Adam Thoroughgood House

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The Adam Thoroughgood House is a historic brick dwelling located at 1636 Parish Road in the Thoroughgood neighborhood, Virginia Beach, Virginia. One of the oldest surviving colonial homes in Virginia Beach and a National Historic Landmark, the Thoroughgood House was likely built in 1719 by Argall Thorowgood II, great-grandson of Adam Thorowgood. Despite bearing the name of the famous colonial planter and burgess Adam Thoroughgood, the house was not constructed during his lifetime — he died in 1640 — but rather stands on land that he once owned and that remained in his family for generations. The Thoroughgood House is one of the oldest extant houses in what was British Colonial America. Today the property is administered by the City of Virginia Beach History Museums as a free, publicly accessible historic site and museum.

Adam Thoroughgood: The Man Behind the Name

Adam Thoroughgood (1604–1640), an indentured servant who arrived in Virginia in 1622, became a community leader, a member of the House of Burgesses at Jamestown, and was granted a headright of 5,350 acres (21.7 km²) in 1635. Thoroughgood was born into a prominent family in King's Lynn, Norfolk, England in July of 1604. With a longing for adventure, he paid for his voyage to the Virginia Colony through indentured servitude.

He was only 17 years old when he made the voyage. He completed his servitude in just five years and purchased 150 acres. By 1635, he granted the same opportunity he had in exchange for land to the 105 indentured servants he sponsored. Thoroughgood returned to England and married Sarah Offley. By 1636, Captain Adam Thoroughgood had acquired approximately 5,350 acres of land near the Lynnhaven River.

Adam Thoroughgood was from King's Lynn, Norfolk, England, and the naming of many local features can be traced back to his childhood home, including the Lynnhaven River, the City of Norfolk, and Norfolk County and the City of South Norfolk (the last two of which combined to become the new City of Chesapeake in 1963). He was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1629 and also served on the Governor's Council.

Adam Thoroughgood suffered an illness and passed away at age 36 in 1640. He was buried at the First Church at Church Point on his own land along the banks of the Lynnhaven River. His grave is somewhere under the Lynnhaven River due to changing river boundaries.

Construction and the Revised Date

For much of the twentieth century, the house was thought to date to 1636 — the year Thoroughgood received his land grant — which would have made it among the oldest English-built structures in North America. The purported date of 1636 was attached to the house in the early twentieth century, when it was thought to have been the residence of Adam Thoroughgood, a planter and burgess who had purchased the surrounding tract the previous year and named the nearby river after his birthplace, King's Lynn, Norfolk County, England.

Subsequent scientific investigation overturned that assumption. In 2008, the construction date was amended for the Adam Thoroughgood House to ca. 1719, following the completion of dendrochronology and archaeological reports. The Oxford Tree Ring Laboratory found that the main building timbers of the house had not been felled before 1703. Also, building characteristics that prior professionals had used to support a 17th-century date were either initiated in the early 18th century or used in both the 17th and 18th centuries.

Today, architectural historians agree the house was built circa 1719 by Adam's great-grandson, Argall. Argall Thoroughgood died in the midst of construction and his wife Susannah completed the work. Argall and Susannah's son John later added the elements for which the house is known: its extensive wainscoting and paneling, as well as its dramatic turned staircase.

Built in 1719–1720, the Thoroughgood House belongs to the generation of housing forms that emerged after demographics stabilized and plantation life became the norm in the early Chesapeake region of Maryland and Virginia. During archaeological testing before the education center was built on the Thoroughgood site in 2018, archaeologists with the James River Institute found no evidence of European artifacts or remains earlier than the 1700s on the property.

The 2008 nomination also updated the period of significance to run from ca. 1719 to 1957 (when the house was restored and opened to the public). The circa-1719 Adam Thoroughgood House has increased its previously-listed Virginia Landmarks Register boundary to capture significant archaeological resources relating to a Native American Middle and Late Woodland village site on the property as well as to archaeology from its colonial-era settlement.

Architecture

The Thoroughgood House is an example of Virginia's pre-Georgian architecture giving its visitors a glimpse of the lifestyle of early colonial gentry. It is a great example of informal houses of the early 18th century. The massive end chimney, irregular spacing of the openings, and lack of classical influences make the house a characteristic example of Virginia's pre-Georgian architecture.

It is a central-passage house, also known as a Tidewater-type cottage. Its hall and parlor are divided by a central passageway, and it has a weather-boarded, timber frame. The west, or land, facade of the Thoroughgood House is constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond, while the remaining walls are laid in English bond; a water table surrounds the house a few feet above ground level. Both the west and east facades are nearly symmetrical, each with a center door flanked by windows.

Some elements — such as its pyramidal chimney and dark brown trims — are of English Tudor origins, while others — including the bricks of its steep gabled roof — mirror those of eleventh-century Normandy buildings.

The complex fabric of the house, altered further during the course of two twentieth-century restorations, has yet to be fully deciphered, and its changing interpretation reflects ongoing research into early colonial architecture. From the exterior, the one-and-one-half-story house is slightly larger than, but remarkably similar in appearance to, the Lynnhaven House, which at one time would have been considered a close neighbor to the south along the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River.

High-style period furnishings are displayed in the rooms. The formal garden on the east side of the house is based on seventeenth-century English models and was planted by the Garden Club of Virginia. Landscape architect Alden Hopkins worked with Restoration Committee members to draw from contemporary English tradition. Two geometrically designed parterres flanking either side of a central entrance walkway dominated the plan, utilizing extensive amounts of periwinkle and yaupon holly. Oversized arbors paralleled the central walk and marked the outer boundaries of the garden, while imaginative animal carvings (called "beasties"), affixed to four-foot oak posts, added a fanciful character to the grounds.

Ownership History and Restoration

The Adam Thoroughgood House remained in the Thoroughgood family until the 1860s, after which it changed many hands. By the early twentieth century, the property had passed through several private owners, and the physical fabric of the house showed the wear of centuries.

Henry Clay Hofheimer II, the generous Norfolk philanthropist who helped run the Eastern Virginia Medical Foundation as well as transform the Norfolk Academy of Arts and Sciences into the renowned Chrysler Museum, was instrumental in raising funds to restore the Thoroughgood House. He became the chairman of the Adam Thoroughgood House Foundation, which hired architect Finlay F. Ferguson, Jr., for the renovation. The Thoroughgood House opened for tours on April 29, 1957.

Restored in 1957–1960 by the Adam Thoroughgood Foundation, the house was donated to the city of Norfolk in 1961 and is currently administered by the Virginia Beach Department of Tourism and the Chrysler Museum of Art. Restoration of the building had been undertaken by the Adam Thoroughgood House Foundation, an organization that in a few years would turn the property over to the City of Norfolk. Recently, it has been conveyed in turn to the City of Virginia Beach.

The Thoroughgood House was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960. In 2003 it was acquired by the City of Virginia Beach. In 1966, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and in 1969, in the Virginia Landmark Register.

In 2004, a Save America's Treasures grant awarded the City of Virginia Beach $150,000 for preservation of the house. The city supplemented the grant money and contracted to update the electrical system, replace the doors, and seal the bricks to keep out moisture. This restoration took longer and cost more than expected, but the house reopened in May 2011.

Following the renovation and preservation project, the Thoroughgood House reopened for tours with a revised interpretation of the house built by Argall Thorowgood II and later modified by his son Colonel John Thorowgood Jr. The emphasis of the revised interpretation is focused upon the house as it existed in the 1700s.

Museum and Public Access

The City of Virginia Beach History Museums include the Francis Land House, Lynnhaven House, Princess Anne County Training School/Union Kempsville High School Museum, and the Thoroughgood House. They are a division of the City's Cultural Affairs Department.

Tours run Thursday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (every 45 minutes) and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. (every 45 minutes). Admission is free. The education center at the Thoroughgood site is particularly welcoming. Visitors can enter to see the video, peruse the exhibits, and use the restroom facilities. A guide escorts visitors along the path to the house and presents a 45-minute interpretive tour. "It's a nice setup," said Reiley-Kay. "You can get the background story first, learn more on the tour, and then ask questions."

The Thoroughgood family were central to the settlement and economy of what would become Virginia Beach. The house itself dates from the early 18th century, and the tour gives a good impression of how folks of all levels of society would have lived, from slaves to colonial grandees.

Local archaeologist Floyd Painter, who had done excavations at the site, said the location once had been the site of a large Chesepian Indian village — long before English settlers arrived. The circa-1719 Adam Thoroughgood House has increased its previously-listed Virginia Landmarks Register boundary to capture significant archaeological resources relating to a Native American Middle and Late Woodland village site on the property as well as to archaeology from its colonial-era settlement.