I was at the Old City Hall earlier this year, and it was a pleasure to go back. The exterior, High Victorian Gothic doesn’t really do it for me. I recognize its artistic merit, but it’s not my thing, you know. But the interior? The atrium? My God! It’s recognized as a “masterpiece” of cast iron architecture. The polychrome color scheme is original to the 1894 opening.
Read MoreHouse Porn: Inside Richmond's Agecroft Hall
Agecroft Hall was my first stop in Richmond.
I do a LOT of house tours. It took awhile, but I've passed the newly convert stage where I have to see every single house available, and have become more discriminatory. I’ve figured out the time period that I enjoy most, roughly plantation houses of the one percent and the Gilded Age, 1890-1920 or so.
Agecroft Hall falls way outside the parameters. It’s an 500 year old English Tudor mansion that originally resided in Lancashire, England. So how did it in end up in Virginia? That’s what I was there to find out.
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