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Blue Ridge Farm

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c. 1860. 1923–1927, William Lawrence Bottomley. 1920–early 1930s, Charles F. Gillette, landscape architect. Intersection of Blue Ridge Farm and Ortman rds. (VA 691), Yancy Mills vicinity

Blue Ridge Farm is an exemplary product of the frequent collaboration between New York architect Bottomley and Richmond landscape architect Gillette. At Blue Ridge Farm between 1923 and 1927, Bottomley transformed a mid-nineteenth-century Albemarle County farmhouse into an elegant country house for Randolph and Blanche Ortman. The two-story brick mansard-roofed farmhouse became the two-and-one-half-story central block, flanked by Bottomley's asymmetrical one-story wings. The extensively remodeled interiors are also largely his work. The fine workmanship and materials and the imaginative interpretation of Georgian details are typical of Bottomley's work. Gillette's planting plan—now somewhat altered—complemented the work of his collaborator. Gillette held the formal and compact planting patterns to locations near the buildings and major circulation paths. Outside these areas, large sweeps of turf, reminiscent of the work of the English landscape school, connect, apparently seamlessly, to the sweeping vistas beyond.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Richard Guy Wilson et al.
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Citation

Richard Guy Wilson et al., "Blue Ridge Farm", [Afton, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-01-PI44.

Print Source

Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, Richard Guy Wilson and contributors. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002, 140-140.

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