At Davis & Elkins, 2 Mansions Help Define the Past

Graceland is now an inn at Davis & Elkins College. (Chronicle photographs by Scott Carlson)

Elkins, W.Va. — Davis & Elkins College is a small institution in the hills of West Virginia, but its two historic mansions convey a world-class wealth rarely seen, either in West Virginia or anywhere else. The mansions — Graceland and Halliehurst — were built in the late 1800s as summer homes for two statesmen who were also coal and lumber barons and college founders, Henry Gassaway Davis and his son-in-law, Stephen B. Elkins. The Victorian castles are named for Davis’s daughters. Both buildings are National Historic Landmarks.

Graceland’s interior is a paradise of fine woodwork.

With their fine stained-glass windows and intricately carved woodwork in birds-eye maple, cherry, walnut, and oak, the homes can render a visitor speechless — carved wood is everywhere, particularly in Graceland. It’s amazing, actually, that the woodwork is still intact. The homes were handed over to the college in the 1940s, and Graceland was used as a men’s residence. It closed in 1971 and was boarded up for many years. Victor Thacker, the college’s provost, oversaw the three-year renovation of the house starting in the early 1990s. He says that before the renovation people occasionally broke into the house and wrote on the walls, but they never damaged the woodwork. Mr. Thacker says that the house was restored with the help of eight father-and-son teams of craftsmen. 

Graceland is now the Graceland Inn, to which busloads of people come to stay and see the local festivals of music and Appalachian culture.

Halliehurst, which is now the college’s administration building, has also been renovated, but it is getting a number of upgrades this week. The college hit hard times in recent years, and some maintenance had been deferred. Now that the college is under new management, with a spike in enrollment, administrators turned to fixing up portions of the building — a new coat of paint (to match the original brown color) and new foundations for porches around the building.

Halliehurst is now the college’s administration building.

Halliehurst, seen here from the rear, is getting paint and repairs.

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