September 3, 2024
Isabel’s Cottage, a historic gem on the Kendal campus, was built between the 1820s and 1830s. After a comprehensive and meticulous renovation following its most recent resident, the cottage has now returned to service. To celebrate, Marketing hosted an open house on August 1 to tour the 750 sq. ft. cottage and admire its blend of historical charm and modern updates.
The following summary of information about Isabel’s Cottage was compiled by Cinder Stanton for the Sunnyside History Work Group and was made available during the open house. It is primarily based on the work of Douglas Sanford, co-director of the Virginia Slave Housing Project, who spent two days studying the cottage in February. The quotations below are from his report.
Date of Construction: Probably 1820s-1830s.
“Based on past research and the architectural evidence … it is surmised that this structure dates to the early antebellum era, ca. 1820s-1830s. Its brick walls display elements of Federal-style architecture, which was popular between ca. 1780 and 1840. The traditional timber framing methods employed for the roof, along with the use of sash-sawn lumber and particularly machine-cut nails, also support the post-1820 date.”
Function:
- It is unlikely that the cottage was a kitchen for the main house; the fireplace is too small to have been the summer kitchen.
- The larger room, in the north wing, was almost certainly a domestic space. In the antebellum years it—and probably the adjacent smaller room—would have “likely housed enslaved African Americans.”
- The rooms of the east wing, with no evidence of a chimney, likely “served as work and/or storage spaces associated with the main house complex.”
- “This structure may comprise an example of mixed-use slave housing, in that it likely combined domestic spaces for enslaved African Americans in the north wing, with work and/or storage rooms in the east wing.”
- After Emancipation, it probably housed hired workers and continued to be used for work and storage.
- In the mid-20th century, it was remodeled as a residence for a member of the Anderson-Webster family.
Construction Features:
- The building was constructed all at one time. Its L shape is “unusual and distinctive,” consisting of two 16- by 32-foot wings [each of which] had two rooms and each of the four rooms had a door to the outside. The door of the smaller room in the north wing was converted to a window in the 20th century.
- The brickwork of the west facade is of Flemish bond, while the other walls are four-course common bond. “Each room in the outbuilding did have its own exterior door, indicating that the owner’s original design did not have immediate access or communication between rooms. At some point in the modern era, doorways were inserted through the interior partition walls to allow more direct circulation between [sic] the four rooms.”
Also of Note:
Isabel’s Cottage was included in Isabel and Fred Bartenstein’s gift of 84 acres and Sunnyside House to the Lexington Retirement Community, precursor of Kendal at Lexington. After his wife’s death in 1998, Mr. Bartenstein funded the renovation of Sunnyside House. At Kendal director Steve Jewell’s request, he agreed that some of the funds be used “to fix up the cottage as a guest house for visitors.” Steve Jewell told him that it would thereafter be known as “Isabel’s Cottage.”