19th Century Donald house

Not quite on the same scale - and again after driving around for hours, I found Otterburn House which just caught my eye in the rear view mirror - but once again annoyingly the owners were not in. Donalds were nothing if not fancy in Bedford - or some might say pretentious.

"As an unusually refined example of a transitional antebellum period design, featuring an Early Classical Revival form and plan, and an imaginative Greek Revival rebuilding. While local tradition long held that the house dated to about 1837 (a date contemporaneous with that of several other significant Greek Revival buildings in the area), new research indicates that the building was originally constructed by 1828 and was rebuilt in 1841-1843 following a major fire."


So whose house was this? Cousin Benjamin Andrew Donald's. Son of Andrew Donald of Fancy Farm. 


Here's details of Cousin Benjamin - sounds quite similar to his third cousin - Colin Dunlop Donald I: 


Benjamin Andrew Donald, a plantation and gristmill owner with extensive real estate and personal property holdings, was also politically and socially one of the county's most prominent citizens during his lifetime.  For over forty years, Donald served Bedford County in numerous appointed and elected leadership positions, most notably those related to his service as a county justice beginning in 1832.  The county's first elected Presiding Justice, Donald held that position for three consecutive four-year terms (1852-1864).  For its historic association with Benjamin A. Donald, Otterburn is eligible for the National Register under Criterion B in the area of Government/Law/Politics at the local level of significance.


Here's the view from the house. 

Again to quote from the register: 


Otterburn's front facade pediment is unusual, though, in that it rises above the three central bays of a full-length, five-bay recessed porch.  The porch, as originally built in 1841-1843, was further distinguished by the use of paired, unfluted Doric columns along its length at the piano nobile level and corresponding rectangular brick piers at ground level.  Throughout antebellum Virginia, paired columns were typically used only to support single-bay entry porticos, while unpaired columns were employed for multi-bay porches.  Otterburn's paired column porch design is therefore distinctive and rare...


Otterburn's design also employs large tripartite, triple-hung sash on the front and rear elevations that were both stylish -- tripartite windows were regularly used for fine Federal houses, and Thomas Jefferson used triple-hung sash at Poplar Forest and Monticello -- and functional, another concession to the Piedmont's warm summer temperatures. 


We know who could make those - indeed for Monticello. 


Completed by 1843, Otterburn is a relatively early domestic example of the fashionable Greek Revival style in the Virginia Piedmont; the style's greatest popularity was from the late 1840s through the 1850s.  This complex house, with layers of classical Roman, Greek, Palladian, and Jeffersonian features, manages to convey in its somewhat altered form the rich palette of influences available to the sophisticated builders and owners of the antebellum era.


The house has a website - here. Loads more pictures and descriptions and pictures of the house in the 1950s which are interesting. They also sell antiques funnily enough. 


This is the house from a 19th century print - and details below: 

While the name of the building's designer has not come to light, presumably its British-educated owner had much to do with the planning and architectural detailing of the house in both phases of its construction.  An intriguing watercolored pen-and-ink presentation drawing of the house's front elevation, entitled "House of B. A. Donald, Bedford, Va.," implies the involvement of an architect or master builder in the 1841-1843 reconstruction of the house.  Otterburn is one of Bedford County's most distinctive rural dwellings of the antebellum period, and remained the seat of the Donald estate for several years after Benjamin's death in 1871.


So are there still cousins x 8 living in America? Interesting that it says above that Benjamin was educated in Britain. Where did Andrew send him? Did he go to school with his third cousins - CDD I, Capt. James Donald of Whitehill, Thomas Donald - the one who drowned, or even Alexander Donald's son - James Donald of Jamaica. Questions, questions!