Where History Is Your Closest Neighbor

Well over a century ago, the City of Richmond saw itself with a grand vision. Citizens and elected officials wanted the former capital of the Confederacy to be transformed into a symbol of Southern revitalization. The technique they chose was the building of monuments and, in following this vision, they led the way for urban sculpture across the country and produced an enduring and unique civic landscape known as Monument Avenue.

Inaugurating this process, the city allowed the erection in 1887 of a tribute to Robert E. Lee at the west end of Franklin Street, paid for out of public donations and on property donated by the heirs of William C. Allen, a local builder and developer. The economic panic of 1893 and following economic collapse put a ten-year delay in the City's ambitious plans, but on Memorial Day, 1907, they unveiled the statute of General J. E. B. Stuart that now marks the apex of the avenue.

Circles Along The Avenue

The circles in which the monuments stand are the centerpiece of a wide street for homes that was envisioned as the connection between the growing residential neighborhood of Sydney to the south (now called the Fan) and the bustling commercial highway of Broad Street to the north. The plan was laid out by City engineer C. P. E. Burgwyn to have lots wider and deeper than typical of the area, allowing for the construction of majestic homes that were to look out onto a four lane boulevard split by a generous median lined with trees and punctuated with statues and memorials to Virginians of high repute.

Here the original city planners' Franklin Street that stretched west with city growth from the Capitol grounds became transformed into Monument Avenue, a street that is today one of America's most recognized city neighborhoods and historic concourses. It bears a historic designation from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for the entire street from one block east of Stuart Circle to Roseneath Road, and is the only such designated street of this scale in the country.

Staying True To Our Heritage

One Monument Avenue continues the tradition of graceful residential living that the developers of Monument Avenue first imagined over 100 years ago. However, it brings that vision to contemporary fulfillment in an arrangement that is reminiscent of the grand apartment buildings of New York: spacious, elegant and stylish. The original building was designed by Architect Charles M. Robinson, also the designer of the First English Lutheran Church just west across Lombardy Avenue. The brainchild of seven physicians who wished to provide the ultimate in modern medical care to their private paying patients, the property was originally a hospital when it opened in 1913. It had one of the few schools for nurses in the city, a feature for which it was admired and that stood as a hallmark of its identity until the 1970s. Over the succeeding ninety years by renovations and additions, Stuart Circle Hospital grew to over 300 patient beds, on the way becoming the first hospital to offer advanced cardiac care as well as the state's first echocardiograms.

Homes along Monument Avenue started to spring up in the early 20th century and, by 1911, over 60 were built or under construction along the first blocks from Lombardy to Meadow Street. The city had graded the street and installed curb and gutter in 1904. The first trees were planted that year as well, lining both sides of the median and the newly installed sidewalks. By 1926, most of the street was developed as residences, with a sprinkling of churches.

The current owners acquired the Stuart Circle property from Bon Secours in 2001 and, with the assistance of neighborhood associations and West Avenue residents, developed the current design under which 34 apartment units of no less than 1500 square feet will be built and space in the northeast wing will be available for commercial development and lease.