1985 - Lost Woodwork Saves Menokin
When Calder Loth, Bob Nylander and Peter Hodson, then University of Virginia graduate students, visited Menokin in 1965, the woodwork inside the decaying house was intact. It was breathless in its volume. When they left that day, it was with both trepidation and hope that it would not be lost.
Calder Loth and Peter Hodson briefly returned to Menokin in 1967 to discover that all the woodwork was gone. They were aghast. A tragedy. Perhaps to thieves … so he thought.
Fast forward to 1985. Calder had started to correspond with Dora Ricciardi, whose family had been left the house by the previous owners, the Belfields. Mrs. Riccardi had taken over stewardship of the ruin with her brother, T. Edgar Omohundro.
Menokin was in danger of losing its National Historical Landmark status due to the rapid decline of the house and property. As evidenced through letters between Calder while at DHR and Mrs. Riccardi, both she and her brother expressed that they wanted to save the house, and just did not have the money to do so. She also did not want to sell Menokin of the historical importance of the place.
Mantle rescued from Menokin Ruin being moved from Lyells, VA to Bacon’s Castle
Calder of DHR, Richard Rennolds of Preservation Virginia, and a representative of NHS visited Menokin to find it a largely collapsed ruin. While there, they met with T. Edgar Omohundro. Calder asked him what had happened to the woodwork. Surprisingly, Mr. Omohundro allowed that he had it all stored in an unoccupied house in Lyells, VA, every last piece. He had removed it to prevent thieves from stealing it out of the house, knowing it had historical significance.
Calder then wrote a very significant letter to Mrs. Ricciardi, where he explained that the only way to save Menokin was to save the woodwork and preserve it for historical record. This could buy time while they figured out what to do with saving the house. NHS agreed to this notion somewhat, however, needed proof that indeed the woodwork was intact, safely stored, and cataloged – the latter two which to be found out were not true.
When Calder and Richard Rennolds went to Lyells to see the woodwork, the house where it was stored was unsecured and in deteriorated condition. Richard told Mr. Omohundro that the woodwork was not adequately protected. He offered that if Mr. Omohundro and his sister would agree to give Preservation Virginia custodianship of the woodwork, Preservation Virginia could safely store it in the loft of a barn at Bacon’s Castle, a historic property in Surry County owned by Preservation Virginia. Thankfully, Mr. Omohundro and Mrs. Ricciardi consented to this offer.
Menokin woodwork in storage at Bacon’s Castle
Richard arranged to have movers load the woodwork and take it by moving van to Bacon’s Castle where it was inventoried and later painstakingly catalogued with annotation. Entire chimney pieces, along with mantels, wainscoting, doors, window frames, and staircase sections were intact and thusly loaded.
Securing the woodwork enabled Menokin to maintain its National Historic Landmark status. Moreover, the discovery of the missing woodwork eventually led to donation of Menokin and its woodwork by Edgar Omohundro to the newly formed Menokin Foundation.
Today, this woodwork is meticulously preserved in a special storage room at Menokin’s Martin K. King Visitor Center where it is accessible for study. It is an outstanding collection of colonial-period woodwork associated with a nationally significant historic site. It is hoped that selected sections of the woodwork can be returned the Menokin house once reconstruction is completed.
The Northern Neck News published a story recently about this very part of Menokin’s history. Links to the story on the web and PDF are below as well. The image gallery shows the letters referenced above, as well as a hand written ledger of the woodwork as it was catalogued.
