Introduction The City of Charlottesville has completed this survey of the Corner Historic District under the advisement of the City s Historic Preservation Plan. The plan, adopted by city council in 1993, recommended designating the University Corner as a local historic district to provide the fullest protection of the area s historic resources. Most of the properties were surveyed and evaluated between 1980 and 1983 based on their architectural and social significance. This action was in preparation for the University Corner-Rugby Road district s nomination to the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. The Rugby Road district will be considered separately for local designation. Despite the District s current listing on the National Register of Historic Places, all but two of the individual properties within the district remain unprotected on the local level, and therefore are potentially threatened. There is a total of 56 properties within the proposed district, which includes sections of University Avenue and Rugby Road and all of Madison Lane, Chancellor Street and Elliewood Avenue. This survey provides the necessary background information to determine whether or not the District should be designated a local historic district under the Charlottesville Historic Preservation Ordinance. Local designation of this District is one of the priority recommendations contained in the 1993 Historic Preservation Plan. The need to provide a greater degree of local protection to the structures in the Corner district was the primary impetus for this survey project. Designation on the National Register does not provide any means of ensuring that the historic fabric and character of a structure will remain intact. Local designation would place all properties within the District under the Charlottesville Historic Preservation Ordinance, thereby requiring that all proposed exterior alterations would be reviewed by the Charlottesville Board of Architectural Review. District Description The Corner District is a commercial and residential area that includes the 1400-1600 blocks of University Avenue and the 100 block of Rugby Road and all blocks of Elliewood Avenue, Chancellor Street and Madison Lane. This area began to be developed in the mid-19 th century as a neighborhood and commercial district for University of Virginia students and employees. From its origins in the 1840s, The Corner continued to be developed through the 1920s. Very few buildings in the residential and commercial areas have been added or demolished since this era. Most of the residential buildings house university students, and many were built as or converted to fraternity and sorority houses. The borders of the Corner District are well defined. The eastern and northern boundaries of this district are the CSX railroad right-of-way, and the western and southern boundaries are the University of Virginia campus. The university also owns several buildings within the previously stated boundaries, but those buildings will not be included in the Corner district since they are state property and are not subject to local architectural design control guidelines.
The Corner District can be divided into two distinct sections, which are distinguished by their respective commercial and residential emphasis. The commercial district, comprised of vernacular retail buildings, is located on University and Elliewood avenues. West of the commercial area is the historic residential section, which has been converted to multi-family student housing. This area consists of Chancellor Street, Madison Lane and Rugby Road. Most buildings in this section date back to the early 1900s through the 1920s. The area is a combination of Colonial and Georgian Revival structures built to house fraternities and societies, and large vernacular houses that have been converted to sorority and fraternity houses. Historical Description In 1825, the University of Virginia was established a few miles west of Charlottesville. Designed according to Thomas Jefferson s vision, the university consisted of a partially enclosed lawn with student rooms and classrooms oriented around a domed library. Jefferson purposely intended for the school to be remote from the distractions of Charlottesville, the small but lively county seat of Albemarle County. The school was accessible to town by Three Notched Road, an old Indian trading path connecting Richmond and Williamsburg with the Shenandoah Valley. As the school grew during the course of the mid-19 th century, a small commercial area developed outside the university gate east of the university grounds. Early buildings included the Temperance Hall (1856), which housed the post office. McKennie s Bookstore occupied a retail building across the street. At this time, Three Notched Road was referred to as Staunton Road. The area became more accessible in 1850 after the Louisa Railroad Company extended its tracks through the area and made a stop just below the college gate. Despite its status as a burgeoning village, the area was still decades off from being called the Corner. The village was known as University, Virginia, and students referred to it as down by the post office, at the entrance gate, and at the railroad crossing. After the Civil War, the area continued to be developed as more drugstores and African-American owned barber shops opened in the area. The Corner experienced another building boom in the 1880s and 1890s. The Anderson Bookstore, a three-story building with a pressed metal façade, was completed in 1891. The structure, which is now a minor historic district in Charlottesville, was built by Dick and John Anderson. The bookstore continued to be in business until the 1990s. Also in 1891, Samuel Chancellor, a pharmacist, took over Keller s University Drugstore and opened near the Anderson Bookstore. At the turn of the century, development spread west of the railroad crossing. In 1892, U.Va. s first formal athletic field opened on what is now called Mad Bowl. To accompany this, the YMCA Hall, now Madison Hall, was built a decade later.
Dynamic changes continued to occur along University Avenue at this time. Fraternities began building houses on Madison Lane and Carr s Hill. The first building built exclusively to house a U.Va. society was St. Anthony Hall, a Colonial Revival structure built in 1902 for Delta Psi fraternity. Dozens of other fraternity and sorority buildings followed over the convening decades. Also at this time, about thirty passenger trains were passing through the area creating traffic problems and dangerous crossings for the increased foot and carriage traffic in the area. In 1901, the city began the project of rerouting University Avenue under the rail road tracks. At the time, students complained that the new railroad bridge marred the approach to the university. At the turn of the century, U.Va. students began referring to the village as the Corner, referring to the intersection of what is now University Avenue and West Main Street and 14 th Street. Over the next 30 years, the nickname would apply to the area spanning between 13 th St. and West Main Street, where University Baptist Church now stands, and Chancellor Street and University Avenue. The term would also refer to residential and commercial areas on Chancellor and Elliewood Avenue. Parallel to development on University Avenue was the evolution of Elliewood Avenue. The street became a popular location for student boarding houses and retail buildings. It was named for Ellie Wood Page, whose mother ran a student boarding house on the street. In 1916, the U.Va. yearbook hearkened the end of the Old Corner and recognized the creation of a new Corner. This change was marked by several significant changes in previous years in the village. First, the Temperance Hall, the area s original institutional building, was demolished and replaced with the Senff Gateway in 1913. The gateway was modeled after entrance gates at Harvard University and was built at the northern entrance of the University. Second, the Chancellor building was built in 1914 to the east of Anderson Bookstore. The third change to the Corner was the construction of the Entrance Building (now called the Corner Building), a neo-classical-style retail building designed by Eugene Bradbury. Now known as the Corner Building, this structure is owned by U.Va. New construction on the corner continued through the 1920s with St. Paul s Church, a Jeffersonian Structure designed by Bradbury. Also significant was the Hildreth Building constructed in 1923 at the intersection of Elliewood and University. Much of the Corner between 14 th Street and Rugby Road has remained the same since the 1920s. More recent additions include the Stevens-Sheperd men s clothing sore (1932) and a 1959 Jeffersonian Revival bank building at the corner of Chancellor and University. Other recent events on the Corner include the district s inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places in 1984 and a million-dollar streetscape and sidewalk project in 1992. The million-dollar project replaced the Corner s concrete sidewalks with brick and installed stone crosswalks for pedestrians. Sources: The Corner: A History of Student Life at the University of Virginia. Coy Barefoot.
Zoning Amendments and Property List ZT-03-08-08A: An ordinance to amend and reordain Section 34-272 of the Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the City of Charlottesville, 1990, as adopted, September 15, 2003, relating to protecting properties by creating an overlay zoning district without affecting the underlying zoning district designations. This ordinance would create a sixth major architectural design control district, District F, known as the Corner Architectural Design Control District. ZM-03-08-09A: An ordinance to amend and reordain the Zoning District Map incorporated in Section 34-1 of the Zoning Ordinance of the Code of the City of Charlottesville, 1990, as adopted, September 15, 2003, by adding a sixth major Architectural Design Control District and consisting of the following properties: Parcel (All on Tax Map #9) ADDRESS/PROPERTY NAME 75. 1403-15 University Ave (McKennie-Cook Building) 76. 1417-25 University Ave (Anderson Bros Building) 77. 1427-31 University Ave (Little Johns) 78. 1501-05 University Ave (Corner Outlet/O Neil s) 78.1. 1509-11 University Ave (Unoccupied/College Inn) 80. 1515 University Ave (Student Bookstore) 81. 1517-19 University Ave ((Jabberwocky) 82. 1521-25 University Ave (Mincer s) 83. 3 Elliewood Ave (Eljo s) 85. 5-7 Elliewood Ave (Heartwood Books/Southern Teachers Agency) 86. 9 Elliewood Ave (Coupe s) 87. 11 Elliewood Ave (Martha s) 88. 12 Elliewood Ave (Flynn House) 89. 17 Elliewood Ave 90. 19 Elliewood Ave 95. 22 Elliewood Ave (Willie Hair Design) 96. 20 Elliewood Ave (Buddhist) 97. 16 Elliewood Ave (Biltmore) 99. 1607-16 University Ave /107-115 Elliewood Ave. (Lucky 7/Bodos/TIA/O Susannah) 100. 1601 University Ave (Starbucks) 102. 1619 University Ave (Bank of America) 103. St. Paul s Parking Lot 104. 120 Chancellor St. (Canterbury Episcopal House) 105. 128 Chancellor St. (Center for Christian Study) 106. 132 Chancellor St. 107. 136 Chancellor St. (Kappa Delta) 108. 144 Chancellor St. (Delta Zeta Annex) 109. 150 Chancellor St. (Delta Zeta) 126. 167 Chancellor St. (Phi Delta Theta) 127. 165 Chancellor St.
128. 163 Chancellor St. (Chancellor House Apartments) 129. 158 Madison Lane (Alpha Chi Omega) 130. 160 Madison Lane (Phi Kappa Sigma) 131. 133 Chancellor St. (St. Anthony s Hall) 132. 150 Madison Lane (Sigma Phi Epsilon) 133. SPE Parking Lot 134. 129 Chancellor St. (Delta Tau Delta) 135. 138 Madison Lane (Delta Gamma) 136. 127 Chancellor St (Kappa Alpha Theta) 137. 125 Chancellor St. (Alpha Tau Omega) 138. 130 Madison Lane (Elmo) 139. 128 Madison Lane (Phi Gamma Delta) 140. 123 Chancellor St. (Chi Omega) 141. 121 Chancellor St./1701 University Ave. (St. Pauls) 142. 136 Madison Lane (Zeta Tau Alpha) 143. 1709 University Ave (St. Paul s) 145. 159 Madison Lane (Phi Psi) 146. 165 Madison Lane 148. 135 Madison Lane 149. 167 Madison Lane (Phi Delta Theta) 150. 209 Chancellor St. 151. 211 Chancellor St. 152. 180 Rugby Road (DU) 153. 170 Rugby Road (Madison House)
List of Non-Contributing Properties 1505 University Avenue (O Neil s) 1511 University Avenue (Formerly the Garment District) 1607-16 University Avenue (Lucky Seven/ Bodo s) 3 Elliewood Avenue (Eljo s) 107-115 Elliewood Avenue (Take It Away/ Dixie Divas) Elliewood Avenue Parking Garage 163 Chancellor Street (Chancellor House Apartments) 209 Chancellor Street 211 Chancellor Street 135 Madison Lane 165 ½ Madison Lane 170 Rugby Road (Madison House)