#Urbex RVA

[specialmaps]

Map of vacant properties in Richmond VA as of Oct 2023. Listings include locations and owners. Updated March of 2024 maybe?

[resoundingamericanechoes]

Rockfalls Estate - Richmond, Va, January 2015:

Part 3:

So, this is to date one of the most interesting and serious urban exploring adventures that I’ve been on. This is the story of Rockfalls Estate: a functional, highly modern house in Richmond, Va on the south side of the river. This area has plenty of well known crazy houses, from the abominable snowman house on Cherokee Road to the old Ululating Mummies house, not too far away near Forrest Hill Avenue. The story of Rockfalls Estate has as much to do with one man as it does with one house. That man, Haigh Jamgochian, is one of the most well known architects from 20th century Richmond, as well as a highly interesting individual. The son of Armenian immigrants who moved to Richmond during the Armenian genocide, he grew up in Jackson Ward, developing an interest in architecture and building things at a young age.

The story of Mr. Jamgochian kind of goes all over the place, and includes both great accomplishments and great controversy. After attending Dartmouth, Virginia Tech, and Princeton, his career as an architect spanned many decades. He trained for a bit with Frank Lloyd Wright, and the overlaps and influences in their designs are quite apparent. At the time that Jamgochian worked in Richmond as an architect, he accrued quite a reputation as a rebel - someone who was completely outside of the architectural norms of an old city in the south, or really anywhere. Some of his most famous designs include the incredible “Saucer” building (now occupied by Markel) near Willow Lawn, and infamous Richmond used car salesman Mad Man Dapper Dan’s famous “Moon House” off of Cherokee Road, near Rockfalls Estate. He loved using unconventional materials like wrinkled aluminum and styrofoam in his buildings, and the space-age styling showed up in all sorts of ways. I remember driving past the Dapper Dan house when I was a kid (my dad would always point it out), but unfortunately it was demolished about 10 years ago to make room for a McMansion. Many of Jamgochian’s most famous works were never actually built - at least not in Richmond. His famous “Tree House” design, which was proposed to be built on Franklin St. was quickly deemed far too radical for 1960’s Richmond, and other designs (like a building that had rotating floors, like a kinetic sculpture) didn’t make it off of the drawing board.

This leads to Rockfalls Estate. In the late 1960’s, Jamgochian purchased a large plot of land near Pony Pasture on the south side of the James, and starting on a continuous project that would last for decades. The art deco-ish house sits at the top of a large hill, surrounded by all kinds of rock walls, structures, a pond, a waterfall, and other half-finished landscaping and architectural features. The house itself is just as crazy, built by Jamgochian over many years (and like I said, never really finished entirely), it has vines growing up the front of the building, Venetian blinds, a Falling Water-esque garage, and numerous other crazy attempts at building things onto the house. My favorite was the crazy chicken (or cat) walk thing that goes from the inside of the house to the outside, and around the corner, suspended in the air. Jamgochian lived in the house with his family for several years, and they ran a school out of it in the 1970’s. Some of the controversy surrounding Haigh that I referred to had to do with his wife and son, Haigh Jr, from whom he is now estranged. I don’t know enough about the situation to say much about it, and I certainly don’t want to speculate about something that I don’t know about (that’s not the point of this Tumblr). Anyway, there is a crazy story of how Jamgochian almost burned the house down in 1983 (see Style article), where he apparently refused to call the fire department, and instead tried to fight the fire with his own fire extinguishers. Jamgochian and his second wife lived for many years in the house and in a Civil War era cabin that’s also on the property (after the damage from the fire). Mr. Jamgochian lived there up until quite recently, which brings me to our trip.

Our trip to Rockfalls Estate: So, I had first seen Rockfalls Estate in the winter (the only time of year that you can see it from the road) about 3 years before we actually explored it. I was driving around Pony Pasture and saw this big rock wall with a tunnel through it, and the house way up at the top of this hill. I first thought it was a pumping station or something, but after somehow figuring out what it was years later, I knew we had to check it out. As my good childhood friend and I (who was back in town for a bit) were planning our adventure, we mentioned it to his mom, who said she grew up down the street from “old man Jamgochian”, and that she and her friends would see him out there all the time moving rocks around to build the rock wall that surrounds the house. Haigh Jamgochian moved into a nearby retirement home (where I believe he still lives) not long before we visited the house, and the house was sold to someone soon after we went. We entered the property through one of the rock tunnels, and immediately realized that this place was absolutely nuts. We traversed through this labyrinth of rock tunnels, passageways, arena looking things, old engines - it was like some sort of Indiana Jones video game. After about 20 minutes of weaving our way through this stuff, we made it to the top of the ridge, where the house sits. It had all of these incredible added on features, like the chicken/cat walk thing that I described earlier, an incredible round patio made out of rebar, and some other stuff that we honestly didn’t really understand what they were.

We did manage to find a very careful way into the house without breaking in (see below) and honestly didn’t expect to see what we did. We knew that nobody lived there anymore when we explored it, but what we didn’t expect to see were so much of his work and things still inside. Immediately we found pictures of him (right there on the table), odd widgets and inventions that he had created, and one of the craziest things was the original drawings that he had made showing the entire plot of land that Rockfalls Estate is located on, from 1969. It all made sense, the crazy arena things, the giant metal star thing; we were able to piece together the maze of structures into one amazing utopian landscape based on the drawing. We also found books on Frank Lloyd Wright, a custom dumb-waiter system that he had made, and a Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper from the day that the Apollo 11 mission started to return from the moon to earth, that I swear was just sitting there without any of us touching it. It was like a man’s entire life displayed right there in front of us, frozen in time.

Here’s the thing: I’ve waited for years to post this exploration, for many reasons. I did not at all expect that we would see this much of someone’s life and personal achievements just laid out in front of us when we went inside of that house. It was like a museum, whereas I had expected it to be totally empty. Most of all though, I kind of felt like we were encroaching on somebody’s privacy, even though we weren’t meaning to, and he no longer lived there when we went. In fact, the house may have actually been sold before we went, I just remember hearing about it afterwards. However, now I feel that in the spirit of this Tumblr page, it’s very important to preserve the history of a place, and the things and the people who’ve lived there. I say this with regards to Rockfalls Estate because after recently walking by the house, I have seen that the new owners have started to do a significant amount of work and alterations to the house and property. I remember seeing in the paper a few years back that they had planned to demolish the house and build like 8 or 10 new houses on the property (heartbreaking), but it looks as though they are actually attempting to restore the house as of now. I think that this adds extra importance to the urban exploration that we do: at any time, the place and things that you’re exploring can be gone. It’s very important to have some sort of preservation of these so that the memories can live on. That’s why we do this. I also want to stress that we ONLY took photographs from Rockfalls Estate, not anything else from the house. In fact, we hardly even let ourselves touch anything in the house as we were so surprised by what was inside. I feel that these pictures need to be shared as a way to preserve a place and the remarkable people and things that were there, in order to tell the story of them.

[patgavin]

Fulton Gas Works

[wanderingmind13]

RIP beautiful Henryton

Ink by Dana at Lucky 13, RVA

[bramstrokerxxx]

Welcome to RVA!

[tworoadwarriors]

[luxholm]

anna//paradise by Lux Holm

[boldinphotography]

Street photography RVA #shotzdelight #streetactivityteam #shotaward #streetdreamsmag #streetexploration #streetmagazine #streetmobs #streetphoto_bnw #streetphoto_bw #streetphotocolor #streetphotografy #streetphotograph # streetphotography #streetphotographer #streetphotographers #streetphotography_color #streetphotigraphymag #streetphotos #urdanandstreet #urbanphotography #urbanromantix #urbex #wearethestreet #suoerhubs #streettogether #streetshared #camerasofthestreet #livingstreetshooting

[creativelensesdaily]

Passion is the result of action, not the cause of it. Photo by @brandonsson Use #CreativeLenses to be featured! #moodygrams #way2ill #agameoftones #lookup #chasinglight #shoot2kill #uncalculated #shooteverything #explore #exploreeverything #urbex #urbex_rebels #urbanlifestyle #create #createyourhype #streetdreamsmag #richmondmagazine #rva #richmond #visitrichmond #seektoshoot #picoftheday #instafoto_blog #savageframes #ACreativeVisual #streetphotography

[longhairg-blog]

Rva has some dope creatives low key. Ever time i step out I’m meeting new creatives with unique content. Check out what @en.transit is bringing to the table 🔥🙏🏾 . . . . . . #killyourcity #citykillerz #illgramers #way2ill #agameoftones #urbex #createexplore #exploretocreate #streetactivityteam #streetdreamsmag #neverstopexploring #featuremeinstagood #igersone #shoot2kill #streetshared #streetmobs #urbanphotography #streetphotography #streetexploration #urbanandstreet #imaginatones #streettogether #streetmagazine #streetmobs #peopleinsquare #moodygrams #supportblackbusiness

[scenesindreams]

Fulton Gas Works in Richmond. #rva #richmondva #abandoned #abandoned_junkies #abandonedplaces #abandonedbeauty #urbandecay #urbex #urbanexploration #richmondphotographer #richmondoutside #sepiatone #melancholy #scenesindreams #fb #perspective via Instagram http://ift.tt/2nxjxfd

[resoundingamericanechoes]

Rockfalls Estate - Richmond, Va, January 2015:

Part 2:

So, this is to date one of the most interesting and serious urban exploring adventures that I’ve been on. This is the story of Rockfalls Estate: a functional, highly modern house in Richmond, Va on the south side of the river. This area has plenty of well known crazy houses, from the abominable snowman house on Cherokee Road to the old Ululating Mummies house, not too far away near Forrest Hill Avenue. The story of Rockfalls Estate has as much to do with one man as it does with one house. That man, Haigh Jamgochian, is one of the most well known architects from 20th century Richmond, as well as a highly interesting individual. The son of Armenian immigrants who moved to Richmond during the Armenian genocide, he grew up in Jackson Ward, developing an interest in architecture and building things at a young age.

The story of Mr. Jamgochian kind of goes all over the place, and includes both great accomplishments and great controversy. After attending Dartmouth, Virginia Tech, and Princeton, his career as an architect spanned many decades. He trained for a bit with Frank Lloyd Wright, and the overlaps and influences in their designs are quite apparent. At the time that Jamgochian worked in Richmond as an architect, he accrued quite a reputation as a rebel - someone who was completely outside of the architectural norms of an old city in the south, or really anywhere. Some of his most famous designs include the incredible “Saucer” building (now occupied by Markel) near Willow Lawn, and infamous Richmond used car salesman Mad Man Dapper Dan’s famous “Moon House” off of Cherokee Road, near Rockfalls Estate. He loved using unconventional materials like wrinkled aluminum and styrofoam in his buildings, and the space-age styling showed up in all sorts of ways. I remember driving past the Dapper Dan house when I was a kid (my dad would always point it out), but unfortunately it was demolished about 10 years ago to make room for a McMansion. Many of Jamgochian’s most famous works were never actually built - at least not in Richmond. His famous “Tree House” design, which was proposed to be built on Franklin St. was quickly deemed far too radical for 1960’s Richmond, and other designs (like a building that had rotating floors, like a kinetic sculpture) didn’t make it off of the drawing board.

This leads to Rockfalls Estate. In the late 1960’s, Jamgochian purchased a large plot of land near Pony Pasture on the south side of the James, and starting on a continuous project that would last for decades. The art deco-ish house sits at the top of a large hill, surrounded by all kinds of rock walls, structures, a pond, a waterfall, and other half-finished landscaping and architectural features. The house itself is just as crazy, built by Jamgochian over many years (and like I said, never really finished entirely), it has vines growing up the front of the building, Venetian blinds, a Falling Water-esque garage, and numerous other crazy attempts at building things onto the house. My favorite was the crazy chicken (or cat) walk thing that goes from the inside of the house to the outside, and around the corner, suspended in the air. Jamgochian lived in the house with his family for several years, and they ran a school out of it in the 1970’s. Some of the controversy surrounding Haigh that I referred to had to do with his wife and son, Haigh Jr, from whom he is now estranged. I don’t know enough about the situation to say much about it, and I certainly don’t want to speculate about something that I don’t know about (that’s not the point of this Tumblr). Anyway, there is a crazy story of how Jamgochian almost burned the house down in 1983 (see Style article), where he apparently refused to call the fire department, and instead tried to fight the fire with his own fire extinguishers. Jamgochian and his second wife lived for many years in the house and in a Civil War era cabin that’s also on the property (after the damage from the fire). Mr. Jamgochian lived there up until quite recently, which brings me to our trip.

Our trip to Rockfalls Estate: So, I had first seen Rockfalls Estate in the winter (the only time of year that you can see it from the road) about 3 years before we actually explored it. I was driving around Pony Pasture and saw this big rock wall with a tunnel through it, and the house way up at the top of this hill. I first thought it was a pumping station or something, but after somehow figuring out what it was years later, I knew we had to check it out. As my good childhood friend and I (who was back in town for a bit) were planning our adventure, we mentioned it to his mom, who said she grew up down the street from “old man Jamgochian”, and that she and her friends would see him out there all the time moving rocks around to build the rock wall that surrounds the house. Haigh Jamgochian moved into a nearby retirement home (where I believe he still lives) not long before we visited the house, and the house was sold to someone soon after we went. We entered the property through one of the rock tunnels, and immediately realized that this place was absolutely nuts. We traversed through this labyrinth of rock tunnels, passageways, arena looking things, old engines - it was like some sort of Indiana Jones video game. After about 20 minutes of weaving our way through this stuff, we made it to the top of the ridge, where the house sits. It had all of these incredible added on features, like the chicken/cat walk thing that I described earlier, an incredible round patio made out of rebar, and some other stuff that we honestly didn’t really understand what they were.

We did manage to find a very careful way into the house without breaking in (see below) and honestly didn’t expect to see what we did. We knew that nobody lived there anymore when we explored it, but what we didn’t expect to see were so much of his work and things still inside. Immediately we found pictures of him (right there on the table), odd widgets and inventions that he had created, and one of the craziest things was the original drawings that he had made showing the entire plot of land that Rockfalls Estate is located on, from 1969. It all made sense, the crazy arena things, the giant metal star thing; we were able to piece together the maze of structures into one amazing utopian landscape based on the drawing. We also found books on Frank Lloyd Wright, a custom dumb-waiter system that he had made, and a Richmond Times Dispatch newspaper from the day that the Apollo 11 mission started to return from the moon to earth, that I swear was just sitting there without any of us touching it. It was like a man’s entire life displayed right there in front of us, frozen in time.

Here’s the thing: I’ve waited for years to post this exploration, for many reasons. I did not at all expect that we would see this much of someone’s life and personal achievements just laid out in front of us when we went inside of that house. It was like a museum, whereas I had expected it to be totally empty. Most of all though, I kind of felt like we were encroaching on somebody’s privacy, even though we weren’t meaning to, and he no longer lived there when we went. In fact, the house may have actually been sold before we went, I just remember hearing about it afterwards. However, now I feel that in the spirit of this Tumblr page, it’s very important to preserve the history of a place, and the things and the people who’ve lived there. I say this with regards to Rockfalls Estate because after recently walking by the house, I have seen that the new owners have started to do a significant amount of work and alterations to the house and property. I remember seeing in the paper a few years back that they had planned to demolish the house and build like 8 or 10 new houses on the property (heartbreaking), but it looks as though they are actually attempting to restore the house as of now. I think that this adds extra importance to the urban exploration that we do: at any time, the place and things that you’re exploring can be gone. It’s very important to have some sort of preservation of these so that the memories can live on. That’s why we do this. I also want to stress that we ONLY took photographs from Rockfalls Estate, not anything else from the house. In fact, we hardly even let ourselves touch anything in the house as we were so surprised by what was inside. I feel that these pictures need to be shared as a way to preserve a place and the remarkable people and things that were there, in order to tell the story of them.

[bramstrokerxxx]

Route 5 Roadtrip

[bramstrokerxxx]

As the archaeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end. ~Michel Foucault Photography by: Heaton Johnson V Photography

[resoundingamericanechoes]

Westham Station - Richmond, Va (Formerly in Henrico), January 2017: So I had heard about this old train station that used to be at the base of the Huguenot Bridge but was actually moved years ago. I had a friend who’s dad lived on Westham Station road, right next to the bridge, and I’ve been down to where it once was, but it took me a while to figure out where it had been moved to. When I finally heard that it had been sitting on the property of Parker Field (the Richmond pro baseball stadium for many years (abandoned), I set out to find it. After a couple tries, I had kind of given up, only to realize that a weird trailer looking building on the parking lot where I deliver my recycling (next to Parker field) was actually it! Apparently it was a train museum for a while? Westham station was built back in 1911, and apparently moved to its current location in 1961. I would imagine (and hope) that this building, along with the cabin/home of former slave Emily Winfree, will both be restored and moved to appropriate locations for some sort of historical use. The cabin has recently had a bit of work done on it, and has been in the news a bit, but this building seems to be kind of a mystery. Here’s the wiki entry:

“ Westham Station in Henrico County, Virginia, USA, was originally located at Westham on the Richmond and Allegheny Railroad (R&A), which was laid along the towpath of the James River and Kanawha Canal in the 1880s. [2] The R&A railroad was acquired by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) in the 1890s. [3] Westham Station was built in 1911, near the Westham Bridge, which spans James River. The station was heated by a coal stove and had a telegraph for communication through the 1950s.[4]C&O's Westham Station was relocated to a Richmond city park on the intersection of Robin Hood Rd and Hermitage Rd in 1961.[5]”

[bramstrokerxxx]

You think people are all good or bad. That good is light and evil is dark. But where does each begin? Where does evil end? Are you on the good side or the bad side? ~Le Corbeau (1943) Photography by: Heaton Johnson V Photography