Henrico County Cultural Arts Center (Glen Allen School)

Glen Allen School was founded in 1886 by Elizabeth Jane Holladay, known locally as Miss Lizzie. She was thirty-eight years old when she began teaching children on the second floor of her simple frame home on Mountain Road. In 1899 a one-acre lot on the north side of Mountain Road was chosen as the site of a one-room schoolhouse, which was replaced by the present school in 1911. The oldest part of the complex is the two-story brick section with a bell tower containing a cast iron bell weighing more than 150 pounds. The additions built after 1919 were designed by the School Buildings Service of the Virginia Department of Education. Two attractive Colonial Revival buildings were constructed on the Glen Allen School grounds during the 1930s. The Depression-era auditorium (1936) and home economics cottage (1939) were probably funded by the Public Works Administration. The home economics cottage was basically a Cape Cod Colonial Revival house, the design probably supplied by the School Buildings Service. (Almost every high school in the county received exactly the same design.) The county has converted the school complex into a cultural arts center. The original front entry has been closed and a new, postmodern entry placed at the rear.