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Sisters Linda Oates of Chesapeake (left) and May Jane Tillman, a longtime Fredericksburg resident, spent Mother's Day
ABOVE: The new Pavilion incorporates the outside stone walls of the old building.
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By CLINT SCHEMMER
By all reports, the shakedown cruise went splendidly for Belmont's new Studio Pavilion.
The impressive stone, copper and steel structure in Falmouth--nearly 10 years in the making--made its public debut yesterday.
Area residents enjoyed the national historic landmark's fifth annual Sunday Tea in the new building's bright and airy Event Room--just the ticket for Mother's Day, with refreshments and a fashion show.
The Studio Pavilion had been getting ready in recent weeks with several private events. First, it hosted a wedding on May 6. Then, on Friday, the University of Mary Washington board of visitors dedicated the facility with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting. That was followed by another wedding on Saturday.
Tomorrow evening, Friends of Belmont--the museum's membership group--will get their own preview of the new facility. And on Sunday, the Gari Melchers Home and Studio will welcome the public to the Pavilion with free tours from 1 to 5 p.m.
Visitors yesterday judged it a beautiful and sensitive addition to the country home where American artist Gari Melchers and his wife, Corinne, enjoyed rural life in the early 20th century.
"I think it's absolutely lovely," said Nancy Hoffmann, a Gordonsville resident attending the tea with her daughter, Dr. Jessamy Hoffmann of Fredericksburg. "It looks like it has always been here. I love the yellow walls, and the way the stone ties into the older building."
Dr. JoAnn Schrass, UMW's associate dean of academic services, said she found the facility to be "very harmonious architecturally with the rest of it. Even though the pavilion is not the same, it blends in well with the studio."
The multi-use building, which is attached to Gari Melchers' painting studio, is much more than its simple name implies.
With almost 8,500 square feet on two levels, the upper floor provides an inviting lobby and a large, sunlit room for public events as well as business meetings, weddings and receptions. The lower level, reached by a new service drive, includes a catering kitchen and work space for curators, and will house the museum's collection of more than 2,000 paintings in a secure, climate-controlled environment.
Connecting Melchers' studio with the new facility is a refurbished gallery that will allow safe exhibition of light-sensitive prints, drawings and photos.
Betsy Labar, Belmont's special events coordinator, said the Pavilion has been welcomed by staff and gotten good reviews from its first visitors.
"It's a little different than [meeting] sites in town," Labar said. "I think it will be complementary with the needs of the community's public organizations or private individuals."
Thoughtful designViewed from outside, the Pavilion looks deceptively compact, blending into a hillside overlooking the Rappahannock River's Falmouth rapids. Belmont's staff and the Pavilion's designers--Quinn Evans Architects of Washington--took great pains so the facility doesn't intrude visually on the grounds.
Its cast-stone facade, which picks up on the hues of the 1924 studio it adjoins, recedes behind the older building.
Tucking the Pavilion into Belmont's high, steeply sloping ridge took extensive site work. Thirty 30 steel caissons were driven into bedrock to anchor the structure.
The Pavilion was conceived in 1997 in conjunction with the studio's restoration, which was finished in 2000. The $4.2 million project was funded by state educational-facilities bonds through UMW, which administers the Gari Melchers Home and Studio.
The idea, said Belmont director David Berreth, was to maintain the pastoral look of the property that the Melchers so prized.
"The design concept, early on, was that we wanted a structure that wouldn't overwhelm and detract from the original Melchers studio," he said. "Part of the idea was to preserve what the Melchers would have seen from their home's porch."
With a standing-seam copper roof, its exterior and materials gently echo those of the studio. The old building--which looks just as it did in Gari Melchers' time--was built of granite blocks salvaged from nearby bridgeheads that were dynamited during the Civil War, and sandstone taken from the ruins of mills along the Rappahannock and at Fredericksburg's Alum Spring.
The new building's main level opens onto Belmont's restored gardens, welcoming visitors with a small plaza and balcony, wooden benches, and a stone-and-wood pergola whose columns are underplanted with climbing, flowering plants.
Across the lawn sits the Georgian-style mansion that Gari and Corinne Melchers, who had traveled widely and lived in Europe, fell in love with and purchased in 1916.
The combination of this outdoor area, the Pavilion's spacious Event Room, the gardens and a nearby summer house overlooking the river, makes it an unrivaled spot for weddings. Formerly, Belmont had to erect tents and canopies in case of inclement weather during such occasions. With the Event Room, that's no longer necessary, and the site can rent its facilities for weddings all 12 months of the year.
Architectural surprise insideThe Pavilion wraps around the south end of Melchers' studio, which the artist had Detroit architect John Donaldson, a longtime friend, design according to his specifications.
Perhaps its most intriguing feature is the way the studio's exterior stone walls become interior walls in the Pavilion's lobby, and a hallway that leads to a seating area and a handicapped ramp into the studio.
The blocks on this end of the studio's galleries are locally quarried sandstone, like the kind used to construct the White House and U.S. Capitol. Belmont has sealed the stone and installed a brass railing and a floor bumper to help preserve the weathered walls.
Small spotlights show off the hand-chiseled walls, focusing on architectural details that most visitors never saw unless--years ago--they had walked down the slope behind the studio. Now, everyone can appreciate the mouldings, alcoves and images that were painstakingly carved into the stonework. Two notable designs are thought to be drawn from the Melchers family's coat of arms.
Berreth said he envisions that the Pavilion will host a variety of public programs, especially in the slower winter months. Its Event Room, with large windows on the grounds and a state-of-the-art multimedia system, can accommodate about 100 people for banquets, 150 for receptions and 200 people for sit-down talks and presentations.
Previously, when Belmont held an event indoors, it could do so only in the Melchers studio or its lower gallery, he said. That limited attendance to about 50 people, and also meant the staff had to ensure that the art exhibited in those rooms weren't damaged.
"This way, we can separate private and public functions from the visitors who come to see the artwork," Berreth said.
Most American museums, he noted, are creating atriums, auditoriums and other spaces for such specialized uses.
"This is our solution to those issues, with a building that's next to the garden and also next to the galleries," Berreth said.
Beginning next month, the Studio Pavilion will host a bevy of speakers and programs--including art and photography classes--in conjunction with its new exhibit, "Rescued from Obscurity." The show will display 80 botanical watercolors by Bessie Niemeyer Marshall, a gifted but little-known Virginia artist who recorded a 1930s Works Progress Administration project that employed women to create a wildflower sanctuary in Petersburg.
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Email: cschemmer@freelancestar.com
