Christmas in Historic Urbanna, Virginia

People from far and wide recently converged on Urbanna, Virginia for the annual Christmas in Urbanna events that take place every year in this wonderful coastal town we all know and love. The Christmas parade took place on Friday night and the “It’s a Wonderful Life—Christmas in Historic Urbanna” house tour took place on Saturday, December 6 and also on Sunday, December 7.

This year, under the direction of its current owners, Rosegill House has been completely restored with all of the rooms freshly painted, the floors re-finished, and a new state-of-the-art kitchen and other needed improvements to this grand historic gem. The owners graciously allowed the use of Rosegill as a Designer Showhouse with all of the proceeds going toward local charities, community improvements and local beautification efforts.

A special feature of this year’s tour included the temporary transformation of Rosegill into a designer showhouse. Decorators, shop owners and designers from our area and beyond selected rooms that they decorated with fine furnishings, oriental and Persian carpets, decorative art objects, fine antiques and anything else that they felt would enhance the living spaces at Rosegill. Items utilized in this first ever showhouse were offered for sale to the general public. The House & Home Magazine was there as photographer Michael Neff took both before and after photos of many of the decorated rooms featured in this pictoral spread. For those of you who were there, we hope this will be a valuable resource and remembrance of this year’s tour, should you wish to revisit the tour at Rosegill again. For those of you who were not able to make the tour this year, we hope this will inspire you to visit Urbanna in 2009.

The tour at Rosegill featured gorgeous liveable spaces as well as musical entertainment and light refreshments. The rooms featured on the Rosegill tour included the following:

• The Kitchen—decorated by Cyndy’s Bynn
• The Parlor (large white room)—decorated by Tammye Delk Van Clief of Snug Harbor Interiors, www. snugharborinteriors.com, 804-725-8622
• The Breakfast Room—decorated by the Urbanna Antique Mall
• The Dining Room—decorated by Richmond’s West End Antique Mall, 804-359-1600, under the direction of Richmond decorator Mary Hannon Packard of Silver Spoon Interiors, www.silverspooninteriors. Her work has been featured in the Richmond Symphony’s designer showhouse as well.
• The Library—an amazing paneled room artfully decorated by the Garden Club’s Dawn Meyers, Saluda
• The Sun Porch—by Anne Rooney Antiques
• The Master Bedroom—decorated by Chesapeake and Crescent, Kilmarnock, Virginia
• The Master Bath—Chesapeake and Crescent
• The Upstairs Gallery and adjoining green and grey blue bedrooms with adjoining bath—Nancy Meyers of Interior Innovations, 757-871-2528
• The cheerful and colorful Children’s Bedroom—decorated by Forget Me Not Consignments, Urbanna
• The Yellow Bedroom—decorated by Rolling Road Gallery of Urbanna, open on weekends only

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, we hope you will enjoy these before and after photos of the Designer Showhouse tour at Rosegill.

Although Urbanna has been an agrarian and seafaring community throughout the centuries, the demographics and economy of the surrounding area is changing. Urbanna, being one of the most beautiful and charming places in Virginia, will become home to more and more retirees and families in search of a better quality of life. We are truly fortunate to have so many wonderful interior design resources in our midst, as well as proactive civic minded individuals in Urbanna and beyond who are continually striving to preserve and enhance our quality of life here in the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula.

Special Thanks to Theresa Anderson for all of her help gathering information on the tour of Rosegill.