Westover is perhaps the nation’s premier example of colonial Georgian architecture as well as one of Virginia’s earliest and grandest plantation mansions. It was built ca. 1730 by William Byrd II, who helped survey the Virginia-North Carolina border and founded the city of Richmond. Westover’s stately air, graceful proportions, pedimented entrances, and paneled interiors have come to symbolize the high level of architectural quality attained during the colonial era. Complementing the house are original gardens and outbuildings as well as English wrought-iron gates. The Charles City County plantation remained in the Byrd family until 1817. In 1899 it was purchased by Mrs. Clarise Sears Ramsey, who engaged the New York restoration architect William H. Mesereau to modernize the house and to add the hyphens. Mesereau also designed the library dependency, built on the site of Byrd’s library and destroyed during the 1862 Union occupation.