The entranceway to Hayfield is embedded with original millstones from the property and lined with boxwoods. PHOTOS BY REZA MARVASHTI/THE FREE LANCE-STAR View More Images from this story Visit the Photo Place

HAYFIELD MANOR SAVED FROM YEARS OF NEGLECT Rescued from the brink ALSO IN JEOPARDY

The rebirth of Hayfield in Caroline County

Date published: 3/23/2007

BY RICHARD AMRHINE

Time can take a heavy toll on an ignored 18th-century plantation house. Vandalism can accelerate its downfall.

That was pretty much the story of Hayfield, a once-proud home beside the Rappahannock River in Caroline County.

It wasn't until 2005 that the property owner finally determined that the house ought to be saved.

Aggregate Industries, an international mining company, bought the 497-acre property from the Solite Co. in 1997. Solite initiated the property's use as a stone and gravel quarry, which attracted Aggregate in the first place. The condition of the house was not a main concern for either company.

Aggregate put a fence around the house to prevent further vandalism and took a few steps to stave off the inevitable.

But then in 2005, things changed. Company Vice President Don Delano took an interest in the old house and brought his case to the firm's top brass.

Delano was moved by Hayfield's placement on the list of Most Endangered Sites in Virginia. Elizabeth Kostelny, executive director of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, called Hayfield a classic case of "demolition by neglect."

Delano recalled that phrase earlier this week as he stood in front of a reborn Hayfield, refurbished inside and out in a project whose cost he described as having "a couple of commas and lots of zeros."

The company will use the beautifully restored house for education and corporate functions. It was built in 1760 by Lawrence Battaile on land granted earlier to his father, John. It is the definitive diamond in the rough, a gleaming white-painted brick structure surrounded by land that is being dug and scraped for its rich mineral content.

Once the commitment to the house had been made, the company turned to John Ellis, a recently hired management trainee. He had graduated from Virginia Tech in 2005 with a degree in mining and mineral engineering, so Aggregate was a perfect fit. But an untapped interest in architecture landed him in charge of Hayfield's restoration.

So Ellis did what good project managers do. He brought in experts. He called on Gary Stanton, an associate professor of historic preservation at the University of Mary Washington, and his colleague, Carter Hudgins, professor of early American culture and historic preservation.

The Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities removed Hayfield from its endangered list in 2006, but it does include two other area properties: Falmouth Union Church and James Monroe's birthplace in Westmoreland County. The 1820 church in Falmouth has only its brick facade remaining, and the organization says it is structurally compromised. In Westmoreland, the APVA says, development proposals threaten the fifth president's birthplace, where he lived for 16 years before enrolling at the College of William & Mary.

Date published: 3/23/2007