Berry Hill Plantation

Last updated

Berry Hill
Berry Hill (Halifax County, Virginia).jpg
Berry Hill
USA Virginia location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Usa edcp location map.svg
Red pog.svg
LocationS of jct. of Rtes. 659 and 682, near South Boston, Virginia
Coordinates 36°41′55″N78°56′39″W / 36.69861°N 78.94417°W / 36.69861; -78.94417
Area1,275 acres (516 ha) (landmarked area)
Built1839 (1839)
ArchitectJohn E. Johnson
Architectural styleGreek Revival
NRHP reference No. 69000246
VLR No.041-0004
Significant dates
Added to NRHPNovember 25, 1969 [1]
Designated NHLNovember 11, 1971 [2]
Designated VLRNovember 5, 1968 [3]

Berry Hill Plantation, also known simply as Berry Hill, is a historic plantation located on the west side of South Boston in Halifax County, Virginia, United States. The main house, transformed c. 1839 into one of Virginia's finest examples of Greek Revival architecture, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1969. [2] [4] The surviving portion of the plantation, which was once one of the largest in the state, is now a conference and event center.

Contents

Description and history

Berry Hill is located on a site that is now about 650 acres (260 ha) in size, [5] between River Rd. and the Dan River on the west side of South Boston. The main house is a two-story brick structure, finished in stucco and topped by a gabled roof. The main facade is in emulation of the Parthenon, with eight massive Doric columns supporting an entablature and fully pedimented gable. [4]

With some 3,600 acres (1,500 ha) at its height, [6] the plantation was one of the largest in Virginia. The plantation has one of the largest slave cemeteries in Virginia, holding the graves of more than two hundred slaves, and includes well-preserved slave quarters.

The plantation was originally owned by Isaac Coles, who began using slaves in 1802. In 1814 and 1841, the plantation changed owners, finally ending up under the control of James Coles Bruce in 1832. [6] Bruce is credited with transforming the existing 18th-century brick plantation house then standing into the Greek Revival mansion seen today. Bruce is believed to have consulted with architect John E. Johnson, who designed Staunton Hill, the mansion of his half-brother. [4]

Today

The main house is now the centerpiece of the Berry Hill Resort and Conference Center, which provides accommodations and event facilities for weddings and corporate events. In 2023, the resort was found to have violated its historic preservation easement by partially demolishing the overseer's house on the property.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Plantation</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Berkeley Plantation, one of the first plantations in America, comprises about 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the banks of the James River on State Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia. Berkeley Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred, named after the Berkeley Company of England. In 1726, it became the ancestral home of the Harrison family of Virginia, after Benjamin Harrison IV located there and built one of the first three-story brick mansions in Virginia. It is the home to two presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, and his grandson Benjamin Harrison. It is now a museum property, open to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oak Hill (James Monroe house)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Oak Hill is a mansion and plantation located in Aldie, Virginia that was for 22 years a home of Founding Father James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President. It is located approximately 9 miles (14 km) south of Leesburg on U.S. Route 15, in an unincorporated area of Loudoun County, Virginia. Its entrance is 10,300 feet (3,100 m) north of Gilberts Corner, the intersection of 15 with U.S. Route 50. It is a National Historic Landmark, but privately owned and not open to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shirley Plantation</span> Historical site

Shirley Plantation is an estate on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located on scenic byway State Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg. It is the oldest active plantation in Virginia and the oldest family-owned business in North America, dating back to 1614, with operations starting in 1648. It used about 70 to 90 African slaves at a time for plowing the fields, cleaning, childcare, and cooking. It was added to the National Register in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. After the acquisition, rebranding, and merger of Tuttle Farm in Dover, New Hampshire, Shirley Plantation received the title of the oldest business continuously operating in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westover Plantation</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Westover Plantation is a historic colonial tidewater plantation located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. Established in c. 1730–1750, it is the homestead of the Byrd family of Virginia. State Route 5, a scenic byway, runs east–west to the north of the plantation, connecting the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Springs National Historic Landmark District</span> 14,000 acres in Virginia (US) maintained by the National Park Service

Green Springs National Historic Landmark District is a national historic district in Louisa County, Virginia noted for its concentration of fine rural manor houses and related buildings in an intact agricultural landscape. The district comprises 14,000 acres (5,700 ha) of fertile land, contrasting with the more typical poor soil and scrub pinelands surrounding it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mount Airy Plantation</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed architect and builder. Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River. Mount Airy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark as well as on the Virginia Landmarks Register and is still privately owned by Tayloe's descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lower Brandon Plantation</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Lower Brandon Plantation is located on the south shore of the James River in present-day Prince George County, Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bremo Historic District</span> Historic district in Virginia, United States

Bremo, also known as Bremo Plantation or Bremo Historic District, is a plantation estate covering over 1,500 acres (610 ha) on the west side of Bremo Bluff in Fluvanna County, Virginia. The plantation includes three separate estates, all created in the 19th century by the planter, soldier, and reformer John Hartwell Cocke on his family's 1725 land grant. The large neo-palladian mansion at "Upper" Bremo was designed by Cocke in consultation with John Neilson, a master joiner for Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. The Historic District also includes two smaller residences known as Lower Bremo and Bremo Recess.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prestwould</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Prestwould is a historic house near Clarksville, Virginia. It is the most intact and best documented plantation surviving in Southside Virginia. The house was built by Sir Peyton Skipwith, 7th Baronet Skipwith, who moved his family from his Elm Hill Plantation to Prestwould in 1797. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2003. It is located on the north side of the Roanoke River, 1-mile (1.6 km) inland, approximately 6 miles (9.7 km) southwest of the intersection of Route 15 and Route 701, and approximately one mile north of Clarksville's town limits. Now a museum property, it is open for tours from April to October, or by appointment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tuckahoe (plantation)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Tuckahoe, also known as Tuckahoe Plantation, or Historic Tuckahoe is located in Tuckahoe, Virginia on Route 650 near Manakin Sabot, Virginia, overlapping both Goochland and Henrico counties, six miles from the town of the same name. Built in the first half of the 18th century, it is a well-preserved example of a colonial plantation house, and is particularly distinctive as a colonial prodigy house. Thomas Jefferson is also recorded as having spent some of his childhood here. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sabine Hall (Warsaw, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Sabine Hall is a historic house located near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia. Built about 1730 by noted planter, burgess and patriot Landon Carter (1710–1778), it is one of Virginia's finest Georgian brick manor houses. Numerous descendants served in the Virginia General Assembly. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. At the time of its National Register listing, it was still owned by Carter / Wellford descendants.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sotterley (Hollywood, Maryland)</span> Historic house in Maryland, United States

Sotterley Plantation is a historic landmark plantation house located at 44300 Sotterley Lane in Hollywood, St. Mary's County, Maryland, USA. It is a long 1+12-story, nine-bay frame building, covered with wide, beaded clapboard siding and wood shingle roof, overlooking the Patuxent River. Also on the property are a sawn-log slave quarters of c. 1830, an 18th-century brick warehouse, and an early-19th-century brick meat house. Farm buildings include an early-19th-century corn crib and an array of barns and work buildings from the early 20th century. Opened to the public in 1961, it was once the home of George Plater (1735–1792), the sixth Governor of Maryland, and Herbert L. Satterlee (1863–1947), a New York business lawyer and son-in-law of J.P. Morgan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lone Oaks</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Lone Oaks, also known as the Benjamin Deyerle Place and Winsmere, is a Greek Revival mansion listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register in the Greater Deyerle neighborhood of the independent city of Roanoke, Virginia. Located at 3402 Grandin Road Extension SW, Lone Oaks was completed in 1850 as the private residence of Benjamin Deyerle overlooking Mudlick Creek. Today the home still stands, with the surrounding area now developed as single family home typical of those built during the 1970s–1980s. Today the home remains as a private residence. The house is L-shaped with a single pediment Doric entrance portico, which has plain square pillars and fluted columns. It became a Virginia Historic Landmark and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westend (Trevilians, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Westend is a temple-fronted house near Trevilians, Virginia, United States. Built in 1849, the house's design refers to the Classical Revival style, representing an extension of the Jeffersonian ideal of classical architecture. The house was built for Mrs. Susan Dabney Morris Watson on a property that she had inherited from her late husband. The building project was supervised by Colonel James Magruder. The house was the centerpiece of a substantial plantation, and a number of dependencies, including slave dwellings, survive. Westend remains in the ownership of the descendants of Mrs. Watson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ionia (Trevilians, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Ionia is a frame house near Trevilians, Virginia, that was the centerpiece of a large plantation in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Built around 1775, Ionia was the home of the Watson family. It was built as Clover Plains by Major James Watson, the son of a Scottish immigrant, in a fertile area of Louisa County, Virginia that is now a National Historic Landmark District, the Green Springs National Historic Landmark District. The plantation was the third largest in Louisa County in the late 18th century, leading to the nickname "Wheat Stacks" for Watson as a result of his prosperity. After Major Watson's death in 1845 the house passed to his son, Dr. George Watson, who renamed the house "Ionia" and, since he lived in Richmond, used it as a summer residence. George Watson died in 1854, leaving Ionia to his widow, who lived there until the 1870s. Following her death in 1879 the property was subdivided. The Watson family went on to build a number of houses in the Green Springs area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Springs (Trevilians, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Green Springs was built in the late 18th century on lands in Louisa County, Virginia assembled by Sylvanus Morris. His son Richard (c.1740-1821) developed 1,746 acres (707 ha) near the mineral springs that gave the property its name and built the two-story frame house. The property stands in an unusually fertile region of central Virginia, surrounded by a number of 18th and 19th century farms and plantations. The district has been designated a National Historic Landmark district, comprising about 14,000 acres (5,700 ha) under scenic easement protection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green Hill (Long Island, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Green Hill is a historic plantation house and national historic district located near Long Island, Campbell County, Virginia. The main house is a two-story, five bay, brick structure with a gable roof, modillioned cornice and two interior end chimneys. The one-story rear ell was built about 1800. The interior features fine woodwork. Also on the property are a contributing frame outbuilding with a partially enclosed shed porch, a brick duck house, an ice house, a kitchen, stone laundry, a frame slave quarters, frame kitchen with stone chimney, mounting block, two log barns, the ruins of a rather large stone stable, and a large tobacco barn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Staunton Hill (Brookneal, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Staunton Hill is a historic plantation house located in Charlotte County, Virginia; the nearest community is Brookneal, which is in Campbell County. It was built in 1848 by Charles Bruce, and is a two-story, five bay, brick dwelling in the Gothic Revival style. It features a three-story projecting entrance tower at the center bay with Gothic arch windows. It also features a crenelated parapet and turrets.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Keswick is a historic plantation house near Powhatan, in Chesterfield County and Powhatan County, Virginia, USA. It was built in the early-19th century, and is an "H"-shaped, two-story, gable-roofed, frame-with-weatherboard building. It is supported on brick foundations and has a brick exterior end chimney on each gable. Also on the property are a contributing well house, a smokehouse, the circular "slave quarters," a kitchen, a two-story brick house, a shed, and a laundry.

References

  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. 1 2 "Berry Hill". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on January 1, 2008. Retrieved April 11, 2008.
  3. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved March 19, 2013.
  4. 1 2 3 Staff, Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission; James W. Moody Jr., Director (April 25, 1969), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Berry Hill (pdf), National Park Service and Accompanying three photos, exterior, from 1969  (32 KB)
  5. "Rich History". Berry Hill Resort. Retrieved January 23, 2016.
  6. 1 2 Sale, Edith Tunis (1909). Manors of Virginia in Colonial Times. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. pp.  270–28 1.