Last week I gave a brief account of our building path for this fall. The first step in that path lies in the expert care of Mr. Jeffrey Klee, architect and Founding Advisor to Innermost House. Jeff is presently Adjunct Assistant Professor of Architecture at the College of William & Mary and consulting architectural historian, after seventeen years as Shirley and Richard Roberts Architectural Historian at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.
That all sounds like an entry from LinkedIn. Which it is. But having Jeff Klee as your guide to the architecture of early Virginia is more like having John Ruskin as your guide to the Stones of Venice. It is a constantly enlightening experience. We could not possibly be more fortunate than to be working with Jeff in developing the historic foundations of our Virginia House plans.
Those historic plans are now nearly finished. They are being developed as virtual models that allow for 3-D manipulation and subsequent alteration as required by code. I include just one sample image above to give you an idea of what we are seeing. That drawing beautifully represents nearly all the identifying features of the 17th/18th century Virginia House that will be incorporated into our final design, reduced to the confirmation of an "Innermost House."
What the Virginia House was, and what an Innermost House is, are things we will discuss in coming weeks. For now, let me only say that both have to do with first things, with a dimension of experience which lies at an archaeological remove from us today, buried beneath our feet at an inaccessible depth of mind and history.
Once that depth is exposed, the great thing is to preserve its message to the world. An Innermost House is the sliver of a wedge with which we propose to keep a door open.
Yours with pleasure and thanks,
Michael
The Innermost House Foundation is an entirely volunteer organization,
dedicated to renewing transcendental values for our age.
