Common Chimney, Hearth Restored to Lawn Room 50

For the first time in 146 years, Room 50 on the University of Virginia’s historic Lawn will soon have a functioning fireplace. University workers are restoring Lawn rooms 48 and 50 to their original configurations, with fireplaces sharing a common chimney. These are the only two rooms on different elevations of the Lawn terraces that share a chimney.

To accurately recreate the original spaces and features, University architects and workers had to take a deep dive into the history of the rooms and the people who lived there – a history drawn both from archival records and “ghost marks” of previous architectural modifications.