By Stephen Smoot
The Victorian and Queen Anne style houses perched on hilltops often received a bad reputation in literature. From lonely Thornwood Hall in Jane Eyre and the mansion on Soldier Island whose
guests were plagued by U. N. Owen in And Then There Were None to countless havens of mystery and terror in Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft, the culture is conditioned to regard such places with fear and dread.
But those memorable tales are not about the bright and beautiful Anderson House, so often seen surrounded by a lawn of brilliant bright green and set against spectacular clear azure mountain skies.
The tales actually told recall a strong and successful family who found both prosperity and joy in memories made at the home. Now, under the care of Future Generations University, the house will continue as a center of culture and community for Franklin and Pendleton County.
For generations, it served as a shining center of life for one of Pendleton County’s oldest families. The Andersons joined the great migration of families from the border country of lowland Scotland and northern England. They brought their Celtic resilience and a rock ribbed Presbyterian faith with them. A family of builders, they constructed a legacy of leadership in the Valley of Virginia, then took it west into the mountains of Pendleton County. Here, they established a large productive farm in Fort Seybert.
Along with a flood of German immigrants in the 1700s, the people called “Scots-Irish” helped to settle and shape the South Branch watershed and eventually the entire future state of West Virginia. From these peoples came many of the families who continue to lead and produce powerful impacts on Pendleton County today.
Since 2017, Future Generations University has held the property and the current president of that institution, Fran Day, has resided there. Recently, FGU received a planning grant from the Appalachian Forest National Heritage Area to explore ways to use this historic home as a centerpiece of community activity.
FGU’s Sarah Collins-Simmons has worked to bring back the luster of times past to the old home. Over recent decades, the massive house and grounds slowly succumbed to the ravages that time can inflict when energy and resources for maintenance are limited. Dyer Anderson, the last owner from the family, stated that the difficulty of keeping the house up led to the painful decision to let it go.
As an experienced expert in architecture and landscaping, while also having significant experience in restoring historical structures in Staunton and Highland County, Virginia, and elsewhere in the region, Collins-Simmons has worked to bring an authentic historical look to the house. From her studies at the University of Virginia, she learned a unique perspective that benefits her work at the Anderson House.
That includes “thoughts about what personal space is” based on “the original academic village of Mr. Jefferson.” At the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson envisioned academic spaces where the faculty member or administrator lived upstairs, while the ground floor served as a social or even teaching space.
For much of the 20th century going into the 21st, the Anderson House has served as a dual residence. Family members split the home between upstairs and downstairs residences. Anderson remembered his mother and father taking the upstairs while his grandmother and others lived on the lower levels.
Under FGU, the same division will occur, but in line with Jefferson’s vision. Like at UVA, and also the recently burned superintendent’s house at the West Virginia Schools for the Deaf and Blind, the upstairs will serve as personal quarters. Downstairs, the open public space will emerge as the beating and caring heart of the home.
Living in those upstairs quarters until the close of her tenure will be Day. She explained in her vision that “we acquired the property because we wanted to preserve a historic treasure of the community.” Yet that “treasure” would exist less as a museum to the past and more of a living engagement of the present and the future.
“I’m a native Appalachian from Campbell County, Tennessee,” Day shared, going on to state that Franklin resembled the town near the hillside log cabin in which she grew up, explaining that “there are rules, written and unwritten” and most importantly, in hard times, “you can depend on your neighbor.”
As much as they value the potential for the future, it is what the past represents that makes the place special.
Anderson shared that “for 117 years, everything important that happened in my family happened in that house. Deaths and births, weddings and funerals.” His grandfather, who had no training, designed and constructed the house from the ground up with lumber milled from Pendleton County, putting love and care into the family home – as it was a wedding present for his wife.
For many years, it served as the center of a major agricultural operation that extended throughout Pendleton County. The grounds included a massive barn with a 50-foot gable and a 32-foot silo, as well as a machine shed, sleeping quarters for laborers, and much more.
Anderson also remembers the important social function it served while in the care of his family, describing how his grandmother threw parties during the Second World War. They would be held to entertain the troops training in the remote North Fork Valley near Seneca Rocks. He said, “I barely remember that” because the children had to stay upstairs during the revelry.
He remembered that later in the home’s history, he fielded numerous requests to use the home as a backdrop for prom, wedding, and other picture takings.
FGU will use the home in the same fashion. As Shannon Donnelly with the university explains, “It was purchased with the understanding that Future Generations University would restore it and be careful stewards.” That will include using the home as a catalyst to build stronger relationships with the community while enhancing the university’s mission.
How that will evolve will come with the planning process funded by the grant, but as Day states, “We don’t have all the answers. We don’t even have all the questions. But this is important to us.”
And as the home moves deeper into a new chapter of its life, rest assured that the stories, tales, and memories of Franklin’s big house on the hill will always be those of family, community, sharing, and joy.
