The Mill in the words of a former employee

In May 2011 I spoke with Jim Luton about Beckstoffers.  I ran across his name when he commented on a post on another blog about the closing of the Mill in 2007.  I tracked Jim down and he was gracious enough to talk to me. 

Jim is the first to admit that he’s not an expert on the Mill.   However, he’s interesting because although he wasn’t a long-term employee, he credits his short time at Beckstoffers for profoundly influencing his career.  He also said that he still dreams about the Mill from time to time.

Jim worked at Beckstoffer’s from late 1976 to 1978 and then again from 1980 to 81.  He got this job from a neighbor who had worked at the Mill and Jim took his place in a minimum wage position.  He credits a mentor named Albert Forster, a lifelong millworker, for shaping how he plans out a woodworking job. 

We also spoke about the production process at the Mill.  Jim stressed that it wasn’t an assembly line.  Instead each worker had ownership of his own project.  He further described that one was often handed a set of plans, they then picked out the lumber, cut it or shaped it as needed and put the job together.  

When we spoke about the workers at Beckstoffers, he recalled there being roughly 6 mechanics there then plus several yard guys.  They were run by Jimmy Hence.  Jimmy also ran the saws, both in the shed by the fire station and in the main building.  There was a guy by the name of Andy who was a draftsman and glazer.  Every now and then Luton would get to glaze a window sash.  There was a receptionist named Page.  She later worked at Richmond Camera Shop with his wife.

He described the volume of work as being quite busy.  To use his words “Business was humming along, near capacity.  Everyone worked 9 hour days, which meant every week you got 5 hours of overtime.”

Jim did a variety of architectural millwork projects that included circle and elliptical stairways, bay windows, arched doors, and various historical reproductions for Colonial Williamsburg and Agecroft Hall. He recalled making door frames in White Oak with architopes. 

 
He also remembered doing a project for the Ethyl Corporation.  He described working on the iconic cupola for their headquarters.  This bell-shaped roof was milled out of old growth Red Wood and was assembled in 3 or 4 sections  

For more about Jim’s work now in his own woodworking business, go here.

Bellevue Elementary School

Richmond, VA 

 

  

 

 

With the start of the new school year upon us, I wanted to highlight one of the elementary schools that Beckstoffers helped renovate, Bellevue School, located at 2401 East Grace Street in Church Hill.

A little history from the Richmond Public Schools Website about Bellevue:

This school replaced old Bellevue which had been named for Bellevue Hospital. The site was once the home of Elizabeth Van Lew, a Southerner who carried out Union espionage work during the Civil War. The cornerstone was laid on January 21, 1913, with Masonic ceremonies.

Bellevue opened during the 1913-14 session as an elementary school with pupils transferred from old Bellevue; in September 1915, it was converted into Bellevue Junior High School. It reverted to an elementary school in September 1919 (with the opening of East End Junior High School) and continued until June 1955. At that time, the pupils were allowed "as much leeway as possible" to choose among Helen Dickinson, Chimborazo, and Nathaniel Bacon schools. In September 1955, Bellevue became a school for Negro pupils.

In 1975, due to a fire at Bellevue, the program was temporarily relocated to Mosby. The school was scheduled for closure in June 1975, because the coal-fired furnaces did not meet the provisions of the Clean Air Act of 1970. This decision was reversed, and the program was housed at Bowler while Bellevue was being renovated in 1975-77 (furnace replacement, cafeteria and kitchen repairs, and fire damage repairs). During that same period, Bellevue was used by Whitcomb Court School when it had to be vacated due to detection of methane gas in the immediate area. In 1977, in appreciation for the school 's return to the area, the Church Hill Association donated funds to improve Bellevue's playground facilities.

In 1980, Bellevue was one of eight elementary school renovation projects.

There aren’t many Mill records related to the 1980 renovation, but there was a Millwork order placed by Davis Brothers Construction for $51,735 in March 1983.  The school’s website said the renovation was designed by SWA Partnership and cost $320,486

Bellevue Elementary is an attractive and important historic structure and the neighborhood school was mentioned in 2013 about possibly being closed due to a large budget gap that the School Board was facing.  Ultimately it was not closed but it did see some of its service area get rezoned.

Blandfield Plantation

In 1987 records indicate that Beckstoffer's provided over $105,000 in millwork to the restoration of Blandfield Plantation, a historic treasure near Caret, Virginia.  This is just one of a number of plantations that the Mill had a hand in restoring.

Although I haven't had the chance to visit this home, the care with which it has been restored is self-evident and reminds me of the James River plantations in Charles City county (close to Richmond) that I have visited.  They are a wonderfully unique tourist attraction which serve not only to show examples of great architecture but also to tell a compelling story of families that helped shape Virginia.  I hope to get to Blandfield soon.

For more on Blandfield see the attached link from the House and Home magazine.

The Executive Mansion

In a recent cover story done by Ed Slipek, Style Weekly chronicled the history of the governor's mansion, with a focus on the many, many renovations it went through.  Richard Beckstoffer, former owner of the Mill and grandson of the Mill's founder, told an interviewer in 2008 that Beckstoffer's played a role in one of those renovations. The article (see link below) talks briefly about the 1982 renovation when the mansion was inhabited by then Governor Charles Robb and his wife Lynda.  They found the quarters lacking and embarked on a half a million dollar renovation.

If Walls Could Talk: Through fire, a mob attack, years of remodeling and 58 governors, Virginia's Executive Mansion endures after 200 years.

Although I don't have a record of any other renovations, it seems likely that the craftsmen at Beckstoffer's provided millwork for other renovations of the Mansion, of which there were many.  Check out the article.  Slipek is a favorite of mine.

More revitalization at the Mill

Better Housing Coalition is close to finishing another phase of high quality housing at the Mill.  This time they are taking green building to the next level.  Click on the the link below for a great video about these units:

http://www.betterhousingcoalition.org/blog/bhc-builds-affordable-net-zero-apartments-for-seniors/

These apartments were one of the projects that I was invovled in while at BHC.  The design of these apartments fit in well with the Mill.

VHS Battle Abbey

The Virginia Historical Society broke ground in August 1990 on a $12 million expansion that doubled the size of its Battle Abbey headquarters in the Fan District in Richmond. This was one of six total expansions at this location from 1912 to 2006 in what is now a museum of over 200,000 square feet.

This expansion more than doubled the exhibition space within the
society headquarters and helped it become a more public-welcoming institution with a new a lecture hall complex, allowing it to offer more educational programs.

The new wing's design was unique at that time because it involved installing new windows that were specifically constructed to let in light while screening out harmful ultraviolet rays. In addition, sophisticated heating and cooling systems allowed for the precise control of the temperature in more than 25 different sections. Another innovation was the type of sprinkler system used.
This was the second largest job for the Mill in 1991. Total millwork sold to this job was almost $113,000 and the client was frequent contractor Taylor & Parrish. Battle Abbey represented over 10% of all work at Beckstoffer's that year.
For more information on the expansion of the Virginia Historical Society's headquarters go here.

The Founder of the Mill

Henry Beckstoffer was born in 1877 and hailed from Alfhausen, Germany.  He came to the United States in November 1893 and went immediately to Richmond. 

His first known profession was as a grocer.  He started the Beckstoffer's Lumber Mill in 1897. He lived  at 1130 N 28th, just a block away from the Mill.

(UPDATED) He was a father of five children and married to Sophie  Beckstoffer, also a native of Germany.  He died in 1958 and is buried at Holy Cross Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, along with Sophie.

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.

Beckstoffers Mill reborn

The renovation of the Beckstoffer's Mill building is now complete and the first residents moved in in mid-January.  This marks a three year-long effort that included rezoning and subdividing the site, getting all of the necessary City approvals, installing underground utilities, putting in rainwater cisterns, installing brick sidewalks, and finally rehabilitating the Mill for loft style apartments.

For more information, go to Better Housing Coalition's website.

1991 - Year in Review

Looking back 20 years

Total sales in 1991 were $1,089,305, with orders averaging $90,775 per month. As was often the case, December had the most sales.  That month they sold $174,406 of millwork. October and November were also very good months, with each averaging around $163,500.  These three months helped to make up for a very slow first half of the year.

The contractor with the most purchases in dollar value was Custom Products Construction, then Conquest, Moncure & Dunn (CM&D). The largest order at Beckstoffers that year was for $117,000 to Custom Products for a Law Office. This order was placed in November 1991. The second largest single order was placed by T& P for the Virginia Historical Society’s Battle Abbey expansion. CM&D placed the most orders (18), followed by T&P (17).

The project with the most millwork that year was the Virginia Historical Society -expansion, another Taylor & Parrish job. Total sales for this job were $121,347.
Below is a list of some of the more noteworthy orders that year with the contractor’s name in parenthesis:

o CFB Garden Branch (Woolfolk Construction)
o Christian Children’s Fund ( Taylor & Parrish {T&P})
o Doswell Comb Cycle Factory (Conquest, Moncure & Dunn {CM&D})
o Mutual Assurance Society of Virginia (Taylor & Parrish)
o Black History Museum (Woolfolk Construction)
o John Tyler Community College, Bud Hall (Dixie Constructors)
o St. Mary’s Hospital Education Center (Kjellstrom & Lee)
o Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden (CM&D)
o Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Evans Construction)
o Highland Springs, Douglas Freeman and Mills Godwin Field Houses (AD Whittaker)
o Jepson Hall, University of Richmond (John W. Daniel & Co.)
o Game & Inland Fisheries (Adkins Construction).

1991 saw an 18% drop in millwork orders from the prior year and total sales that year were basically at the same level as those in 1981. For the five years of records that we have from this decade (1990-1994), this was the worst year.

In 1991 total wages were $549,000 and the Mill had about 18 employees, with 11-12 in the shop and an additional 6 office staff.  Both Ron and Bill worked there full-time, with Ron being the company president.

A front door on R Street

In April 2010 I first learned that there was more to the brick office on the southeast corner of the Mill site than meets the eye. In a conversation with Bill Beckstoffer, he explained that the Mill had not always included a portion of the land where 29th and R come together and that there was a wood and coal business there. He also mentioned this section used to have concrete scales used for this business and that horses were once stabled there. Although remnants of the scales were not apparent, it’s clear that at one time R Street was a front door to this portion of the site. The photo to the right shows the remnants of the gate on R Street.

A little research showed that the business was located at 2832 R street and operated an office out of the brick building on the corner, in what we now know as Ruth’s Beauty Shop. The business was started in 1923 by Phillip L. Farmer, whose home residence was 1201 N 28th (source 1926 City Directory), one of the last houses still standing in the Beckstoffers block. Prior to that he lived on Burton Street and was a carpenter.

By 1935 Farmer left R Street for Jennie Scher Road and Floyd Parsley moved in, running the same type of business as Farmer but called FL Parsley's.  At some point the buisness's focus changed and they sold kerosene and fuel oil, instead of coal and wood.

In 1960, after 25 years at that location, Parsley spread his wings but stayed in the neighborhood, moving to 2600 Nine Mile Road. Although the business’s ownership changed over time, its product was more or less the same, being a fuel and gas station/convenience store up to 2006 when it closed its doors for good.  That vacant gas station is still standing.

Below are Sanborn Maps from 1925 and 1950.  The map from 1950 show the scales, along with the office, coal and wood storage, a building with a gas engine and wood sawing, and a paint shop of some kind.




1950 Sanborn Map

  

1925 Sanborn Map



A peek into a 100 years of life in Church Hill

This article from VCU's Virginia Black History Archives is one I recently ran across while researching Beckstoffers.  It was part of a Church Hill Oral History project carried out in the early 1980s and there is a small portion about the Mill. 

It is remarkable for several reasons.  First, the interviewee /narrator is 102 years old and his mind appears to be sharp.  Second, the interview itself is almost 30 years old and a number of the places mentioned are still around.  Finally, about half way down they mention the Mill and the gentlemen talks about buying lumber for his house from Henry.  I have provided the Beckstoffer's portion below but the whole things is worth reading.  The I stands for Interviewer and the N means Narrator.  His name was Mr. Robert Willis Roane.

I - What about Beckstoffer, did you have any dealings with them?

N - Yeah. He's still running the business now.

I - Yeah. Did you ever have any dealing with them?
N- Oh yeah. I bought lumber from Beckstoffer to build my house.
I- What kind of man, or what kind of family were they?

N- They were friendly.

I- Very friendly.

N- Friendly people. They run a business and all the people around there bought lumber from Beckstoffer and I don't know if he run, I know the old man ain't living, but I guess ...

I - I think his son, one of his sons, or some of the sons are still living.
N - Yeah, and running the business now. The little house set right on 28th Street used to be the office at one time.

I - You say they still run the business.

N - Yeah, I think Beckstoffer still running that. I bought lumber from them many times.

I - So, as far as you're concerned, they were a pretty nice family.

N - Yeah. I don't have no trouble all they look for was their money. Whatver they sold you they expected you to pay for and I bought lumber from them many times. I first bought a couple of lots on Richmond Street and built up my own house. A five room house then. The City take that property and I moved over on 31st Street. And I got a home on 31st Street now.

A look back 30 years ago.

1981 Year in Review

Total sales were $1,142,000 with sales averaging about $95,250 per month. At this time, the Mill experienced explosive growth from prior years. From 1980 to 1981 orders grew 41% and topped the million dollar mark for the first time in the Mill’s history. Beckstoffer’s sales grew more than 200% since 1971.The best month for sales was May, followed by February. December was uncharacteristically slow.

The contractor with the most purchases in dollar value was Heinol-Evans Construction, then Taylor & Parrish (T&P). The largest order at Beckstoffers that year was for $123,570 to Heinol-Evans for the Chesterfield Mall Office Park in May 1981. T& P placed the most orders (14), followed by Conquest, Moncure & Dunn (11).

The following is a list of some of the more noteworthy orders that year with the Contractor’s name in parenthesis:

• Federal Reserve Bank (Taylor & Parrish) 
• Museum of the Confederacy (Taylor & Parrish)
• Fife and Drum (Taylor & Parrish)
• VEPCO Admin Building (Bass Construction)
• Capital Savings & Loan (Kayhoe Construction)
•  Richmond Memorial Hospital (Miller Manufacturing)
• Autumn Leather Shop & Porcelain Gallery (J.B. Violette Construction)
• Jewish Community Center (Kenbridge Building. Systems
• Providence Hall (Taylor & Parrish)
• Mt. Calvary Chapel Mausoleum (Heinol-Evans)
• E.C. Robins Residence (Taylor & Parrish)
• A.H. Robins - Office Expansion (Taylor & Parrish)
• G.C. Carver School (G.E. Peterson Construction)
• Andrews Job (Ross A. Hotchkiss, Jr.)

In terms of employees, they generally had 11-13 workers in the shop, 2 men in the yard and 2 truck drivers handling deliveries. Payroll for the shop, yard men and the truck drivers totaled $166,253.92 for the year. In addition to the employees mentioned above, there were four regular office staff. Finally, there were three other officers drawing a salary, namely William Beckstoffer, Richard Beckstoffer and George Helfert. It’s unclear who had what roles, but jobs were performed among this group to handle sales, billing, and accounting.

Looking back 40 years

1971 in Review
Total orders for 1971 were $488,573, which was an average of $40,783 per month in sales. This was the third year in a row of growth, with millwork orders increasing 11% over the prior year and more than double the sales from 1961.

December saw the most sales, which was very common at Beckstoffers. Total sales were $101,746, which was $43,000 over next highest month. The highest dollar value for an order was placed by contractor Kjellstrom & Lee in December for $59,501 of millwork for Richmond Memorial Hospital. This was located on Westwood Avenue in Richmond’s Ginter Park area.

Contractor Herman F. Blake placed the highest number of orders – 28. All of these were for newly constructed homes and the orders averaged about $2,700 per address.

Some of the notable orders that year were a US Post Office Addition in Petersburg (Hendrick Construction), Redeemer Lutheran Church (Barker Construction), two small orders for American Tobacco Company at 400 Jeff Davis Highway (Taylor & Parrish), the Multiphasic Screening Unit at Medical College of Virginia or MCV (Century Construction), The Rountowner Motor Inn in Williamsburg (Philip Richardson Company), Henrico Parrish Church-St. John's (Davis & Spiers), an order for the Virginia Orthopedic Association (Kayhoe Construction), the President's office at the University of Richmond Admin Building (Taylor & Parrish), Sunset Hills Baptist Church located at the intersection of Horsepen & Patterson (Century Construction), a Racquet Club at 6200 West Club Lane (Kayhoe Construction), Non Commission Officer’s (NCO) Building #2101 at Camp Pickett, VA (Payne Construction)and Toy Maker's Shop #8 (Philip Richardson Company).
Records were not available for the number of employees working at the Mill.

A look back at 1961

Fifty years ago total orders were $231,728 or an average of $19,310 per month. 1961 was a down year compared to sales in other years around that time. Although my records only go back to 1956, this was the lowest sales amount of the 1950’s or 1960’s and represented a 20% drop in sales from the prior year. However, this seemed to be an anomaly because the next year orders increased by 46% to total over $337,000.

As was often the case, December was the month with the highest sales volume. The largest dollar value for a Millwork job that year was placed by contractor Conquest, Moncure & Dunn in December for $30,654 for St. John Vianney Seminary. To read more about this project, click here. Kayhoe Construction placed the most orders with nine for a total of $19,088.

Some of the notable orders that year were the State Chamber of Commerce building (contractor: Russell Blank), a Day Care Recreational Building for the Memorial Foundation (contractor: Alexander Construction), the Southside Baptist Church (contractor: Bass Construction), a job for the Dillard Paper Company (contractor: Bass Construction) and the Hyman-Meyers Residence on Wilton Road (contractor: Russell Blank).

The Mill’s configuration was virtually identical to the way it was on the day it closed in 2007 and it had all of the same buildings, with a few buildings on 1208 N. 28th having been added in the mid fifties.

Herman and Bernard Beckstoffer were both the proprietors of the Mill at that time, according to the Richmond City Directory.

Looking Back

Over the next few weeks I will be posting snapshots of the business in ten year increments, starting with 1961.  Each will tell a little about the sales, the contractors who were frequent clients that year, and the interesting projects that the Mill worked on.  Stay tuned.

The mansion to end all mansions

River Run Manor (shown here) is a four story, 20,000 square foot Georgian mansion located in Goochland County, Virginia overlooking the James River. Completed in 1987 after 6 years of construction, this house is known county-wide.

It was the dream house of Edith and Bill (William Blair) Massey and still resides in the Massey family.

Sitting on a 60 acre parcel of land, this house has 40 rooms, 11 baths and 5 half-baths. Its many over-the-top features include 24-karat gold fixtures, Italian marble flooring, marble baseboards, 18 feet columns with 23- karat gold Corinthian capitals, a sauna, a steam room, and 12 inch modillion block egg and dart crown molding. The house has a separate floor consisting entirely of servants' quarters and is the equivalent of a residence in itself with a kitchen, living room, with a fireplace, library, four bedrooms and two baths. In addition, River Run Manor has a lower ballroom that can seat 150 people for dinner. Features in this 24’ x 39’ ballroom include a Waterford-style chandelier of antique Strauss crystals, handcrafted red oak spiral staircase and balcony , Louis XV carved marble fireplace and 24 feet from floor to ceiling. It was built by Taylor & Parrish (T&P), a contractor who frequently ordered millwork from Beckstoffer's.

For the Mill it represented the largest millwork job for a private residence they ever did and one of the largest 2 or 3 jobs in its history. While reviewing the 45 page order sheet, I ran across a diverse mix of materials such as heart pine, red wood, walnut, red oak and cedar. The first order for millwork was placed by T&P in October 1984 and orders came through the rest of 1984 and then sporadically in 1985 and 1986. All told, Beckstoffers produced $658,039 in millwork for the Massey house and the Massey job represented almost 30% of all sales in 1984 and just under 15% of sales in 1985.

Herman J. Beckstoffer Remembered

The below obituary was published May 13, 1997 in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Herman J. Beckstoffer was part of the second generation of the Mill family.

----------------------------------

Herman Joseph Beckstoffer Sr., retired president of H. Beckstoffer's Sons Inc., died Monday. The Richmond native was 87.

Mr. Beckstoffer retired from the firm in 1984 after serving as president for 50 years. What his father started as a Church Hill lumber mill, he made into an architectural millwork operation.

A 1927 graduate of Benedictine College, now Benedictine High School, he played a season of football with the Richmond Howitzers, a semi-pro team in the same league as the Washington Redskins before the creation of the National Football League. Soon after, he joined the family business.

He was a past president of the board of visitors of Benedictine High School and was instrumental in establishing the Benedictine Athletic Association.

A member of St. Paul Catholic Church, he was also a member of Saint Mary's Social Union, the West End Catholic Men's Association and the Church Hill Gang.

He was as a member of the board of directors of Holy Cross Cemetery for 50 years. He was a founding member of the Virginia Architectural Woodwork Institute and the Lambs Club as well as an adviser to the Richmond Technical Center.

Survivors include his wife, Rose Marie Simonpietri Beckstoffer; six sons, Herman J. Beckstoffer Jr. of Richmond, W. Andrew Beckstoffer of St. Helena, Calif., and Ronald A. Beckstoffer, Richard H. Beckstoffer, John C. Beckstoffer and Robert L. Beckstoffer, all of Richmond; two daughters, Rose Adele Gallo of Yardley, Pa., and Anne Marie Ajemian of Waynesboro; and a brother, Frank W. Beckstoffer of Richmond.

REPOST(4/22/10): Why'd you write this?

My job as a project manager with the Better Housing Coalition (BHC) has me working every day with the bones of an 80 year old brick factory called the Beckstoffers Mill. Beckstoffers is located on N 28th Street in the Church Hill neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia. This 2.5 acre site, the former home of a custom architectural millwork and lumber mill, is currently in the process of being revitalized.

Plans call for the conversion of this former light industrial site to become a mixed-income, mixed-use housing development that will have 72 homes, some apartments, some houses, some town homes. But that's not the purpose for this blog. I am very fortunate to be able to manage the redevelopment of this complex development. But that's my day job and I tell that part of the Beckstoffers story often. Plus, others have managed the renovation of mills into housing or commercial uses so that's not so unique.

However, planning for the Mill's revitalization has provided a unique opportunity for me to understand the history, meet some of the family and learn some great stories of the Mill's impact on the greater Richmond area. It's a story of family commerce, quality craftsmanship, economic development and some really cool woodworking machines. I hope through this blog to tell the story of the Beckstoffer's Mill, some of the players involved, and the many homes and businesses throughout Richmond that the Mill touched in its long history.

Happy Birthday: Bring on the cake and candles

The Beckstoffer's Mill Blog is one year old so I will be reposting a few of the first posts from April 2010, with some minor edits to clean up style and spelling mistakes.  It has been fun so far and I look forward to even more posts (and hopefully comments from others) in the months to come.