ELK HILL 



VERLOOKING the romantic James, where the 

 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 for- 

 tunately sequestered. 



The original estate, known as Elk Hill, contained a vast number 

 of acres, and first appears in history in 17 15, when it was granted 

 by patent to John Woodson. In 1778 it was purchased by Thomas 

 Jefferson. After various changes in ownership and many sub- 

 divisions, 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 



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