A rendering of the project from Burt Pinnock, with the planned programming center, shown left, and the Skipwith-Roper house, shown on the right. (Courtesy Dr. Sesha Moon)
A local preservation group is one step closer to beginning its reconstruction of a historic home in Jackson Ward.
The JXN Project was recently awarded $75,000 through the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Commonwealth History Fund to assist in the nearly $6 million first phase of its effort to rebuild the Skipwith-Roper cottage and construct an adjoining community programming center at 303 E. Bates St.
The original cottage was built by Abraham Peyton Skipwith in the 1790s in Jackson Ward at 400 W. Duval St. Skipwith was Jackson Ward’s first known black homeowner.
The cottage was relocated to Goochland County in the 1950s as construction of Interstate 95 went through Jackson Ward, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch report. Remnants of the original cottage remain in Goochland, according to the Richmond city website.
The JXN Project was founded by Sesha Joi Moon and her sister Enjoli in 2020, as an effort to celebrate Jackson Ward’s 150th anniversary and bring more awareness to the history of the neighborhood.
The nonprofit group mainly examines the history of the neighborhood from 1760 up to 1871 when it received its name, Sesha Moon said.
“We know so much about Jackson Ward after 1871; we’re taking a further dive on the histories that have been kind of hidden to time before the neighborhood received its naming,” Moon said.
The group chose the Bates Street site for the Skipwith-Roper house and was granted the quarter-acre assemblage from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust in 2022.
The $75,000 from this year’s Commonwealth History Fund will go toward the furnishing of the interiors of the reconstructed cottage, Moon said.
With the help of details included in Skipwith’s original will, the JXN Project will furnish the cottage with items similar to what he is confirmed to have owned, including items like china, silver, glassware, specific clothing items and more.
“We’re very fortunate to know what he had so that we can be very intentional about these items,” Moon said.
Moon said the JXN Project plans to source some items with original materials from the time period at auction, and will reproduce others.
With the furnishings, Moon hopes for the cottage to be an interactive experience for guests where they can touch and interact with objects more than is typical at historical sites.
“Sometimes you go to museums and there’s lots of ropes,” Moon said. “But we want people to experience Abraham Skipwith and the Skipwith-Roper family.”
Sisters Enjoli (left) and Dr. Sesha Moon founded the JXN Project in 2020.
Moon said some of the grant funding will also go toward working with experts at local institutions like the Poe Museum and the Valentine Museum to ensure historical accuracy of the reconstruction.
In September of last year, the JXN Project was joined by city officials to break ground on the project. Official construction of the cottage is set to begin this month, Moon said.
The first phase of construction will cost $5.68 million, which has been raised in full from a host of private and public sources, including the Commonwealth History Fund, Moon said. Other contributions include a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation and a $950,000 grant that is part of the state’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Historic Preservation Fund. Richmond City Council also accepted and allocated $950,000 from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources toward the project in December.
The JXN Project has raised enough to fund the cottage reconstruction and will launch the second phase of the capital campaign to raise funds for the onsite programming center in conjunction with the grand opening of the cottage. The reconstructed Skipwith-Roper house is set to open in April of next year, during the anniversary week of Jackson Ward’s founding.
“We will need the community’s continued support to make this full project come to fruition beyond 2026,” Moon said.
Architect Burt Pinnock, the Richmond Habitat for Humanity and construction firm Team Henry Enterprises are working on the construction for the project.
Alongside this work, the JXN Project has teamed up with the Library of Virginia to open an exhibit this year at the library on Skipwith’s legacy and the 1950s construction of I-95 in Jackson Ward. The project is backed by a $280,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The JXN Project was one of 11 recipients of a total of $500,000 from this year’s Commonwealth History Fund allocations. The program, which aims to provide financial support to preservation and education projects across the state, has had 48 awardees and granted around $1.7 million total to date.
Other Richmond-area projects that received grants from this latest funding round include the Historic Richmond Foundation, which will use the grant for signage around Monumental Church, and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium in Ashland, which will produce a documentary to mark the centennial of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.
A rendering of the project from Burt Pinnock, with the planned programming center, shown left, and the Skipwith-Roper house, shown on the right. (Courtesy Dr. Sesha Moon)
A local preservation group is one step closer to beginning its reconstruction of a historic home in Jackson Ward.
The JXN Project was recently awarded $75,000 through the Virginia Museum of History and Culture’s Commonwealth History Fund to assist in the nearly $6 million first phase of its effort to rebuild the Skipwith-Roper cottage and construct an adjoining community programming center at 303 E. Bates St.
The original cottage was built by Abraham Peyton Skipwith in the 1790s in Jackson Ward at 400 W. Duval St. Skipwith was Jackson Ward’s first known black homeowner.
The cottage was relocated to Goochland County in the 1950s as construction of Interstate 95 went through Jackson Ward, according to a Richmond Times-Dispatch report. Remnants of the original cottage remain in Goochland, according to the Richmond city website.
The JXN Project was founded by Sesha Joi Moon and her sister Enjoli in 2020, as an effort to celebrate Jackson Ward’s 150th anniversary and bring more awareness to the history of the neighborhood.
The nonprofit group mainly examines the history of the neighborhood from 1760 up to 1871 when it received its name, Sesha Moon said.
“We know so much about Jackson Ward after 1871; we’re taking a further dive on the histories that have been kind of hidden to time before the neighborhood received its naming,” Moon said.
The group chose the Bates Street site for the Skipwith-Roper house and was granted the quarter-acre assemblage from the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority and the Maggie Walker Community Land Trust in 2022.
The $75,000 from this year’s Commonwealth History Fund will go toward the furnishing of the interiors of the reconstructed cottage, Moon said.
With the help of details included in Skipwith’s original will, the JXN Project will furnish the cottage with items similar to what he is confirmed to have owned, including items like china, silver, glassware, specific clothing items and more.
“We’re very fortunate to know what he had so that we can be very intentional about these items,” Moon said.
Moon said the JXN Project plans to source some items with original materials from the time period at auction, and will reproduce others.
With the furnishings, Moon hopes for the cottage to be an interactive experience for guests where they can touch and interact with objects more than is typical at historical sites.
“Sometimes you go to museums and there’s lots of ropes,” Moon said. “But we want people to experience Abraham Skipwith and the Skipwith-Roper family.”
Sisters Enjoli (left) and Dr. Sesha Moon founded the JXN Project in 2020.
Moon said some of the grant funding will also go toward working with experts at local institutions like the Poe Museum and the Valentine Museum to ensure historical accuracy of the reconstruction.
In September of last year, the JXN Project was joined by city officials to break ground on the project. Official construction of the cottage is set to begin this month, Moon said.
The first phase of construction will cost $5.68 million, which has been raised in full from a host of private and public sources, including the Commonwealth History Fund, Moon said. Other contributions include a $1.5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation and a $950,000 grant that is part of the state’s Black, Indigenous, and People of Color Historic Preservation Fund. Richmond City Council also accepted and allocated $950,000 from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources toward the project in December.
The JXN Project has raised enough to fund the cottage reconstruction and will launch the second phase of the capital campaign to raise funds for the onsite programming center in conjunction with the grand opening of the cottage. The reconstructed Skipwith-Roper house is set to open in April of next year, during the anniversary week of Jackson Ward’s founding.
“We will need the community’s continued support to make this full project come to fruition beyond 2026,” Moon said.
Architect Burt Pinnock, the Richmond Habitat for Humanity and construction firm Team Henry Enterprises are working on the construction for the project.
Alongside this work, the JXN Project has teamed up with the Library of Virginia to open an exhibit this year at the library on Skipwith’s legacy and the 1950s construction of I-95 in Jackson Ward. The project is backed by a $280,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The JXN Project was one of 11 recipients of a total of $500,000 from this year’s Commonwealth History Fund allocations. The program, which aims to provide financial support to preservation and education projects across the state, has had 48 awardees and granted around $1.7 million total to date.
Other Richmond-area projects that received grants from this latest funding round include the Historic Richmond Foundation, which will use the grant for signage around Monumental Church, and the Virginia Tribal Education Consortium in Ashland, which will produce a documentary to mark the centennial of the 1924 Indian Citizenship Act.
Love learning about ALL the history this city has to offer, so awesome to bring this back to life.
Am I reading this correctly that the first stage of the project is reconstruction (renovation or new construction?) of the Skipwith cottage to the tune of $5.68 million for what looks like less than 1,000 square feet? Surely there must be something else that amount of money is being spent on
Confusing.