UVa preservation project creates colorful debate

Some University of Virginia alumni are upset and others are intrigued that UVa is embarking on a historic preservation project that will alter the iconic appearance of the Lawn.

UVa wants to restore the Academical Village to the original designs of Thomas Jefferson, starting with restoration work on Pavilion X and its two adjacent student rooms. Yet some alumni worry the project will too drastically change the university’s historic heart that they remember from their time at UVa.

The university hired the historic preservationist architecture firm Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects of Williamsburg to investigate the physical and documentary history of Pavilion X. The firm’s findings are helping guide UVa’s efforts on the Lawn.

Brian Hogg, senior preservation planner in UVa’s office of the university architect, said the plan is to restore Pavilion X — currently home to McIntire School of Commerce Dean Carl P. Zeithaml and his family — back to Jefferson’s original vision.

That means stripping the columns of their white paint, adding an 8 1/2-foot parapet to its roof, changing the color of the shutters from a dark green to a light green, and re-painting the pavilion’s trim to a “khaki pants color.” The columns, which are painted a stark white, will be exposed tan stucco.

“This is kind of a prototype so we can show what it looked like in Jefferson’s day,” Hogg said.

UVa has no immediate plans to make such changes to the other nine pavilions and the Rotunda, but Hogg and other university officials say the eventual goal is to restore all of the buildings to their original design.

“There’s a hope to do the rest,” Hogg said. “There’s no formal plans in place yet.”

The project highlights a fundamental debate in historic preservation circles. Is it better to restore a building to its most historically significant moment, which in this case would arguably be the Jefferson’s design? Or is it better to preserve the building’s status quo, respecting the historic changes and improvements made throughout the structure’s lifespan?

By doing the work on Pavilion X, Hogg said, the university will be able to show a building that reflects Jefferson’s original idea next door to the “evolved” pavilions.

“Our idea with this Pavilion X project is to make the conversation a little less abstract,” Hogg said. “We can show Jefferson’s intentions next to the evolved state.”

The Board of Visitors approved the changes to Pavilion X at a meeting a year ago. The Academical Village is designated a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educat-ional, Scientific and Cultural Organiza-tion, as is Mont-icello.

All of the restoration work has been approved by Virginia’s Department of Historic Resources and is being performed by artisans in UVa’s office of facilities management, which has a team that specializes in Jeffersonian structures. The team is preparing to construct the parapet that will be installed atop Pavilion X.

A parapet is essentially a wall or railing that wraps around a roof. Once installed, it will give Pavilion X a slightly more cube-like appearance.

Elizabeth Piper, who raises money for UVa’s historic preservation efforts, said a couple alumni have asked that Pavilion X keep the Lawn’s trademark white columns, but most alumni she speaks with are generally supportive and interested in the idea of restoring Jefferson’s vision.

“Some people get kind of wide-eyed when you tell them what we’re doing,” she said. “But most people are receptive and they understand what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Piper said it is “exciting to be a part of such major changes.”

“Pavilion X is one of the most architecturally significant changes we’ve done on the Lawn since the Bicentennial,” she said.

The Pavilion X project has a budget of roughly $2 million, university officials said, and will include work on the two adjacent student rooms. It is expected to wrap up by this fall.

Piper added the troubled economy has slowed the pace of contributions for historic preservation at UVa, meaning that the restoration effort on the pavilions and the Rotunda likely will take longer than originally expected.

“We’ve had to slow things up a little bit,” she said. “We’d hoped to move a little bit faster.”

Several alumni questioned UVa’s plans for Pavilion X in letters to the editor of the University of Virginia Magazine’s summer issue.

Chris Morris, a 1975 graduate, for example, wrote: “It was with great regret that I read of plans to ‘preserve’ Mr. Jefferson’s original intentions for Pavilion X. This is an abominable on several fronts, not the least of which is its utter violation of the great horizon-expanding agrarian aesthetic Jefferson so beautifully masters throughout his career. If the preservationists invoke ‘intentions’ to trump ‘status quo,’ then what of the constant flux of remodeling which had — in Jefferson’s lifetime — reduced Monticello to a perpetual experiment in trial and error? If UVa is indeed set on doing this, when can I start picketing the site?”

This article was edited to correct a name.