Camden: The Italianate Mansion the Civil War Half-Destroyed
Near Colonial Beach, Virginia
Camden, built between eighteen fifty-seven and eighteen fifty-nine on the banks of the Rappahannock River at Port Royal, was a showcase of antebellum ambition. Baltimore architect Norris Starkweather designed it in the Italianate style, and the owner equipped it with central heating, gas lighting, and running water, luxuries rare in rural Virginia before the war. The Civil War arrived in late eighteen sixty-two when a Union gunboat's shell destroyed the tower.
The tower was never rebuilt. In nineteen seventy-one, Camden was designated a National Historic Landmark for its architectural significance.
