Glass house may display ruins
Foundation explores way to preserve Menokin and permit scholarly study

BY LAWRENCE LATANE III TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Richmond TImes Dispatch, Sunday, February 4, 2007

WARSAW -- Preservationists may encase the moody ruins of a Colonial-era house in glass to protect the landmark and showcase the skillful woodworking that went into the building's sophisticated construction.

The result would provide an inside-out look at 238-year-old Menokin, considered one of the finest examples of Georgian architecture in the nation before it collapsed in the 1960s.

"It would be a way of protecting what we have and be kind of like those visible-man models from school" that are used to teach anatomy, said Sarah Pope, executive director of the Menokin Foundation.

The foundation is seeking $30,000 from charitable organizations to underwrite a feasibility study for a project to encapsulate the ruins in glass for preservation and study.

"It would be unique," said architect Charles A. Phillips, a preservation expert from Winston-Salem, N.C., who is advising Menokin's board of trustees on the proposal.

"Once we enclose it, it would be like a large display case in a museum," he said last week at Menokin's conservatory, where he has sorted and identified thousands of joists, beams and pieces of decorative wood paneling salvaged from the ruins. "It would be a way for us to adequately enclose the structure and have a positive impact on interpreting it instead of a negative one."

The Menokin Foundation formed in the early 1990s to operate Menokin and its 500 surrounding acres as a field school for archaeology, Colonial architecture and historic preservation. The house was built in 1769 for Francis Lightfoot Lee, who represented Richmond County in the state legislature and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

One corner of the sandstone building stands with the building's pair of massive chimney stacks. An earlier owner removed all of its rich interior paneling and woodwork for safekeeping when the building began to deteriorate. The foundation erected a shelter over the ruins in 2000, but rain and snow still blow into the site.

The foundation has most of the construction timbers and the extensive wood paneling from Menokin, and could rebuild the staircase and repanel rooms from original parts, Phillips said. Visitors, scholars and students could walk through the glass-reinforced ruins and examine interiors finished with ornate woodwork juxtaposed with the brick, mortar and hand-hewn beams that composed the building's otherwise hidden fabric.

"You can't see that everywhere," said Ed Chappell, a member of Menokin's board of trustees and director of architectural research for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. "In some ways, Menokin's ruinous condition makes it more interesting."

The approach "would be a pioneering effort," said Calder Loth, senior architectural historian for the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and an adviser to Menokin's board.

The foundation continues to make discoveries at Menokin. Phillips recently located in storage the heart pine paneling for a room that no one knew was decorated. The room was ignored when architects photographed and documented the house in 1940 for the federal Historic American Buildings Survey.

Photos of the other three first-floor rooms show carefully fitted wood paneling, wainscoting, mantels and chimney pieces that rise 12 feet to the ceilings. The foundation has placed several pieces of interior paneling in its visitor's center.

The dining room interior is on temporary display at the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond.

"We're still learning from a landmark," said Anderson Williams, chairman of an Alexandria advertising agency and member of Menokin's board. "This is not just another Virginia museum house."

Contact staff writer Lawrence Latané III at llatane@timesdispatch.com or (804) 333-3461.

This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?c=MGArticle&cid=1149193011448&pagename=RTD/MGArticle/RTD_BasicArticle

For more information on the glass house concept, see pg. 5, "President's Report"
of the Summer, 2006 Menokin Afield newsletter