and raised their three children. Later Linda’s daughter Linda “Dickie” Ludwig Magovern and her husband Malcolm moved to the same apartment and raised their son Malcolm.In 2006, Ted and Sue Peyron purchased the house and began a two-year renovation, restoring it to a single family dwelling. The whole neighborhood watched as the new three-story central staircase was installed. The Peyrons sold the house in 2011 to Tom and Stacey Rowe.
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