The main house at Chippokes, popularly known as the Mansion, stands in a large level yard at the edge of a ridge sloping gently toward the James River on the north. The yard is open at the front (northwest) to afford views of the river; on the east and west sides it is planted in large shade trees. The rear or southeast yard is notable for its forma1 gardens planted by Mrs. Victor Stewart beginning in the 1920s. Laced with brick and grassy paths, the gardens feature handsome boxwood hedges and stands of crepe myrtle trees and azaleas. Until a recent killing frost, the crepe myrtles were among the best examples in the state. Most survived, however, and having been trimmed back, promise to regain their original stature.
The mansion, built for Albert Jones ca. 1860, is constructed of brick and clad with stucco on the main, or northeast, facade. The 51 x 41 foot building rises a full two stories over a low-pitched hipped roof capped by a square belvedere. The floor plan follows a standard central-passage, double-pile configuration, having four interior end chimneys flush with the exterior walls. One-story, single-bay porches of differing form shelter the main doors at front and rear. The only addition to the house is a ca. 1955 brick wing on the southwest end consisting of two units: a one-bay, two-story section lower than the main block and inset slightly from it, and a coeval three-bay single-story unit forming an ell with it.
Like most late Greek Revival houses in Virginia, the mansion is simple in overall form, but exhibits good proportions and well-articulated, if austere, detailing. The bright white-stuccoed river front presents a handsome appearance, especially when viewed from a distance across the fields stretching between it and the James. The building's blocky overall form is relieved by its bold single-bay porch and roofline decorated with four chimney stacks and central belvedere. It is further enlivened by broadly projecting eaves. a wide masonry cornice with recessed panels, a doorway with arched fanlight, and pilasters framing either end of the facade. The incised lines in the stucco cladding, meant to simulate ashlar, are a less successful decorative device due to the shallowness of the scoring, which is all but invisible at a distance of more than thirty or forty feet.
The other three facades of the house, while maintaining the proportions of the front elevation, give a sharply different effect due to the absence of stucco--no doubt a cost cutting device. Similarly, the porch on the southeast or garden facade is less impressive than that on the river front, having thin paired posts supporting a deck with 20th-century lattice railing. Here, as on the river front, oversize six-over-six-light sash windows provide ample interior illumination. As on the front façade, the upstairs windows are subtly reduced in height, and an elongated six-over-nine-light central window provides a focal point, creating a tripartite composition mirroring that of the ground floor. Unlike the river front, which features a relatively narrow double-leaf door surmounted by a fanlight, the garden facade has a wide double-leaf doorway with flat lintel flanked by sidelights.
The unusually proportioned northeast, or river-end façade, features a blank brick wall pierced by only two closely spaced main-floor windows, both with floor length six-over-nine-light sash. These, like the other windows in the house, have plain wooden lintels and sills. The opposite, or southwest facade of the original house, is hidden by the ca. 1955 two-story addition, which was designed to blend inconspicuously with the 1860 building.
On the roof, the pilasters of the belvedere (and the pseudo-pilasters of the chimney stacks) echo the pilasters framing each facade of the main block. The belvedere has a projecting cornice with proportions similar to those of the main roof, and the chimney caps feature a stringcourse riding above corbelled corner bricks that make each chimney seem to have an entablature supported by pilasters. The belvedere is lighted by a pair of original four-over-four sash windows on the river front, while the other three sides each have a single window of identical form.
The interior of the house is notable for its tall ceilings (12'-1" downstairs and 12'-8" upstairs), its double parlors, and its ornate plaster cornices and ceiling medallions. Most other features of the interior are typical of dwellings of its size, period and locale.
Throughout the house most of the original trim and fittings remain intact. These include four-panel Greek doors, bold architrave door and window casings with Greek moldings, and original tall baseboards and pine flooring. The double-leaf front doors open into a ten-foot-wide central passage leading to an open string stair with central landing. This stair features a plain plaster spandrel, no tread brackets, and a banister that curves making a 180-degree turn at the landing. The banister is anchored by a massive Italianate newel post octagonal in plan with intermediate turnings. The oval handrail is supported by two turned balusters per tread. All elements of the railing are of varnished mahogany.
The mantels in each of the main-floor rooms have been replaced by Federal-period mantels taken from another house. (They may have come from the older River Rouse on the property. The four mantels are all of the same size, extending about an inch beyond either end of the projecting chimney breasts.) The original mantels, now gone, were probably similar to those on the second floor: Greek in general form, wooden, and decorated with fanciful scroll-sawn work combining Italianate and Gothic motifs. The present Federal mantels in the two north rooms are identical, having a plain paneled frieze and molded shelf with base dentil molding. The Federal mantels in the two south rooms, in contrast, have vertica1ly reeded pilasters and a tall reeded tablet and end blocks.
The decoration of the main floor suggests that the builder conceived a hierarchical pattern of use for the various rooms. For example, the passage and double parlors on the north side of the house are fitted with elaborate plaster cornices and ceiling medallions, while the rooms on the south side of the passage have no cornices at all, just a simple picture molding. Similarly, the double parlors on the north side are joined by a wide opening equipped with sliding, double-leaf doors, while the rooms on the south side were originally joined by a standard-width, single-leaf door. (This door was enlarged in the present century to create a wider opening, but one not so wide or tall as that on the north side of the house.)
The plaster cornices in the passage differ from those in the double parlors. Of somewhat simpler design, they feature a central band of ornamental openwork consisting of leaves entwining a cable, which in turn is bordered by several rounded moldings. The openwork portion of the cornice in the north parlors is wider, with more complex interwoven floral ornament. The oval Rococo Revival plaster medallion in the passage is molded in the form of grape clusters, ears of maize, and stylized horns of plenty. The matching medallions in the north rooms, by contrast, are round, with decoration consisting of paterae and other floral ornaments radiating outward from the center. In every case, the plasterwork is beautifully executed, the equal of any of its period in Virginia.
The upstairs plan mirrors that of the main floor. Identical tall windows at either end of the house illuminate the passage; that at the south end lights the stairwell, while the floor length window on the river side opens onto the deck of the front porch. Detailing on the second floor is much simpler than that on the main floor. For example, architrave door and window casings lack moldings, being composed of thin flat strips of wood.
All mantels on this floor are original. Those in the two bedrooms on the north side of the house differ from those on the south side. The northeast and northwest chamber mantels feature pilasters with recessed panels and pointed arches, and a frieze with Tudor-arch soffit and central semicircular motif. Those in the two south bedrooms have matching wooden mantels with plain chamfered pilasters and a frieze with fanciful curved and barbed soffit.
While the two west bedrooms have no closets, those in the east rooms have large original closets that project into the room and feature a curving wall extending to the fireplace. At the center of the second-floor passage, a steep, narrow, enclosed winder stair leads to the belvedere on the roof. This small observation room, about nine feet square, provides panoramic views of the surrounding countryside in all directions.
The one- and two-story brick addition to the original 1860 house was erected as a single unit in the mid-1950s by Mr. and Mrs. Victor Stewart. Unaltered since its erection, the wing provides such modern amenities as bathrooms and a large kitchen (which replaced the original detached kitchen still standing in the side yard). Most of the downstairs section is occupied by the kitchen, a pantry, and service and servants' rooms. Upstairs, bathrooms and dressing rooms open off the two original south bedrooms, eliminating the need to insert them into the handsomely proportioned rooms of the original house.
In summary, the Jones-Stewart Mansion is typical of other large, late antebellum country houses in Virginia, featuring a standard floor plan and mixing decorative motifs of the Greek, Gothic and Italianate styles. Features, which set it apart from most, include its exterior stucco cladding; its exterior pilasters and ornamented chimneys; its belvedere; its floor length windows; its handsome interior ornamental plasterwork, and its extremely tall ceilings (which, oddly, are slightly higher on the second floor than on the main floor). Despite its pretensions, however, the house is lavish in selective and seemingly inconsistent ways. The owner refrained from truly extravagant display--probably due as much to financial considerations as to aesthetic or social ones. For example, plaster cladding is used on only one façade, giving the other exterior walls an unfinished appearance. Similarly, the elaborate plaster cornices and ceiling medallions were installed in only two of the four main-floor rooms. Possible concern for economy may have dictated the use of wooden rather than stone mantels, and the installation of skimpy, most crude door and window trim on the upper story. Similarly, the belvedere--which in other houses of this period is often highly ornamented--is plain except for rudimentary corner pilasters. Considered as a whole, the Jones-Stewart Mansion illustrates rather obviously the dialectic between showy, academically derived design, and plain, utilitarian design that to some degree characterizes all 19th-century Virginia plantation houses.