MAYMONT MEMBERS — Click "Sign In" in the top right corner of this page to access your benefits or join today to enjoy membership benefits.
Maymont Members are invited to join curator Kathy Garrett-Cox for an exclusive guided tour of Swannanoa, the palatial summer home of James and Sallie Dooley, and the Japanese Garden at UVA’s Morven property. This special day trip is a rare opportunity to see two historic Virginia treasures rarely open to the public.
Swannanoa was the summer home that James and Sallie Dooley built in 1913 on Afton Mountain to escape the sultry Richmond summers. Designed by Noland and Baskervill and nearly double the size of their Richmond home, Maymont, the marble Italian Renaissance-style villa has been described as “one of the few Virginia houses that rivals the lavish ‘cottages’ of Newport, Rhode Island,” by UVA architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson. A vibrant Tiffany window and interior details from the Dooleys’ time give a sense of the original grandness of their home.
Following the guided visit to Swannanoa, the group will enjoy lunch at the landmark 1784 Mitchie Tavern, near Monticello, and then a guided tour of the Japanese Garden at Morven, a four-acre garden and tea house built in the mid-1990s using ancient techniques and incorporating some 50 plants indigenous to Japan and America. Also included is a tour of the Formal Gardens at Morven, which were restored in the 1930s by landscape architect Annette Hoyt Flanders. Morven is the 7,379-acre Albemarle County estate once owned by Thomas Jefferson and later acquired by John Kluge, who donated the land to the University of Virginia.
Additional Information
Meet at the Hampton Street parking lot at 8:30am. The bus departs Maymont at 9am and returns at 6pm.
Bus transportation, guided tours, lunch at Mitchie Tavern and refreshments are included in the $150 ticket. Seats are limited and the tour is expected to fill up quickly.
Love history? This fall, Maymont is offering guided Estate Walking Tours on Friday afternoons between 1-3 pm. Adult tickets are $15, $11.25 for Maymont members. Learn more