The current house at Glen Roy Plantation certainly wasn’t the first homestead to occupy the sprawling property, which was patented in a land grant from King Charles I in 1642.
In fact, court documents peg the current structure as the third house to be erected on the site, the former two having succumbed to devastating fires.
But unlike its predecessors, the grandiose yellow Georgian has held out for more than 150 years. And thanks to its newest homeowners, it will likely last at least a century more.
By the time Jay Long and Miranda McClintic discovered the home, built in 1853 by William Patterson Smith, the property was in desperate need of renovation. But for the duo, who happened to be an architect and art historian, respectively, the job wasn’t too tough to tackle.
The house had been unoccupied for many years. The couple joked that the home looked like it had been pulled from a Charles Dickens novel, referring to it as “a complete Miss Havisham house,” in part to its peeling wallpaper, cobwebs, and all-around state of neglect. The wiring, Jay said, was so bad that even a child could look at it and know it was wrong.
So they began work on the home, but not first without learning as much as possible about how it had been used historically. Jay explained how the room directly off the front door served as the original owner’s farm office, so visitors need not come all the way into the home; how the ceilings were so high because the original owner’s wife suffered from asthma and thought the extra space would give the bad spirits room to rise above her; and how the back of the house, which overlooks the river, used to be the front entrance when guests would arrive by boat.
“What was exceptional was the amount of original features,” Jay said, pointing out the moldings adorned with a Greco-Egypto motif, which frame every door and window throughout the home. “As much as possible, we tried to incorporate things that were here.”
That included sending out the home’s 47 original windows for a careful restoration, rather than installing new ones.
Care was taken to keep the original flooring intact throughout the home; the couple vetoed sanding and re-staining them in favor of retaining their storied, well-worn look. And the pink paint on the kitchen walls was color-matched to a piece of original plaster found in that exact room, preserved under a layer of wallpaper.
Even though there was a lot to salvage, the home received many new finishes and conveniences throughout. The couple sourced a mix of new and old materials for the home both locally and in New York, where they had lived for many years.
Caravati’s, an architectural salvage yard in Richmond, was a wonderful resource, as was their contractor Kerry Shackleford, who specializes in historical building restoration and renovation.
Now, the home has been fully restored to its former glory. It boasts four bedrooms, four bathrooms, twelve working fireplaces, and ten additional dependency buildings scattered throughout the nearly 60-acre property, including a fully-restored guest home in a former carriage house. A pool, boat dock and chipping range make the property a paradise for outdoor living.
“It’s a very comfortable house even though it’s so grand,” said Miranda. “It’s a wonderful combination.”
To learn more about the home, click here.
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