Stranica 212 [212]
OCR
ELK HILL y VERLOOKING the romantic James, where the 1 KVI river bends on its course to Richmond, forty-five miles away, lies the twelve-hundred-acre estate of Elk Hill, so named, supposedly, from the number of elk that once grazed here. Like many of the old homes in Virginia, this one seems to be resting under some strange, magic spell, which renders it impervious to time and well content to live on with the memories that lie back of it~—-memories which link it to other historic homesteads by ties of affection and consanguinity. In its early days, its isolated situation led Randolph Harrison to select it as a home, and, after nearly one hundred years, it is still fortunately sequestered. The original estate, known as Elk Hill, contained a vast number of acres, and first appears in history in 1715, when it was granted by patent to John Woodson. In 1778 it was purchased by Thomas Jefferson. After various changes in ownership and many subdivisions, the estate became the property of the Harrison family, from whom part of it passed to [Thomas D. Stokes, the present owner. The house was erected by Randolph Harrison about 1845, and is structurally very substantial. “The facade is dignified, and the effect of the building, with its white-stuccoed walls, set in the center of a lawn and garden numbering ten acres in extent and quite removed from the highroad, is noble and hospitable. A small and formal portico provides the entrance upon the north front, and here, against a western column, an aged vine at blooming time seems to be ‘a close-set robe of jasmine sown with stars.”’ Across the river front of the house a broad veranda extends. This is swathed with clematis and wistaria, with great knots of [129 }
