Atlantic Voyage: A Pair of Mansions That Managed to Cross the Ocean (18 photos + 2 videos)

There are times when a house simply must travel, no matter how difficult the journey. Most often, architectural monuments are packed up for a long journey, saving them from flooding or being crushed by an excavator.





Moving techniques have long been well-established: specialists clear the foundation, carefully lift the structure with powerful jacks, place it on a platform with wheels, and carefully transport it to the new location, usually within the same city.



Virginia House on its original site in Warwickshire, England, in 1900

If the journey is hundreds of kilometers long, the building is sometimes dismantled and reassembled on the other side of the country. But is it possible to imagine a journey across the ocean? In the 1920s, this impossible happened twice, and now two English estates overlook the waters of the James River in America.





The house is being demolished and loaded onto a van

The Virginia House mansion on Richmond Hill, Virginia, began its history under the skies of Warwickshire, England. It was built in the 16th century on the lands of statesman Thomas Hawkins, who named the estate "Hawks' Nest." This roof once hosted select society, including Queen Elizabeth I herself.



Almost four centuries later, in 1925, Lloyds Bank, which owned the estate, put it up for auction. The auction catalogue modestly described the lot as "an important unconditional demolition sale," and the list of valuable materials included "rare oak doors, floorboards, beams, brick, and sandstone."



Restoring the Mansion on a New Site

The advert caught the attention of wealthy American diplomat Alexander Weddell and his wife, Virginia. They made an offer before the auction and purchased the entire structure for £3,500. News of the sale of a national treasure overseas sparked a storm of indignation in the British press. The Weddells were condemned, believing the house would be completely destroyed. Only later, when the family's true intentions became known, did a member of Parliament write Alexander an apology, admitting that had they not purchased the stones, they would have been lost forever.



The house in 2003

Before transport, engineers inspected the building and reached a surprising conclusion: the masonry might not survive a conventional demolition. A radical proposal was made—to carefully demolish the structure and then remove intact fragments. Fortunately, most of the materials survived this procedure. Ultimately, the materials were carefully packed into crates and sent on the long journey across the Atlantic.



The House Today

The "Virginia House" rebuilt in Richmond is not a mirror image of the original. Its west wing reproduces the façade of the estate of Lawrence Washington, ancestor of the first US president. The east wing is inspired by the architecture of the Spencer-Churchill family home. Only the central section, with its curved gables and intricate stone carvings, recalls the building's Warwickshire past. The new owners provided all modern conveniences, including heating and running water. The total cost of this grandiose undertaking reached $250,000—an astronomical sum for the era.