Venable Hall Restoration

The restoration project began in 2021 and was completed in the summer of 2024.

The estimated total cost of the project is $25 million.

Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects (MCWB)
MCWB—with offices in Albany, New York, and Williamsburg, Virginia—has special expertise in historic renovations and preservation. The company’s portfolio includes restorations of numerous National Historic Landmarks such as Monticello, Poplar Forest, Montpelier, and Mount Vernon. With Venable Hall qualifying for historic tax credits to offset up to 45 percent of the project costs, the firm’s experience in historic renovations is especially pertinent.

Using what they call forensic architecture, MCWB dove into the history of Venable to understand how it has changed over time, deciphering what elements are original to the building and determining what to restore, remove, or recreate. They provided Hampden-Sydney with a robust and historically sound renovation proposal to work from.

The restoration of Venable pays homage to the vision of the College’s leadership throughout the years as well as the master craftsmanship of Cosby and Perry. From under layers of plywood and vinyl emerged original heart pine flooring; original fireboxes and hearths were unearthed and restored in bedrooms; original closets and doors flanking the fireplaces were restored; and third-generation Prussian blue paint was discovered, recreated, and once again cheerfully colors the trim throughout the bedrooms.

To achieve modern convenience, a four-story, 10,000-square foot addition was constructed to the rear of the original Venable Hall footprint. The addition boasts an airy, skylit atrium that welcomes students home while also serving as breakout spaces for community members using the Parents & Friends Lounge. Brand-new bathrooms with accessible fixtures, increased privacy, and ample storage are also housed in the rear addition, allowing the College to reclaim several bedrooms in the original building that were converted to bathrooms in 1987.

Parents & Friends Lounge is also getting a facelift and an upgrade. The Lounge will remain largely architecturally untouched due to Department of Historic Resources guidance, but a cosmetic refresh will welcome community members to a beautiful meeting space. For conferences and speakers, discreet and retractable audio-visual equipment can be deployed from either side of the stairways and live streaming equipment will broaden the reach and accessibility of College programming. For social events, the space will be able to accommodate up to 120 guests for dinners, socials, reunions, weddings, and more with the option to use student rooms for overnight events when the College is not in session.

On the third floor of the atrium will be a faculty- or staff-in-residence apartment inspired by the legacy of former Professor of Classics and College Historian John Brinkley ’59. Brinkley, along with his cigar and cane, was a preeminently visible fixture on campus for more than 40 years. By creating a faculty- or staff-in-residence apartment, the College hopes to create more opportunities for faculty and staff members to become that well-known, go-to member of the community, thus building bridges between College employees and students and visitors.

Built in two major phases between 1824 and 1831 by Dabney Cosby and John Perry—two masons who were proteges of Thomas Jefferson—Venable Hall was originally part of the Union Theological Seminary and housed dormitories, classrooms, a library, and a chapel. When the seminary moved to Richmond in 1898, Major Richard Venable, Class of 1857, purchased Venable along with Penshurst and Middlecourt (which Cosby also helped construct), Winston (now Brinkley) Hall, Maples, and several other seminary-owned buildings located to the east of the intersection of College Road and Via Sacra for $10,000 and donated them to the College.

At the same time that Cosby and Perry were constructing Venable, their colleagues Reuben Perry and William Phaup were working on Cushing Hall. As MCWB notes in the feasibility study prepared for the College, “owing to the close friendship between the workmen of the two buildings, a strong axial relationship was formed, linking the two separate campuses as one.”