Riverdale House, Selma Alabama

Date added: September 21, 2023 Categories: Alabama House Plantations & Farms

Riverdale is the most elegant and refined house of its period in Dallas County and perhaps in the entire Alabama Black Belt. Constructed around 1829 as the plantation home of Virgil Gardner, it is one of the few early Alabama houses to have retained its original graining and finishes. Additionally, the house is noted as the scene of one of the county's most lavish entertainments, the 1854 wedding of Mary Gardner to Henry Quitman, son of the Governor of Mississippi.

In 1819, Jason Gardner, formerly of Georgia, received from the United States government patent to 7,000 acres of land bounded by the Alabama River and Mulberry Creek about 10 miles east of Selma. Gardner was accompanied to Alabama by his son, Virgil H. (born John's County, Georgia, 1808). From age fourteen to his twentieth year, Virgil attended school in Vermont. After his father's sudden death in 1829, he returned to Alabama and in 1829 constructed Riverdale on the occasion of his marriage to Margaret Louise Aylette. Margaret had come to Dallas County from Virginia as a child and was known for her charity and generosity, as well as for her gracious manner and cultivated intellect.

Colonel Gardner held no personal political aspirations but was recognized as a faithful and ardent supporter of the Whig party "so long as it existed in Alabama". When he died in 1881, over 100 former slaves returned to Riverdale for his burial in the family cemetery east of the house. His wife was buried beside him in 1884. During her lifetime the house was noted as a social center of the county. The house was purchased by W. P. Watts, a planter, and his widow, Mrs. Lucy Houston Shepard, was the subsequent owner. The last private owner was Houston Alexander, who sold the house and about 1,500 acres to Hammermill Paper Company, Inc. in 1961. Hammermill has offered to donate the house and some funds to the local historical society provided it is relocated.

Building Description

Riverdale is an excellent example of the late Federal style of architecture as it appeared in the Southeast in the 1820s. In plan, it is two stories, one room deep with a central hall flanked by single rooms on both floors. A one-story wing over a full, partially raised basement, extends to the rear at the southeast corner. A two-storied portico, light and delicate in appearance, covers the front entrances on both floors. Most of the distinguishing details of the Federal style are present, the arched fanlights over the front entrances, the Adamesque mantels, the raised panelled wainscot downstairs and the chair rail upstairs. The eave soffits are decorated with modified modillion, alternating with carved leaf decorations.

On the lower floor, door and window casings are built of symmetrical molded stock with corner blocks. Window casings terminate on the upper rail of the wainscot which continues across the window openings as the window stool. Door casings terminate on molded plinth blocks, shaped to receive the base at the wainscot. On the upper floor, architrave trim is employed and, in lieu of the full wainscot, only the chair rail is used. Some of the original cast iron rim locks are still in place and the doors are hung on butterfly butt hinges, quite uncommon in Alabama. The main stair to the second floor consists of a round rail, square balusters, turned newels and carved scroll ornamentations on the string. A secondary stair, leading from the upper right bedroom to the rear hall has been converted to a bath, and a dormer window installed on the wing roof.

Plaster ceiling molds are a delicate combination of molded shapes with egg and dart bands where the molds terminate at both wall and ceiling. Plaster rosettes with alternating Greek key and acanthus leaf motifs may be later additions. A particularly interesting feature is the fact that the building still displays its original decorations. Plaster walls and ceilings have a lime putty finish and were never painted or papered. Wainscots are grained, the raised panels to simulate maple or birch, and the panel edges to simulate black walnut. The edges of the vertical and horizontal rails are gilded, and the railings themselves are grained to simulate mahogany. Bases and most mantels are painted black, with the capitols of the mantels columettes gilded. This was probably the original treatment.

The house has had surprisingly few alterations; the above-mentioned bathroom, the loss of two lower columns on the portico, replacement of original shutters, and some alterations to the rear porch. Two outbuildings, a servant's house, and a barn remain, though both appear to be of later construction.