A Federal Revival-style house in Richmond gets a major renovation – and the homeowners aren’t finished yet

Doug Childers For the Richmond Times-Dispatch

RICHMOND — A little over a year ago, Douglass Moyers and Michael Maddix were considering real estate options when they heard about a Federal Revival-style house about to go on the market in Richmond’s Carillon neighborhood.

“We’d admired the house for years, but we’d never been inside it,” Maddix said.

Intrigued, they arranged to tour the property.

The house, located at 2908 Rugby Road, was designed by Otis K. Asbury – one of Richmond’s most effusively creative architects of the 1910s and 1920s – as a calling card for a local developer. 

Roger Gregory was president of the firm developing the new William Byrd Parkway, a 20-acre, upscale community adjoining the western perimeter of Byrd Park, said Beth O’Leary,  former associate curator of American art for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and a Carillon resident who has done extensive research on the neighborhood.

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“Building his own residence on-site became a significant selling point as his firm launched the high-end development in 1924,” O’Leary said.

She added: “During this booming era of Richmond’s West End development, Gregory and his associates were simultaneously creating several other ‘City Beautiful’ suburban developments, including the sprawling Bryan Parkway to the north.”

The refined and understated elegance of Asbury’s design for 2908 Rugby Road distinguished it from some of its more flamboyantly decorative neighbors.

Among the 4,800-square-foot house’s standout features are an elegant, recessed entrance with two-story Doric columns and a broken-pediment door surround; a canted porte-cochere on the west side of the house; and unusual wing walls that echo the ones Asbury designed the same year for the otherwise strikingly different English Country Tudor house next door, at 2904 Rugby Road.

“Asbury must have enjoyed watching the two strikingly different houses go up together, giving clear evidence of his stylistic range,” O’Leary said. “They are complementary opposites. Where the next-door dwelling exhibits asymmetrical lines of a Tudor-Elizabethan mode, this house answers with traditional Federal Revival symmetry.”

Once they saw the interior of 2908, Moyers and Maddix – who are devotees of traditional Southern architecture – were convinced they’d found the perfect house for them.

“The gracious formal rooms are elegant, with high ceilings and substantial plaster crown molding, but they are all quite comfortable in scale,” Maddix said. “The study is even octagonal, which is an unexpected architectural twist.”

The classical features were especially well-suited for Moyers and Maddix’s decorating style, which draws on Moyers’ extensive collection of American antiques and art.

“We saw the house the first week it hit the market, and we immediately made an offer,” Maddix said.  “We understand several other offers were competing, but luckily, we won out.”

Maddix and Moyers closed on the sale in Feb. 2021 without a hitch.

Moving into the property took a while, though. Maddix and Moyers first undertook an extensive renovation that included repairing some of the original plaster moldings, as well as painting the interior and exterior of the house.  (Among the more striking color choices:  a squash-like tint in the octagonal study.)

They also remodeled the bathrooms, refinished the hardwood floors and polished the black-and-white marble floor in the main foyer and center stair hall.  In addition, they stripped and refinished the mahogany stairway railing  and hung vintage, hand-painted Gracie scenic wallpaper in the dining room.

A decorator friend found the wallpaper in a period house about to go on the market in Georgia, and the homeowner agreed to let Maddix and Moyers remove it before she put the house on the market.

“We are thrilled with the finished product, which ended up being more incredible than we’d even imagined,” Maddix said.

In all, the renovation took a year, and Maddix and Moyers moved in just three weeks before they were scheduled to open the house for Historic Garden Week in Virginia. The walking tour, which will also feature four other houses in the Carillon historic district, will take place on April 27.

“The elegance and formality of this house make it a compelling architectural gem on Rugby Road, and we are delighted to have it on the Historic Carillon tour,” said Susan Fisher, an associate broker with Virginia Properties, Long & Foster and a Carillon resident.

She’s also a board member and council member for Historic Richmond, which partnered with the Garden Club of Virginia for the event and organized the Carillon tour.

Maddix and Moyers aren’t finished with home improvement projects yet, though. They’re in the planning stages to add a new kitchen and family room on the east side of the property.

“With our large extended families, we wanted to expand the kitchen space, add a casual breakfast room and a large ‘gathering room’ with a fireplace, adjacent to the kitchen,” Maddix said. “There will also be a utility room, an extra full bath and indoor access to the garage apartment.”

All the rooms in the 1,100-square-foot addition will have views of the Carillon Bell Tower and the park around it.

“We have completed the plans with architect Charles Aquino, and we’re ready to begin construction shortly,” Maddix said.

Editor’s note:  This is an installment in the “Great Homes of Richmond” series.

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