Dickinson home, Savernake, Buena Vista, Virginia snapshot photos, 1912/1920

Containers:

Box 7, Folder 13

Scope and content:

The circa 1912 photos include Katherine, Jordan, Tom, and a horse grazing up against the house. The circa 1920 photos are a front view and back view of the house.

Biographical / historical:

This house called Savernake is a prominent, roughly 200 year old historic house, property and estate located on Savernake Farm at the southern end of Buena Vista, Virginia, in the Rockbridge County area. The house on the Savernake property was built about 200 years ago by Samuel Moore. It was originally a two story house and an attic was added in 1829 which made it a two and a half story house.

Savernake, which was 660 acres was supposed to be a town of its own consisting of over 1,000 lots. When Buena Vista was established in the late 1880s the money for Savernake town dried up and failed.

In 1891 Lord Henry Agustus Brudenell Bruce, a british investor, was the chief officer for the Loch Laird Estate and Mineral Company. The Loch Laird Estate and Mineral Company was an active land development and investment company operating in the Buena Vista, Virginia area during the late 19th-century industrial boom, particularly around 1890–1891. Lord Bruce was the person who bought the land to turn it into a community. His company purchased the land for $52,500. When the plans failed his company went bankrupt and he bought the land for himself at auction for $9,000 and despite buying it he never visited or lived there. Lord Bruce died in 1911 and a year later two Dickinson brothers, one of who was named John, bought it in 1912 for $10,000. It has remained in the family for over 100 years.

Access and use