Winchester, VA Historic Homes and Gardens Tour

Historic Garden Week in Virginia’s 78th anniversary season.  Visitors will step through the gates of more than 250 of Virginia’s most beautiful gardens, homes and historic landmarks during “America’s Largest Open House,” April 16-23, 2011. Three dozen Historic Garden Week tours present a rich mosaic of some of the country’s finest properties at the peak of Virginia’s springtime color. Sponsored by The Garden Club of Virginia, local events are scheduled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Allegheny Mountains and will span the centuries from the early 17th through the early 21st.

Historic Week is the oldest and largest statewide house and garden tour event in the nation. Sponsored by The Garden Club of Virginia, tours benefit the restoration of important historic grounds and gardens throughout the state. Each event offers an engaging variety of five to six local houses and gardens, most open to the public for the first time for Garden Week.

The Winchester, VA tour will be held on April 16th, 2011 and the featured homes and gardens will be open from 10.00 a.m. to 5.00 p.m.  It is being organized by the Little Garden Club of Winchester.  The following locations are being shown this year.

Handley High School, 425 Handley Boulevard

Garden Week guests are invited to stroll the grounds of this impressive school, to view one of the more than 40 important landscape restoration projects of the Garden Club of Virginia with funding from Historic Garden Week tours. Built in 1923, Handley High School was constructed with a bequest in 1895 from Judge John Handley, who also funded a library in Winchester. Designed by Walter R. McCornack, this large Neoclassical Revival brick building has a two-story, hip-roofed central block, dominated by a monumental pedimented portico with Corinthian columns. It is topped by a Chippendale-inspired balustrade and a three-stage wooden cupola. Flanking the central portico are long one-story brick wings fronted by Ionic-columned loggias. A wide brick-paved terrace, or esplanade, supported by brick arcades below, extends beyond the portico and classroom wings. Below is a park-like campus containing the famed “Handley Bowl” athletic field and stadium. With help from the Garden Club of Virginia, this historic landscape is being refurbished.

In 1998, Handley was placed on the list of the National Register of Historic Places. Recently completed renovations involved a multi-phase restoration and expansion project. Visitors will see the James R. Wilkins Gallery and History of Art, featuring an exhibit of reproductions of artwork from the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. These paintings were stored in a secret vault at Handley during World War II. Tea will be served in the Commons area.

646 Tennyson Avenue

Situated on the highest point in Winchester, the Truban house overlooks the Handley rooftop and cupola and commands a beautiful view to the mountains in the east. Local old-timers remember this as the home of the Davis family, but the Trubans purchased the house and adjacent vacant lot and created a large home to accommodate an extended family of eight people.  With the help of architect Andrew Boyd, they retained the existing structure and designed an addition to suit family members of all ages. Rather than try to match the existing exterior brick, they boldly removed it, re-cut the windows for improved symmetry, and quickly re-bricked the entire house. The result is a truly visionary collaboration which takes advantage of a stunning site, retains the basic bones of the 1960s-era house, and then creates a larger home with modern conveniences and fine architectural detail.

On the ground floor, chair-rail and crown molding have been added throughout. The original living room functions as a large foyer, and an opening cut in the wall frames a glimpse into the dining room.  The front of the house has the symmetry of a traditional colonial, and a pair of arched openings in the façade serves to connect old and new. The addition has a mansard-style roof with flared eaves and gabled dormers. A newly added rear elevation features large windows, open family space and a columned veranda. The north addition contains a connecting breezeway and a large game room downstairs, an upstairs loft and balcony, and additional living quarters with great views.  Bill and Selena Truban, owners.

638 Tennyson Avenue

Long known as the home of former Winchester mayor William Battaille, this imposing structure at the top of Tennyson Avenue has undergone a recent transformation by the current owners. Tall square columns on the full-facade front porch, a roofline balustrade, and a fan-light over the front door give a neoclassical formality to this two-story traditional home, built in the late-1940s. Local architects Reader & Swartz designed the new interior and a rear addition, creating a spacious and open floor plan for a busy family with young children. Off to the side of the white kitchen and overlooking the garden is a sunny breakfast room, capped by projected pergola-style eaves.

The original central hall and stairway remain, but the walls have been deepened to accommodate new cabinetry. The large front rooms were redesigned, incorporating wide doorways and an open plan. The old kitchen was converted into several new rooms, including a bright office with a cherry wood floor. Furnishings include old New England and Pennsylvania pieces, along with modern accessories acquired locally. Over the mantel in the living room is a painting by Shenandoah Valley landscape artist William Whiting. The dining room has a coffered ceiling, a pair of distinctive chandeliers, and a mural featuring a peacock over the mantel. On the mahogany sideboard are antique prism candelabra. As owner of Blue Ridge Landscaping and Design, Carl Thomas has created a wonderful city garden, using stone walls and iron fencing. Carl and Kathy Thomas, owners.

512 Courtfield Avenue

This Georgian home was constructed in 1938 by Raymond Saxe, who took his builders to Williamsburg to learn about Colonial craftsmanship. It was built with old bricks in Flemish bond and features mantels, woodwork and hardware salvaged from local buildings being demolished. The current owners purchased the house in 1979, and they added to the rear of the residence in 2005. Rich, dark pine doors and woodworking create a warm and receptive atmosphere.  Stairs rise from a center hallway, flanked by pine-trimmed front rooms used now as dining room and study. Distinctive chair-rail molding lines the walls. Of the six fireplaces, three are in corners, and all feature salvaged woodwork. The dining room is painted in a Williamsburg blue; shuttered windows evoke a Colonial tavern style. Furnishings include numerous old pieces discovered when the homeowner was a child, searching at auctions with her mother. Of special interest is a tall case clock made by Clarke County furniture-maker Jeff Headley. It is a walnut reproduction of a Frye-Martin clock (c. 1795) with a broken-arch top, hand-carved rosettes, turned finials and reeded quarter-columns.

The rear of the house opens into a bright and sunny upper-story addition, which functions as a breakfast and sitting room off the well-appointed kitchen with Amish-made cherry cabinetry. The sun room sits high above a garden divided into terraces and sections for sun and shade.  Situated on a slope, the lower level of the original residence is supported by a covered brick loggia with arched openings. With the expansion, they added another tier of brick archways to create a new outdoor room below. Local architects Reader & Swartz designed the addition.  Pat and Ellen Mason, owners.

521 Jefferson Street

Situated on a quiet street uphill from Handley High School, this five-bedroom brick house was built in the early 1960s by Boyd Hamman, Sr. and occupies four city lots. The steep roofline on the center section covers a broad graceful porch, and above are three large dormer windows. Recessed wings extend on both sides. A large lawn in the back offers great opportunities for gardening and entertaining.

The current owners, in this house about ten years, have decorated to reflect their love of both old and new, with abstract modern art alongside family antiques, and old maps and prints shown along with contemporary art from around the world. Of local interest are original art by Winchester native Eleanor White, an oil by Julia Menge and several Eugene Smith works. Reflecting family heritage and collecting interests are Japanese War Bond prints, a glass-encased alabaster clock, old books and documents, and a Civil War saber. Antique furnishings include a large Shenandoah Valley cherry corner cupboard in the dining room, a hanging corner cabinet in the living room, and a walnut silver chest converted from a spool cabinet. The kitchen, painted a warm red, has custom cherry cabinetry. A large back porch leads to a curved flagstone terrace bordered with old boxwoods.  Paul and Ann Burkholder, owners.