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Let site stay put, speakers tell panel
Moving White House of the Confederacy is ill-advised, they say
BY JANET CAGGIANO
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Robert H. Lamb said he understands the problems that plague the Museum and White House of the Confederacy.
The Washington attorney has served on the museum's board, so he has experienced the parking headaches on site. And he realizes that many newcomers can't even find the historic White House near 12th and East Clay streets.
But talk to him about moving the building that served as the executive mansion for the Confederacy from 1861 to 1865, and he reacts like a man defending his territory.
"I'm saddened that there aren't Confederate soldiers guarding it," he said.
Lamb made his comments Monday to a General Assembly subcommittee studying the cost and feasibility of relocating the White House, a National Historic Landmark, and the 108-year-old museum.
Museum officials are considering a move because the White House site is being swallowed up by the continuing expansion of Virginia Commonwealth University. VCU's latest project is a 16-story critical-care building, part of its medical campus.
"It's a nightmare," said Lamb, who, to avoid possible conflicts of interest, resigned from the museum's board before addressing the 11-member committee. "But there are solutions."
One, he said, is to reserve a level of the VCU parking deck for museum and White House visitors and give them their own entrance and exit.
His idea was one of many discussed during the committee's second meeting. Four other scheduled speakers also addressed the board. Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, stressed her department's position against a move.
"Let me be clear on this," she said. "Divorce the house from its history, and you lose that history."
Cynthia MacLeod, superintendent of Richmond National Battlefield Park and the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, and Edwin Slipek, professor of architectural history at VCU, also spoke vehemently against a White House move.
"The relocation of the White House does not guarantee [the institution's] financial viability," MacLeod said. "And relocating the building would undermine its historical integrity."
Should the White House move, it would lose its designation as a National Historic Landmark.
Dr. Walter R.T. Witschey, director of the Science Museum, detailed land usage near the Science Museum, a site officials have said they have considered as a possible new home.
But most of that land is already taken, Witschey said, and the Science Museum plans to eventually move the Virginia Aviation Museum there.
"To consider moving the White House there . . . may very well not be feasible at all," Witschey said.
Slipek called a possible White House move an "act of cultural violence" and encouraged officials instead to beef up marketing to attract new visitors and to form partnerships with surrounding cultural attractions, such as the Valentine Richmond History Center.
About 80 people attended Monday's meeting, with three addressing the committee after the scheduled speakers. Philip M. Morton, a descendant of Robert Mills, the White House architect, blasted the city for allowing towering medical buildings to be constructed around the White House site.
"It is the saddest thing ever that this was allowed to happen," he said. "I pray you can make staying here a viable alternative. But if not, I'm in favor of moving it."
The subcommittee will meet again Sept. 26 and Nov. 21. For information, call (804) 786-3591.
Contact Janet Caggiano at (804) 649-6157 or jcaggiano@timesdispatch.com