The Fairfield Foundation has received a $100,000 matching grant from The Cabell Foundation of Richmond for masonry stabilization at Rosewell.
“This award is a major step in our multi-year effort to stabilize the Rosewell ruins’ masonry. With matching help from the community, this will allow us to save Rosewell for future generations,” said Thane Harpole, Fairfield co-director.
Rosewell was the largest house in Virginia when construction was begun in 1725 and was the center of a complex plantation enterprise. After a 1916 fire that hollowed the substantial residence, weathering, vegetation and vandalism have taken their toll. In 1979, Rosewell owners Natalie “Nelly” Taylor Greaves and her brother, Lieutenant Colonel Fielding Lewis Greaves, whose mother experienced the fire as a young girl, deeded the ruins of Rosewell and almost nine acres to the Gloucester Historical Society.
Ten years later, the Preservation Division of Gloucester Historical Society reorganized to establish the Rosewe...