West of Boulevard Historic District

West of Boulevard is a 69-block residential neighborhood in Richmond's West End, laid out on a grid of broad, tree-shaded east-west avenues and narrower north-south side streets. It grew from about 1895 to 1940, on former farmland, as an extension of the Fan District. The district holds 1,763 contributing buildings, including brick rowhouses, detached town houses, apartment buildings, small commercial buildings, three churches, a synagogue and five schools. Styles range from Queen Anne and Romanesque Revival to Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Mediterranean, Tudor Revival and Art Deco. The oldest buildings appear to be three granite-faced Queen Anne houses on Grove Avenue from the late 1890s. Notable works include the Wendell Powell House by D. Wiley Anderson, the Benedictine High School complex designed by Father Michael McInerney, Saint Gertrude's Convent, and the Classical Revival church at Grove and North Sheppard. Its architectural variety and intact streetscapes led to its listing.