Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 44F. Winds light and variable..
Partly cloudy skies this evening will become overcast overnight. Low 44F. Winds light and variable.
Hand-hewn porch decking from 1788 on the Owner’s House at historic Clermont Farm in Berryville was attached with handmade iron nails.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, look at plans for more restoration efforts at the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, look at hand-hewn porch decking from 1788 on the Owner’s House at historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Clermont Foundation CEO Bob Stieg explains the restoration work that needs to be done on the Spring House at the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, are visible through an opening in the timbers of the 1803 Smoke House on the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Hand-hewn porch decking from 1788 on the Owner’s House at historic Clermont Farm in Berryville was attached with handmade iron nails.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, look at plans for more restoration efforts at the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, look at hand-hewn porch decking from 1788 on the Owner’s House at historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Clermont Foundation CEO Bob Stieg explains the restoration work that needs to be done on the Spring House at the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation and Board of Directors President Norma Johnson, are visible through an opening in the timbers of the 1803 Smoke House on the historic Clermont Farm in Berryville.
BERRYVILLE — A $472,000 grant from the National Park Service (NPS) will enable three historic buildings at Clermont Farm in Clarke County to undergo rehabilitation.
Work is beginning on the Owner’s House, which dates to the mid-18th century. Repairs to the Smoke House, built in 1803, and the Spring House, built in 1857, also are planned.
Bob Stieg, CEO of The Clermont Foundation, expects the improvements will be completed by the end of next year.
The foundation is matching the NPS grant with $10,000 from its own coffers. Additionally, the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) is contributing $33,000 worth of archaeology services, bringing the total project cost to $515,000.
Being the largest share of the pot, however, the federal money “will enable us to both preserve these buildings for the future and make them more accessible to the public,” said foundation President Norma Johnson.
As the work progresses, there will be opportunities for people to see archaeology and historic preservation being done, Johnson said.
Clermont, off Main Street just east of Berryville, was developed on property originally owned by Lord Fairfax. Over the years, the 360-acre farm had several owners. Yet the family of Elizabeth Rust Williams, a prominent Clarke County lawyer and judge, owned the farm for 185 years.
Williams died in 2004. Around that time, she bequeathed Clermont to the DHR. She also established the foundation — overseen by a board of 12 area residents — to manage and run the farm, which today is a research and training facility in agriculture, history and historic preservation. No state funding goes directly toward its operations.
Repairs to the Owner’s House involve repairing, and reconstructing where necessary, its front and back porches. Hand-hewn floorboards from the late 1700s, already disassembled from the back porch, reveal the decking was attached with handmade iron nails with T heads.
Most of the timber was white oak grown either on the farm on nearby.
“We’re not removing anything,” Stieg emphasized. Rather, new joists will be installed to replace ones that have started to give way, he said. In the process, “we’ll put down as many (floorboards) as we can.”
Timbers, framing and foundations for the Smoke House and the Spring House are to be repaired.
The entire southeast corner of the Smoke House has subsided, causing the building to shift downward. Its sill plates also have broken.
Meanwhile, the Spring House hasn’t operated since 1938, when blasting involved in the construction of Berryville’s nearby water/sewer plant near the Shenandoah River “blew out the spring,” Stieg said. The building’s stone foundation must be mortared again, but first 1½ to 2 feet of mud must be removed from inside.
Part of Clermont’s story concerns the middling gentry who first helped to defeat the French and then became the backbone of the revolution against the British, according to Stieg.
Clermont was surveyed in 1750 by George Washington, who was 18 at the time. The Owner’s House, the oldest timber-frame house in Clarke County, was built during the French and Indian War by Thomas Wadlington, a friend and supplier of Washington’s, who then was beginning construction of Fort Loudoun in Winchester. All five of Wadlington’s sons served in the American Revolution.
From 1770 to 1790, the farm was owned by Edward Snickers, after which Snickers Gap along Va. 7 (Harry Byrd Highway) is named. He was a friend and business associate of Washington’s, as well as commissary and paymaster to Virginia troops in the revolution. His other friends included Gens. Daniel Morgan, John Neville, Charles Lee, John Smith and others who helped lead American forces and met at Clermont.
“They were affluent, but not rich,” said Stieg. “They were a group of men who had risen up (financially) by their bootstraps.”
“These men also exemplified the American founding paradox,” he said, “fighting for freedom while enslaving many human beings in their homes and farms.”
Contributions made by those enslaved people “were an important part of the nation’s founding,” he added.
Another part of Clermont’s story was its production and trade in wheat, which Stieg said bolstered the nation’s economic development. Coupled with that, he said, was the importance of key routes including the Fairfax Road (now known as Va. 7) and the Great Philadelphia Wagon Road (U.S. 11). Those routes helped link the area to shipping ports at Alexandria, Baltimore and Philadelphia.
All of those factors, Stieg said, were involved in the Park Service choosing Clermont to receive one of 17 allocations totaling $7 million as part of its Semiquincentennial Grant Program.
The program commemorates the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026 by funding restoration work at diverse, state-owned properties nationwide that help tell the story of America’s founding.
Stieg said Clermont already had done archaeological work and developed architectural plans necessary for the three buildings to be refurbished. It just didn’t have the money for the construction until now.
“It’s been a long time coming,” Johnson said of the project.
In November 2018, a fire destroyed a century-old livestock barn on the farm. Plans are being developed for the construction of two new barns to replace it. One will be for animals; the other for hay. Construction is planned next year using $1.6 million received from insurance, Stieg said.
So with all of the construction expected to be finished, “2023 is going to be a big year for us,” he predicted.
— Contact Mickey Powell at mpowell@winchesterstar.com
The National Park Service chose Clermont to receive one of 17 allocations totaling $7 million as part of its Semiquincentennial Grant Program, which commemorates the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026 by funding restoration work at diverse, state-owned properties nationwide that help tell the story of America's founding.
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