{"nrhp_refnum":"82004588","name":"St. Alban's Hall","other_names":["The Crenshaw Building"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"300--302 E. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Richmond (Independent City)","county":"Richmond (city and county)","state":"VA","lat":37.542139521000024,"lon":-77.44249840499998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1982-09-09","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture","Social History"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A three-story stuccoed brick building at 300-302 East Main Street in Richmond, Virginia, built in 1869 as St. Alban's Hall, a Masonic meeting place with a shop and concert hall. It later became known as the Crenshaw Building.","why_significant":"It was the first institutional building erected in Richmond after the Civil War and marked the start of the city's recovery after the burning of the central district. It combined shops, a concert hall and Masonic rooms, a model repeated in later Masonic buildings in the city. Its Tuscan Palazzo or Renaissance Revival design was rare in the postwar South.","narrative":"Built in 1869 at the corner of 3rd and East Main Streets in Richmond, St. Alban's Hall is a three-story brick building covered in stucco scored to resemble stone, with quoins, a metal cornice and a pedimented central pavilion. Two Masonic lodges, Metropolitan Lodge #11 and Joppa Lodge #40, built it through a Masonic Building Association to meet nearer their members' homes. The ground floor held a shop, the second floor a concert hall, and the third floor the Masonic rooms, whose frescoed, starry ceilings drew praise in contemporary newspaper accounts. It was the first institutional building raised in Richmond after the Civil War, and its mix of income-producing and Masonic space became a pattern for later lodge buildings. The Scottish Rite bodies owned it from 1891 until 1920. Alterations in the 1940s removed the storefront, added an elevator and stair, and divided the upper floors into offices. A rehabilitation was under way when it was nominated, restoring the exterior.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899 (specific date 1869)","architect_builder":"Unknown; built by the Masonic Building Association","architectural_style":"Renaissance Revival / Tuscan Palazzo mode, forerunner of High Victorian Italianate","criteria":[],"status_note":"By 1980 much of the building was vacant and in need of repair; at the time of nomination it was being totally rehabilitated, with the exterior restored and the interior kept as offices.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.473147-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/91/6829/41682991/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/82004588.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82004588/d3accb7fce-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/82004588/d3accb7fce-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Crazyale","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Alban%27s_Hall.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Crazyale</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:St._Alban%27s_Hall.JPG"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"71000982","name":"James River and Kanawha Canal Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/virginia/james-river-and-kanawha-canal-historic-district-71000982/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41682991","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Alban%27s_Hall_(Richmond,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16238387"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/richmond/st-albans-hall-82004588/"}