Big house renovation: grace returns to four distinguished buildings

Residential Architect, Sept-Oct, 2003 by Meghan Drueding, Nigel F. Maynard, Shelley D. Hutchins

preserve and correct

If you think single-family houses have complex programs, try incorporating one within a hardworking government building. That was the task the Commonwealth of Virginia handed John Paul C. Hanbury, FAIA, when it selected his firm, Hanbury Evans Wright Vlattas, to restore and renovate the executive mansion in Richmond, Va. The Norfolk, Va.-based architect was charged with not only remodeling the 14,000-square-foot mansion's private quarters, but also rescuing its deteriorating reception and dining areas, reorganizing inefficient office space, and updating an antiquated service kitchen. He had to do all this while meeting stringent handicapped-accessible codes, providing for security needs, and assuring a design committee that he was spending taxpayer dollars wisely. Not exactly your everyday residential remodel.

Luckily, Hanbury had a clear plan of attack. "I was adamant, and the committee concurred, that the main floor should not change planwise, except to be handicapped-accessible," he says. The original house, designed by Boston architect Alexander Parris, dates from 1813. In 1906, Virginia architect Duncan Lee remodeled it to accommodate a ballroom and a formal dining room. Hanbury wanted to honor both phases, so the work he, project architect Gregory Rutledge, AIA, and staff interior designer Barbara Page did on the main level consists mostly of painstakingly researched restoration.

They did, however, add a small, two-story wing to the northeast corner of the building. On the main floor, the addition houses a powder room and a handicapped-accessible elevator. Hanbury didn't hesitate on this minor alteration to Parris' and Lee's plans--a 1950s addition to the southeast corner had left the rear facade asymmetrical, which was sorely out of keeping with the home's Federal roots. "The new wing was logical because it balanced out the southeast addition," he says.

selective intervention

The main level may have been off-limits to major changes, but the basement and second floor were fair game. "the old basement was a model of inefficiency," says Hanbury. "A rabbit warren." The office space devoted to the First Lady's two-person staff was much too large for their needs. So Hanbury relocated it to a separate carriage house, which HEWV also renovated.

The kitchen was even worse. Despite the fact that the mansion frequently serves as a site for receptions and dinner parties of 100 or more, it had no gas range and no modern refrigerator or freezer. Hanbury replaced the room with a full, up-to-the-minute catering kitchen. "It was a challenge because of the kitchen's huge exhaust capabilities," he says. "Of course, the exhaust had to be concealed." He solved the problem by designing an underground tunnel that draws the exhaust out into a discreet brick enclosure.

Hanbury's work on the second floor entailed a mixture of restoration and remodeling. Two guest bedrooms had retained their original character, and he and the committee decided they should remain intact. HEWV undertook an intensive restoration endeavor, using antique wallpaper scraps found in the home's basement to come up with a historically accurate border and refurbishing the rooms with dimity, a fabric fashionable in the 19th century. But the rest of the second floor had little to preserve. "The balance of the second floor had evolved over a period of several administrations," says Hanbury. "There was little plan order."

For example, the living quarters had no private kitchen, just a butler's pantry. Hanbury added one atop the main floor's northeastern corner addition, enabling the family to prepare meals without trekking down to the basement kitchen. The 3,000-square-foot family quarters did have a library, but it was accessible only from the master bedroom. A new corridor fixed that. Hanbury also reconfigured the master suite, creating separate bathrooms and dressing rooms for the First Couple. "Because the governor has a strenuous schedule, there needed to be an isolation of his dress and bath," says Hanbury. "This way, he can come and go without disturbing his spouse."

flexible space

Having the state government as a client meant Hanbury had to be sensitive to issues that rarely come up in conventional residential work. In the private living quarters, he was careful to avoid any opulence that could be construed by taxpayers as wasteful. And he and Page had to design the living spaces with the knowledge that new tenants would be moving in and redecorating with every change in administration. The governor at the time of the 2000 renovation, James Gilmore III, had a wife and two teenage children, but Hanbury knew the size and makeup of future occupants' families would vary. He added a home office and a family room to the living quarters with the idea that both could easily convert to bedrooms.

Much of HEWV's other work consists of multifamily and academic jobs. Hanbury obviously transferred to the Governor's Mansion his skill at designing buildings for multiple uses, with the structure serving as a single-family house, an office building, and the public face of Virginia. "You've got to have a clear understanding of the mission and purpose of the renovation," he advises architects who take on large public-private projects like this one. "You have to develop a vision around that that can be embraced by all those involved."