Page 413 [413]
BARBOURSVILLE
TIIARBOURSVILLE, in Orange County, once held
szc9 bal the honor ot being the loveliest home in the foot¬
24 hills of Virginia. It was built by Governor James
a
Emez
KS Barbour, about 1815, and was much like Frascati,
a7 P| the home of his brother, Philip Pendleton Barbour.
zza] Both of these houses were designed by Thomas Jef¬
ferson, who was generous with his talents in building houses while
building a great republic, and left a conspicuous monument to him¬
self in the home of his friend, James Barbour. ‘There were the
characteristic red-brick and white Doric columns, but never have
they been assembled with more beauty nor in more dignified
proportion.
To the mistress of Barboursville we give all the credit for the
garden, although its surrounding serpentine wall, like that at the
University of Virginia, suggests again the helping hand of Mr.
Jetterson. There must have been hundreds—perhaps thousands—
of box plants set out at that time, for today you may see a veritable
forest of box trees both inside and outside the garden. Double
avenues of box lead off to where the stables used to be, and the
front lawn is entirely surrounded, except for an open vista just in
front of the house through which the eye is lured to the long,
green field and the meadow beyond. Here was the location of
the “Riding Greens’’; and one can, in imagination, complete the
picture with red-coated riders on prancing horses following the
hounds into the distance.
The original garden covered nearly three acres, and was entirely
surrounded by the serpentine wall of red brick. Old records show
that these bricks were brought in ox-carts from Fredericksburg.
Truly we have not inherited the patience of our ancestors, for we
try to build a garden in a day.
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