Tidewater Review |

Details emerge as New Kent mansion is refurbished

NEW KENT — For the preservation and restoration of Hampstead, a 19th century mansion in New Kent County, it’s all in the details.

As refurbishment work continues on the grand Greek Revival home near Tunstall, craftsmen have found a marbleized baseboard and marble effect on the plinth at the base of a colonnade, according to D. Shawn Beckwith, director of preservation projects for the Tidewater and Big Bend Foundation.

The foundation, which owns the home and its related 415 acres, is a Texas-based nonprofit founded by John B. Poindexter.

Additionally, a paint analysis has revealed that there were two distinctive early painting “campaigns.” One when the home was originally built by Conrad Webb in 1825, and another about 1842 “after ownership had changed hands and new people had it and there were new styles,” Beckwith explained.

The marble look on the baseboard was of a green/blue hue, while the plinth’s base tone was a darker blue. The marbleizing painting was done during the home’s original painting while the second paint campaign was directed to walls and woodwork. “The marbleized baseboards have been found on the first floor and bedroom of the second floor, thus far,” he added.

The first (main) floor contains the “public entertaining rooms — a pair of double parlors and a formal dining room. It was conceived on a grand scale and executed in an opulent manner that far exceeded local standards,” according to Carl Lounsbury, a retired Colonial Williamsburg senior architectural historian who prepared a 2021 report on the house.

The use of a marbleized effect would have been in keeping with the grandeur of the decorative plaster cornices and circular ceiling designs on that floor, Beckwith said, and “indicative of the high design style of a person of Webb’s stature.”

Based upon the interior embellishments and exterior Greek Revival architecture, the National Register of Historic Places application called Hampstead “one of the most impressive and ornamented Federalist structures in the Commonwealth.”

In addition to the marbleized wood, craftsmen have also found faux graining applied to wood on window paneling and on doors.

“The wood graining was found on a (lower) window panel,” he said. “Additionally, varying patterns, like combing, were painted on wood to create the faux wood graining with the intent to create an exotic wood, generally mahogany.”

In a believe-it-or-not situation, a piece of fabric — cloth in a tartan pattern — was found that was probably left by one of the original craftspeople, Beckwith said.

“How it relates to the building, we don’t know yet,” Beckwith said. “Other than because of its location, we know it was left during the original 1820s construction.”

Workers also discovered the name of the home’s 1914 painter — A.M. Pohle — signed on several boards in the house with the date, July 1914. The signature was found behind a window in-fill panel in a first floor parlor “and was on the backside of a new panel, obviously not original to the house,” Beckwith said.

An advertisement, which Beckwith provided, in the May 9, 1919, edition of the Richmond News-Leader confirmed Pohle’s occupation. It said: “If you want first-class painting done call A. M. Pohle, practical home painter. One of the old boys that knows.”

Nick Luccketti of Williamsburg, the principal archaeologist at the James River Institute for Archaeology, has conducted a very preliminary investigation of the Hampstead plantation grounds using a “treasure map” sketch of the property drawn in 1975 by then-owner William Wallace.

The sketch shows standing structures and roads on the grounds, as well as notations where buildings formerly stood. This information was passed down through owners and previous workers on the property, Luccketti said.

“Three former buildings were shown west of the mansion and were located on the brow of the ridge where the home is situated. They had brick foundations and were probably frame. They appear to be an original kitchen (the chimney of the building is still standing), and possibly quarters for enslaved people,” he said.

Luccketti and his team have only conducted only several test excavations; therefore, details of the buildings have not been refined. “Historical records clearly record that there was occupation of the property prior to the construction of the mansion and I think the buildings possibly began life as something else,” he added.

Two of the buildings appear to have been burned and two of them had brick paved floors. A site within sight of the mansion, “but far away,” also could be the location where enslaved field hands lived, Luccketti suggested.

However, additional work would be needed to finalize any of the archaeological speculations.

Wilford Kale, kalehouse@aol.com