Rose Hill
LOCATION
Port Royal, Virginia
Partners
Abrahamse & Company Builders
Alexander Nicholson
Community Builders
Gaston & Wyatt
Grelen Nursery
Habalis Construction
Haley, Chisholm & Morris
Tidewater Construction, LLC
A formal garden for this mid-nineteenth century house in Caroline County respects the historic remnants and patterns on the site and reflects the owners’ programmatic, aesthetic and maintenance preferences. New landscape features reference classical precedent while still clearly distinguishing themselves from historic elements of the site. A sunken tennis court and pavilion occupy the north side of the garden, and situated to the south is a dovecote based on a 1799 drawing by Thomas Jefferson. He designed it for Monticello but never built it. This dovecote now houses a flock of Birmingham rollers. A cattle barn designed in the spirit of an earlier era accommodates a small herd of Belted Galloway cattle. A historic barn relocated from a Pennsylvania farm and retrofitted for offices and an exercise room is conveniently located near the house. The original formal entrance drive has been restored after not being used for over a hundred years. In some locations where it wasn’t feasible to place the road in the historic location, it was placed to one side and the road trace was preserved. A new one acre pond visible from both the formal entrance drive and the house reflects the setting for this rural property. Rose Hill won the 2016 ASLA Virginia Chapter Merit Award for residential design.