Yesterday's Park House price ≠ today's Park House price

Have you noticed how everything seems to be much more expensive than it used to be? Me too. Somebody should look into that… might be something going on there.

Anyway, time to take a biiiiig sip of coffee and read through this update on the Libby Hill Park House that chair of the Church Hill Association’s (CHA) Parks and Beautification Committee Barbara Cotter was kind enough to mail to The Lookout HQ. [eyes do the Looney Tunes a-wOO-ga thing; coffee sprays everywhere] The fuck do you mean, $85,000?!

“It was our hope and expectation to repair the siding on the Park House at the time of the window installation,” explained Cotter and former CHA president Suzanne Lee in a note to The Lookout about the ongoing work on the structure, which is located at North 28th and East Franklin Streets. “As you know, when repairing an old dwelling”—nobody lives there now, but the original bandstand built on the location in 1893 was expanded in 1905 to serve as a cottage for Libby Hill Park’s groundskeeper—hard realities emerge.”

When the group first began raising money to repair its windows and south-facing wall siding earlier this year, the goal was $10,000, and they exceeded it. But it turns out those weren’t the only parts of the building that needed repair.

To wit: this is now a full-blown restoration mission. Once volunteers and professional advisors got up close and personal with the Park House, they realized all of its siding would have to be replaced, not just the stuff on the southern wall. And that’s not all. Here’s the current project timeline, which details the additional required work:

1. Repairing and painting the roof. [COMPLETE]

2. Replacing the porch flooring and trim, and repairing the porch column bases. [IN PROCESS]

3. Replacing the building’s siding.

4. Painting the exterior and interior of the building.

5. Addressing various needs in the basement rooms, and with the shutters.

6. Repairing external masonry.

Unfortunately “costs increased exponentially” since Cotter & co. first sourced quotes. “[P]articularly for for the siding which is Accoya wood,” a specialized treated pine that comes with a 50-year guarantee and meets the criteria of the city’s Commission of Architectural Review, wrote Cotter and Lee. Now that the scope has significantly expanded, and the prices have risen, the new all-in projection for the work is around $85,000.

Obviously, the $10,000 they raised in February 2025 ain’t gonna cut it. But the group is already hard at work on a second round of fundraising. Earlier this summer, the nonprofit preservation group Historic Richmond also got involved, approving for the Park House a $10,000 “challenge” grant that will become available for the project if/when the Parks and Beautification Committee is able to raise another $10,000 on their own. (The donation page is live now.)

“The Church Hill neighborhood’s committed volunteers have rolled up their sleeves to care for and maintain this very special place and we are very pleased to support their community efforts,” said Historic Richmond executive director Cyane Crump in a statement.

Even if the Park House fundraisers successfully unlock the challenge grant, that’ll put the full take at around $30,000, still less than half of the way to the new funding target. But they’re hopeful that with that cash, the ongoing pro-bono assistance of Church Hill architect Mary Lorino, and the involvement of representatives from the city’s Capital Improvement Projects, as well as the Departments of Parks & Recreation and Planning and Development Review, it’ll put the project on good footing to secure public funds to make up the difference to $85,000.

And the sooner the better. After all, it’s not like anything is apt to get cheaper anytime soon.

📜 Possum Poetry

Possum Poetry is original verse written exclusively for The Lookout by Penelope Poubelle, the Lookout’s litter critter-at-large. If you spot roadside trash you’d like her to immortalize in doggerel, email a photo to [email protected]. All submissions anonymous!

🗺️ An easier-to-navigate Richmond speeding map

Last week, The Lookout highlighted the city of Richmond’s new-ish dashboard showcasing on which streets reckless jagoffs speed the most. It’s a cool idea, and I’m glad the city is making these data (aggregated by a third-party vendor from cell and GPS signals) available to the public, but as I wrote at the time, I found the map itself kind of tricky to navigate. But lo! Daniel Schep over at MapRVA (the cartographically inclined group behind the water crisis and Flock maps, among others) used the city’s open-source data to create a layout that’s much easier to eyeball. The legend:

• Green: Under the limit

• Yellow: 0-5mph over

• Orange: 5-10mph over

• Red: 10mph or more over

It may not seem like a huge deal that most drivers go 5mph over the speed limit on, say, N. 25th St. But even that small overage makes drivers significantly more lethal: data from AAA and independent scholars suggests that the likelihood of killing a pedestrian jumps from ~10% in a vehicle doing 25mph to 25% in a vehicle doing 30mph. And it only gets more likely from there.

🍻 Beer buyer, beware

I’m briefly expanding The Lookout’s tight focus on the East End to highlight this report The Richmonder just published about the eye-popping drinks prices at the Allianz Amphitheater. For one thing, I’m sure a lot of folks in Church Hill will attend a show at Live Nation’s slick, new $30-million venue (if they haven’t already), so this feels like news you can use. For another, I wrote the piece, and thought you might be interested in reading your humble Lookout editor’s freelance contribution to The Discourse. Check it out:

Here’s a nugget that got left on the cutting-room floor in the editing process. I contacted both Mayor Danny Avula and City Councilmember Ellen Robertson (in whose 6th District the Amphitheater sits) in the course of reporting this story to ask them if they’d like to weigh in on the matter of Live Nation’s $19.50 24-ouncers of Modelo. (That’s pre-tax and -tip, by the way.) Hizzoner’s office declined to comment, citing the fact he was on vacation at the time, and the indirectness of the issue to his purview.

Robertson did eventually get back to me with a brief emailed statement that seemed to suggest the venue should charge as much as its (captive) audience would bear. “Your question regarding the sale prices of beer raises questions to the successfulness of sales, for which I don’t have an answer,” she wrote. She did not respond to a request for clarification.

📢 Happenings on The Hill

• Catch the clean-up: The Department of Public Works will be rolling through Zone 3—which includes us!—tomorrow (8/9) to haul away mattresses, brush bags, and other bulk items from 8am-12pm. More details here.

• Watch ‘em toss: The National Horseshoe Pitchers Association (yes, this is a real thing) is hosting a tournament tomorrow in Gillies Creek Park. Registration closed last month, so you can’t throw, but you can watch! If you want! Info at eShoe.com, lol.

• Listen in: The second installment of the Church Hill Association’s Sunset Garden Concert Series at Reed Square is Sunday (8/10) at 7:30pm. The first one was packed! More details.

Happenings on The Hill is a digital bulletin board for events, causes, and other items of interest to East Enders that don’t necessarily merit full editorial treatment. Got something for a future edition? Email the relevant details, links, etc. to [email protected] for consideration!

📸 A Very CHill Photo

Want to share your Very CHill Photo from the neighborhood? Email it to [email protected] with your name as you’d like it to appear for publication, and the camera you shot it on.