Four Acres, located on Rugby Road in the city of Charlottesville, is an excellent example of Colonial Revival architecture, and is virtually unchanged from the time it was built in 1910. It was designed by Eugene Bradbury, an architect active in Virginia in the early part of the 20th century. Bradbury was born in 1874 in Arlington, and he attended Columbia University and the Virginia Military Institute. He worked in Washington, D.C. as a draftsman in the office of the Superintendent of Architecture from 1901 to 1907. Bradbury designed Four Acres as the summer home of Mrs. Lucy Cocke Elliot. The Four Acres property was willed to the University of Virginia in 1947, and during the brief time it was owned by the university, it was occupied by World War II Pacific Theater Fleet Admiral William “Bull” Halsey. It is now privately owned.
The buildings and districts listed under the Charlottesville Multiple Resource Area nomination represent a cross section of all the City’s historic periods, from the founding of Charlottesville in the 1760’s through the advent of the automobile and the impact it had on the City’s expansion. Also included are structures that have played an important part in the history of Charlottesville’s black community. Four Acres was listed without a formal nomination document in the registers under the Charlottesville MRA.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia