Description of Belmont
The main house at Belmont is an architecturally sophisticated five-part
Federal mansion with notably handsome proportions and detailing. The house
is in a good state of preservation, and except for modifications made during
a 1907 remodeling and modernization, the building remains essentially
unchanged from its original appearance.
 

The dominant feature of the house is its center section, a five-bay,
two-story structure some fifty-seven feet in length. The center section was
originally built with a T plan, the rear wing measuring forty-four feet by
twenty-five feet but was modified during the 1907 remodeling. Covering the
center section is a gable roof with modillion cornices and interior end
chimneys.  

The center bay is treated as a relatively wide pedimented pavilion. Openings
in the pavilion consist of a lunette in the pediment; a fine Palladian
window on the second floor, with stone lintels and intersecting tracery; and
a double doorway on the first floor flanked by sidelights and covered by an
exceptionally large fanlight.

Sheltering the main entrance is a refined tetrastyle portico with fluted
Doric columns, modillion cornice, and a frieze ornamented with alternating
geometric patterns. The rest of the facade openings have six-over-six sash
and are topped by stone lintels with keystones. All of the principal walls
of the house are laid in Flemish bond with narrow tooled joints.
 

The interior of the front portion of the center section remains essentially
unchanged, with a first floor consisting of a wide center hall with large
reception rooms on either side. At the end of the hall is a wide elliptical
arch supported on Doric piers which frame the stair. The stair ascends
against the hall's south wall, perpendicular to the center hall. Doorways
leading from the hall to the reception rooms are elegantly treated, each
topped by a dentiled cornice and deep frieze containing a delicate beaded
festoon. The hall, like the rooms to either side, is ornamented with a
pedestal-type, paneled wainscot.  

The outstanding feature of the reception rooms is the elaborate mantel in
each. Legend has it that the mantels were given by Lafayette when he visited
Belmont in 1825. The East mantel contains a central panel with the profile
of a Classical male in relief, framed by garlands of foliage. The West
mantel's central panel is ornamented with a swag of flowers overlaid by an
urn, and on either side of the panel are delicate festoons of flowers.

Belmont's stair has a molded handrail and thin, square balusters, three to a
step. At the end of each step is a scrolled bracket. Upstairs, the center
hall has been made into a large, somewhat elegant bathroom. The principal
bedrooms on either side have simple but well-proportioned Federal woodwork.

Of the early outbuildings, only a stone smokehouse survives. To the west of
the house is a walled cemetery containing the grave of Ludwell Lee.
 


-----Original Message-----
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lonny J. Watro
Sent: Sunday, September 18, 2005 1:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Belmont of Keswick Hunt County near Monticello


Could anyone tell me the history of the Belmont Plantation of Keswick Hunt
County. To pass the time I occassionally look through the Wall Street
Journal's Friday's Country Estates pages to see what plantations are on the
sellers block. This week there are two listed in the Charlottesville area
that appear to have some history.

Medow Hill Farm near Wintergreen Resort is only circa 1913.
But then there is Blemont which is claimed to be:
"Historic circa 1735 manor home on 23 acres in heart of Keswick Hunt
County."

I searched the Internet to see if I could find a historical write-up for
Belmont of Albemarle (which is the county it would have probably been a part
of in 1735) - no luck. I'm sure Belmont must have had some interesting
inhabitants, because their neighbors would have been the Jeffersons, the
Merriwethers, the Lewis's, the Walkers, and other notable Albemarle citizens
of that time.

Thanks,
Lonny Watro

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