You are here

Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont » The Peninsulas » King George County » Belle Grove

Belle Grove

-A A +A
1794, attributed to Richard and Yelverton Stern. c. 1840, additions. VA 301 (left on private road .2 mile), Port Conway

Directly across from the village of Port Royal on the Rappahannock River, Belle Grove is typical of the many eighteenth-century wooden plantation houses that proliferated in the region. The structure, with a two-story clapboarded frame, was built by John Hipkins for his daughter Fannie, who had married William Bernard in 1789. The Sterns had constructed a similar house, with the wide elliptical arches on the interior and projecting entrance halls that are features of Belle Grove, in Caroline County. In the midnineteenth century Carolinus Turner purchased the house and added the wings and the two-story porticoes. On the river side is a twotiered Roman Ionic over Greek Doric portico, and on the land side is a Doric portico. James Madison, fourth president of the United States, was born in a house that once stood on the property.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

Emanuel Episcopal Church
Caithness
Port Royal
Townfield
St. Peter's Episcopal Church

Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Belle Grove", [King George, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-PE6.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 332-333.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,