A handsomely crafted expression of the American Country Place Era, Virginia House symbolizes the predilection of the Commonwealth’s upper classes for identifying themselves with their English heritage. The estate, located in the Windsor Farms neighborhood of Richmond, was the creation of diplomat Alexander W. Weddell and his wife Virginia. The Tudor-style mansion is built largely of architectural elements from Warwick Priory, a late-medieval structure later modified with distinctive Flemish gables. The Weddells purchased the ruined priory in 1925 and had portions of it shipped to Richmond, where architect Henry Grant Morse incorporated them into his design for their Windsor Farms residence, completed in 1928. A Renaissance-style loggia by William Lawrence Bottomley was added in 1945. The extensive gardens, developed between 1927 and 1940, are the masterpiece of Richmond landscape architect Charles F. Gillette. The Weddells bequeathed the Virginia House estate to the Virginia Historical Society (now the Virginia Museum of History and Culture), which has exhibited it since their death in 1948.