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MIRADOR
SrawiIRADOR, originally the home of Colonel James M.
Bowen, in Albemarle County, is perhaps one of the
finest examples of early American architecture to
be found in Piedmont Virginia.
The ancestors of Colonel Bowen, who landed
on the cold, unfriendly shores of Massachusetts in
1644, seem to have steadily moved southward with each succeeding
generation, until in the beginning of the eighteenth century we find
them settled in Virginia, where, in 1758, Richard Bowen “‘Soldier’”’
was granted land for services in "Captain Rutherford’s Rangers’
in the French and Indian Colonial Wars.
The grandson of this Richard Bowen was the owner and builder
of Mirador between the years 1825-30. Here in the beautiful
Greenwood Valley near the Great Blue Ridge he placed the home¬
stead in the center of an extensive plantation, from which can be
seen the high peaks which tower above the dividing lines of Albe¬
marle, Augusta and Nelson Counties. Mount Humpback, which
overlooks five counties, and on which one of the first Weather
Bureaus in Virginia was stationed, can be seen in the distance.
Because of the magnificent view and for love of the soft Spanish
names, Colonel Bowen called his home “E|] Muirador,”’ a Spanish
derivation from the verb Mira—Look! Behold! El Mirador mean¬
ing a place commanding an extensive, a great view; the El has long —
since been dropped and only Mirador used.
This house, like those of the preceding century, was a square
building of brick with two stories and an attic; it had a wide hall
and four large rooms on each floor. The four chimneys and the
outbuildings used as office, schoolhouse and kitchen, were also
of brick. The spacious stairway with its mahogany rail, the fan¬
shaped lights above the doors, and the fan-shaped wood trim
throughout the building added much to the beauty of this stately old
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