West Freemason Street Area Historic District (Additional Documentation)

West Freemason Street Area is a compact neighborhood of about fourteen blocks on the western edge of downtown Norfolk, between the Elizabeth River and Boush Street. Laid out just after the Revolution, it contains townhouses built from the late eighteenth century into the early twentieth, including Federal, Greek Revival, Italianate, Second Empire, Queen Anne and Georgian Revival examples. Most are three- or five-bay dwellings set close to the street on deep, narrow lots. Nineteenth-century details survive, such as stone paving at the end of West Freemason Street and fine cast iron fences and verandas. The district matters because Norfolk's other old residential neighborhoods were cleared in the 1960s, leaving this as the city's only early residential streetscape. Individual houses carry their own stories: the 1807 Selden House served as Federal headquarters from 1862 to 1865, the Whittle House was home to Captain Richard Lucien Page, and the Allmand-Archer House housed American officers in the War of 1812.