Building Description Lafayette Grammar and High School - Lafayette I.D.P. Center, Norfolk Virginia
The Lafayette Grammar and High School consists of two buildings connected by an architecturally neutral link. Although both buildings were constructed within a five-year period and share common massing and common materials, the two parts in other respects are unrelated, with different architectural details and characteristics. The first part, the grammar school, built in 1905, is a low, two-story mass crowned by a slate hipped roof. The brick walls are articulated with string courses and arched window caps and crowned with a metal cornice. The composition is symmetrical with three arched windows flanking a central pedimented entrance. The school has no basement and accommodates only four classrooms on its two floors. The building is well preserved. The only major change has been the removal of a bell cupola. The high school portion, constructed in 1910, has been greatly altered. Two stories and on a high rusticated brick basement, it has lost its hipped roof, cornice, and entrance portico. Only the brick walls of the high school have been unchanged.
The 1905 grammar school, a low and broad Colonial Revival, two-story brick mass crowned with a slate roof, does not have a basement, and has no dormers in the attic space. The cornice and the pediment at the front entrance are pressed metal; other trim is made of white brick except for limestone window sills, and pilaster bases.
The walls are orange brick, laid in common bond with white brick string courses laid in running bond. The window cap arches are constructed of three courses of. white brick headers. The school is seven bays wide with three bays flanking a central entrance bay. The round arched windows of the classrooms are double-hung and have a curved design in the upper sash.
The school is entered through a broad arch framed by a pressed metal classical pediment, supported by brick pilasters. Above the pediment is a wide elliptical window, subdivided into three parts with an elliptical fanlight. There was a cupola on the roof which held the school bell. Photographs indicate that this cupola was derived from Mount Vernon. The pressed metal cornice is classical in detail.
The interior plan is also symmetrical, with a classroom and wardrobe on each side of a central hall. The pressed metal ceilings, wood wainscot and plaster walls of these rooms are unchanged. The rooms were heated by metal stoves in each room when the school was built, and the structure did not originally include indoor plumbing.
The high school building was added in 1910 and was more typical of public school architecture as it developed in the 20th century. It was altered greatly and related more harmoniously to the original building than is now evident. The most notable feature of the building was an elaborate classical portico and high hipped roof. Both of these features have been removed.
The high school is a two-story brick structure, sitting on a high rusticated brick basement. Symmetrical wings flank a projected central entrance. The corners of the wings are marked by rusticated brick quoins. Between the quoins are ganged clusters of six double-hung windows. Between the two tiers of windows are five limestone diamond-shaped motifs, aligned with the frames of the windows. The side walls have only two windows. Patterns in brick headers are used to articulate these walls, subdividing the space into broad rectangular spaces.
The building now has a flat roof and no cornice. It originally had a classical cornice and brick parapet as well as a slate hipped roof. The roof accommodated an auditorium. The central portico was made up of four attached Doric columns supporting a Corinthian entablature and a shallow curved pediment. The brick base of these columns remains as do the windows which sat behind the portico. The columns, entablature, and pediment have been removed.
The interior rooms have been changed little and retain pressed metal ceilings. The stair now stops at the second-floor landing; it once continued to a third-floor auditorium. This structure included interior plumbing, but a central heating system was not provided until 1919.
