West Wing
Earlier this year, we completed the restoration of the front room in the west wing. This is the oldest and most significant room at Happy Retreat. We believe it was the first part of the house built by Charles Washington in 1780.
The Historic Structure Report (HSR) completed in 2017 by architectural historian Maral Kalbian and archaeologist Dennis Pogue concluded that this room was originally a stand-alone structure and was likely used by Charles as an office or even possibly a store.
Paint specialist Dr. Susan Buck of Williamsburg discovered 24 layers of paint on the trim around the window in the north wall and the window and door in the east wall. A photograph of the room from the early 20th century shows chair rails. It could also be seen from markings on the edges of the door and window trim where the chair rail had been removed.
Fortunately, whichever previous owner removed the chair rails thought to preserve several pieces of it, which we found stored on top of the rafters of the smoke house. This allowed us to replicate the chair rails exactly and re-install it around the room.
Dr. Buck identified the original layer of paint in the room to be verdigris, a vibrant shade of green. Because copper was used as the basis of the green tint, it was an expensive paint and was used to display an owner’s wealth.
Thanks to the generosity of our long-time donor Pat Rissler, we were able to restore this room nearly to what we believe it looked like when Charles Washington first walked through the door.
East Wing
Work is underway on the first of several projects in the east wing of the house. The east wing is the only portion of the house that does not have a full basement. Instead, it is built over a shallow crawl space with a dirt floor. That gave rise to a termite infestation that was discovered in the 1940s. The entire interior of the wing had to be gutted. Everything, including fireplaces and the central chimney, was removed and an entirely new interior was constructed within the shell of the brick walls. Then, in the 1950’s, the interior was again significantly remodeled. In short, none of the historic fabric of the interior of the east wing remains. This has given us a relatively free hand in deciding how to use the space.
The current layout of the east wing includes a front room and a rear room, divided by a staircase, a bathroom and a labyrinth of closets and shelving. Our plan has been to install a service prep kitchen in the rear room and to replace the existing small bathroom and closets with two handicapped accessible bathrooms opening into the front room.
In March, work got underway on the long-planned prep kitchen. The prep kitchen will be a space caterers can use to assemble meals. This will allow us to make Happy Retreat available for events such as weddings, corporate receptions, private parties, etc. The lack of such a space has hampered our ability to make full use of Happy Retreat. A prep kitchen is a major step toward making Happy Retreat financially self-sufficient.
Planning for the handicap-accessible bathrooms is underway and will be the next step in making Happy Retreat a fully usable event venue.
Pictures showing the fully restored front room of the west wing.
Detail showing a piece of the original chair rail on the right spliced with a piece of reproduced chair rail on the left