White House of the Confederacy

The White House of the Confederacy is one of Richmond's most renowned National Historic Landmarks. Located at 1201 E. Clay Street, it looks almost exactly as it did when it was the executive mansion for the Confederacy and the home of Jefferson Davis from August 1861 to the fall of Richmond in April 1865. The building's restoration, completed in 1988, took almost ten years and cost over $3 million.

Beckstoffer's played an important role in this renovation. In August 1988, they produced $32,314 worth of millwork for contractor Taylor & Parrish for the job. Later the following year, they supplied another $21,000 in millwork for the White House. Given how extensive the renovation was and how specific the task of making the building look like it did one hundred and fifty years ago, one starts to appreciate how difficult a task that the craftsmen at the Mill had to take on.

The White House was originally a two-story neoclassical mansion built in 1818 for Dr. John Brockenbrough, a prominent Richmond physician and banker. In 1857 it was renovated by its then owner, Lewis Crenshaw, a wealthy flour manufacturer, who added a third story and cupola, installed gas lighting and decorated and furnished it in the latest style.

In June 1861, Crenshaw sold the house and its contents to the city of Richmond for the official residence of the Confederate chief executive. During Reconstruction, when Virginia was under martial law, it was headquarters for Military District No. 1 and was returned to the city when Union occupation ended in 1870. The city operated it as Central School, one of the first city public schools, in it until 1890 when it proposed to knock it down to build a new school. At that time it was saved by a group of Richmond women who formed the Confederate Memorial Library Society to save the building. By raising $30,000, they were able to found the Museum of the Confederacy here. Many of those items from their museum are still shown today.

The museum is open for regular tours.