Selden's Point

Dr. William Boswell Selden constructed this house on a site overlooking the Elizabeth River.

One of the oldest and largest houses in the West Freemason neighborhood, it was occupied by his descendants for most of the nineteenth century. Raised on a high English basement of brick, the two-and-one-half-story frame structure is five bays across and two rooms deep, with a central entrance and a symmetrical arrangement of side chimneys. In 1858 the Seldens hired Edmund George Lind for $1,600 to provide minor renovations to the house. Eleven years later Lind returned to renovate the house again at a cost of $10,000, undoubtedly to remove the stigma it carried following its occupation by Union officers during the Civil War. A porch with Roman Doric columns and turned balusters was added to the front along with polygonal dormers at the roofline. A brick service wing was constructed at the rear. To the left of the main house stands the Grandy House Kitchen, a small frame service building in the Second Empire style that was moved from the 300 block of West Freemason Street in 1978 and renovated as a residence.