Dog Day Afternoon and the Virginia Center for Architecture

We attended the annual Easter Parade this past weekend which was rescheduled from the previous week due to anticipated bad weather which never materialized. Some people were upset because organizers had cancelled it at the last minute and the public didn't have time to find out it had been canceled and showed up anyway. It's hard to tell if some people were angry and stayed away this week, but it looked to me pretty busy and like there were more dogs there than kids.

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In addition to the Easter Parade, the new Virginia Center for Architecture opened this weekend. The VCA is located on the corner of Monument and Davis Avenues and was once the home of John Kerr Branch, a successful Richmond banker.
Mr. Branch's father, Col. Thomas Branch moved his family from Petersburg, Virginia to Richmond and established The Merchants Bank which is now part of Bank of America. His son John Kerr Branch followed in the footsteps of his father into the world of banking and commissioned famous architect John Russell Pope to design this Renaissance or Tudor Revival Style home. What the Branches called their winter home is 27,000 square feet which features eleven levels; a chapel-like studio; and fireproofing by means of concrete floors and masonry walls. With its long gallery, great hall, commodious library and dining room on the main floor, the house, completed in 1918, provided ample space for displaying their extensive collection of European tapestries, textiles and furnishings.

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History:

1919

27,000 sq. ft. residence in Tudor Revival style, designed by John Russell Pope, completed for Mr. And Mrs. John Kerr Branch.

1953

Branch family gives the house to the United Givers Fund, a precursor to the United Way.

1982

House purchased as the headquarters for Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company's Richmond office.

1982 Preservation easement granted to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources by the new owner.

2003
Virginia Center for Architecture Foundation purchases the house.

2005
Virginia Center for Architecture opens to the public.


Incidentally, the Branch family has a very interesting monument at the family plot in Hollywood Cemetery .