All content ©Bobby Lee Floyd 2004-2010. All Rights Reserved.
If questions please contract me at va18 "at" hotmail dot com (please reconstruct the address) and put subject as Buttercup Plantation.
The first glimpse of this Plantation came in April 1978 while riding in a car with the real estate agent in search of an old home out in the country that we could afford to buy. Turning onto the dirt, holey, narrow, rough road that extended about half mile before the outline of the manor house could be seen. Even with my vision being partially blocked by vines growing up around it, poison ivy everywhere, hundreds of small bushes and trees encompassing this aged home and before we went inside, I was overwhelmed with the charm and character it exulted as it stood solitaire and with a grace of independence that I had never seen before that I knew there and then this could be a long term relationship that it needed and I wanted.
The exterior of the home: The front porch with columns were rotten both up stair and down, mold growing on the sides, plaster on the chimney coming off and one exterior door broken off it hinges, glazing in windows missing and it needed painting and rotten wood to the entrance to the basement, rain gutters rusted out.
The interior was amazing, particularly the parlor. What a truly historic "show place" even in today's time. Its amazing fathered faux paint on the wainscoting and one of the most beautiful hand carved wood mantel that I had ever seen. This room was shocking for here existed a large room (20' x 20') that had withstood time better than any other room with only some fading of paint and a few cracks. No kitchen or bathroom had ever been in the house. The basement was flooded with three foot of water. It had four bedrooms. The upstairs had a wall dividing the house into two parts. All the mantelpieces were removed from the fireplaces. Most of the walls had hundreds of long cracks in them. Plaster coming down in two hall ceilings. Round hole in the fireplace wall in dinning room where a stovepipe was once installed. Dinning room floor had worn out linoleum and once remove had car license plate nailed to the floor where some holes were. All the paint on walls was chalky substance; maybe white wash or extremely old paint. The entire floor except one bedroom were original and were showing their age. One bedroom had a tongue a grooved wood floor put over the original flooring (looks to have been put on early 1900's. All the fireplaces had missing or broken plaster. There was an electric water pump installed but its only uses were to furnish water to the room on back of the cookhouse. Each room had only one electrical plug installed. All the downstairs had wainscoting in each room but the dark brown paint or faux paint was extremely chipped, cracked or missing in all rooms except the living room. The stairs to the basement from the inside were missing and boards were loosely placed over the stairway entrance to make a closet. All mantelpieces were black. The mopboards were also black. Crayon marks from generations past were on some doors.
It was obvious that this helpless home had had many " face lifts "and they were aging also. So, how much longer could this lovely, lonely, grand, aging, forgotten, neglected historic "masterpiece" continue on in such an sickly, dieing state? "Not long." We knew we could nurture the magnificent home back from near death with tender loving care and a lot of face-lifts to the condition she once was many, many years ago. So we adopted this the old lady and she was ours.
The first year major changes were what I call survival changes to help bring this home toward the twentieth century and in many cases changes were supposed to only temporary. The first room that was taken on was the downstairs bedroom. We needed a kitchen and my wife was not willing to have the summer kitchen remain the primary place to cook and I could understand this but at the time thought it would be unique to have an out side building as the kitchen because this is way it had been for nearly two hundred years. A small temporary cooking place was installed in the downstairs bedroom that we now called the kitchen. It took on an average (with three people) about a week per room to sand all the old paint off, patch the cracks, replace the mantels, repaired the fireplace and prime and painted the room to make it livable. In addition to the temporary kitchen are other addition and change that occurred the first year:
1. Septic system
2. Some new electrical wiring.
3. Drainage system for the water in basement
4. Plumbing
5. New flooring for front bottom porch
6. Temporary bathroom on back porch
