Ginter Park Historic District (Boundary Increase)

Ginter Park is a planned residential suburb on Richmond's Northside, laid out in the 1890s by Major Lewis Ginter. Its roughly twenty-one blocks follow a repeating grid of wide divided boulevards and large lots, with tree-lined streets and granite and limestone obelisks marking major intersections. Houses date from the early 1890s to the 1930s and show considerable variety: modest Queen Anne cottages built for Ginter's workmen, large Colonial Revival and Builder's Vernacular homes, Shingle Style, Tudor Revival, Spanish Colonial, Egyptian Revival and Mediterranean Revival examples. Notable buildings include Spring Grange, a farmhouse said to date from the 1780s, the Tudor Revival Lewis Ginter Community Center of 1908, and the Union Theological Seminary Quadrangle designed by Charles H. Read, Jr. Five churches also lie within the district. Chamberlayne Avenue has lost many historic buildings to later apartment and nursing home development, but most other streets keep their historic character. The district was recognized for its planning, its architectural range and its role in the area's suburban growth.