Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 02/26/1979
NRHP Listing Date 06/19/1979
NRHP Reference Number 79003285
Founded in 1890 under the original Randolph-Macon College charter of 1830, Randolph-Macon Woman’s College was the first college of women admitted to membership in the Southern Association of Colleges and Secondary Schools. Main Hall, erected in stages over a nine-year period beginning in 1891, remains the architectural centerpiece of the institution. The huge structure appears as a range of connected buildings, stretched along a ridge at the head of a tree-dotted campus. It was designed by the Washington, D. C. architect William M. Poindexter and is the state’s most ambitious and probably most sophisticated example of the late 19th-century Queen Anne style. Poindexter’s use of red brick, white trim, towers, turrets, classical detailing, and a multiplicity of window types, closely relates the building to the best of contemporary Queen Anne structures in Great Britain.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: September 22, 2021
