Colonial Williamsburg Digital Library

The King's Arms Tavern

Reconstruction of the west tavern represents the era of Mrs. Jane Vobe's ownership 2 (1772-1787), when the patrons frequenting her establishment were gentlemen of wealth and prestige. During a long and prosperous tavernkeeping career, Mrs. Vobe operated taverns at several different locations in Williamsburg. She moved to this site from a tavern across Capitol Square, where her successor as proprietress was Christiana Campbell. The King's Arms was the last of her enterprises.

The superior quality of Mrs. Vobe's "entertainment" was, widely reputed. An exhausted Frenchman travelling to Williamsburg in 1765 experienced "great Difficulty" in searching for lodgings, until, befriended by a local resident, he had the good fortune to get "a room at mrs. vaube's, where all the best people resorted." Among her steady customers were ships' captains, college students, Virginia planters such as William Byrd III and Sir Peyton Skipwith, and, during the Yorktown campaign, Revolutionary officers who commanded French and American forces, including Major General Baron von Steuben, Colonel le Grass, and General Nelson of Yorktown. George Washington often "supped" at Mrs. Vobe's whenever in town attending the General Assembly, and he also held membership in a private "Club" there. During crowded seasons, nights at the King's Arms Tavern were filled with sport and noisy merriment as pastimes of "Carousing and Drinking in one chamber and box and dice in another" commonly continued until morning. Mrs. Vobe's talent in attracting customers extended even to the fine arts. In 1773, some 3 months after the tavern opened, its walls displayed "a small but very neat Collection" of Matthew Pratt's paintings on exhibition. Sometime after the Revolution, the King's Arms was renamed the Eagle Tavern in keeping with the patriotic spirit of Federal times.

Architecturally, the reconstructed tavern has a conventional domestic appearance. When offered for sale in 1785, an advertisement described it as a genteel house with convenient outbuildings that would "either suit a private family or as a tavern." Accounts for repair work done by Humphrey Harwood, local bricklayer and contractor, revealed that Jane Vobe's tavern had at least fourteen rooms, a bar, four passages, two stairways, two porches, four fireplaces, a stove, and a cellar beneath. Outbuildings included a wood kitchen, laundry, storehouse, a [barber] shop, well, and stable. Archaeological investigation of the surviving foundations, along with a study of documentary records, indicated that the structure underwent extensive alteration and enlargement while Mrs. Vobe was occupant.

As early as 1707 a dwelling apparently existed on this property, but extant records provide little clue to the precise construction or destruction dates of the King's Arms Tavern. Although its history is cloudy, archaeological excavation of the foundations yielded significant facts from which architectural information could be deduced. The original tavern was built-in three stages. Its earliest 4 portion was the east section, which had a massive vaulted cellar underneath, and probably a side passage, single pile plan. At an unknown date the structure was lengthened along the street frontage to its present west end. Finally, in a third period of construction, the southwest wing was added, so that its reconstructed appearance purposefully represents a slightly later date. The King's Arms Tavern at its fullest development thus resembled the L-shaped Raleigh Tavern directly across the street. On plan the original tavern measured approximately 25' x 54', with the rear wing measuring about 20' x 25' in size. Its reconstructed five-bay facade was suggested by archaeological evidence, which showed an off-center entrance toward the east. The tavern's frame construction, general dimensions, one-and-one-half-story height, and gambrel roof shape were confirmed by nineteenth-century insurance policies.

The tavern's exterior details reflect typical eighteenth-century styles, with features generally copied from local colonial buildings. A strong Classical influence is evident in the pedimented front porch, embellished with dentil work, stop-fluted Doric columns and pilasters supporting a triglyph frieze, and molded stone steps trimmed with wrought-iron railings. One highly unusual feature is the rear well house, built against the back wall of the wing, and finished with rusticated siding, hipped roof, and antique stone sill. The hipped gambrel on the wing creates, in effect, a Mansard 5 roof type. The building rests on English bond foundations; has ordinary, beaded weatherboard facing; round-butt, simulated wood shingles; a full modillion cornice; pedimented dormers projecting from the roof; and three brick chimneys. The entire east end wall is brick, laid in Flemish bond. A painted canvas sign surmounting the tripod post in front of the building is based on English heraldic precedent, as well as eighteenth-century prints showing signboards, and portrays Mrs. Vobe's 1772 Virginia Gazette announcement informing the public that she had "just opened Tavern...at the Sign of the King's Arms."

On the interior, the tavern's decorative elements are fairly elaborate to imply the refinement of its clientele and reputation during the eighteenth century. The first floor dining rooms have handsome paneling, reminiscent of original woodwork in dwellings such as the Tayloe and Peyton Randolph Houses. Other finish details, such as molded chair rails, paneled wainscoting, fluted pilasters, wood keyblocks, segmental doorway arches, and even a Chinese Chippendale stair rail in the back passage, recall the designs popular in contemporary English patternbooks. The parlour is fully paneled in natural-finished gum wood, and has a grey veined, white marble fireplace surround selected to match imported, colonial examples found elsewhere in Virginia. The main dining room (west) has painted pine paneling, and a mottled, Breche Rose marble surround trimming its fireplace. The 6 focal placement of the bar in that room, which also opens off the stair passage, signifies the importance of conviviality in eighteenth-century tavern atmospheres. The south dining room is enhanced with an impressive alcove treatment enframing the paneled chimney breast, which resembles an original arched wood screen decorating a former Gloucester County house. The second floor dining rooms have much simpler trim, as was customary in local eighteenth-century buildings, although chair rails and cornices complement each. These upstairs rooms undoubtedly would have been bedchambers for lodgers in the original tavern. Modern service facilities, such as rest rooms, pantries, and dumb waiters, are situated as unobtrusively as possible, and a large restaurant kitchen occupies the entire basement area. Antique, yellow pine floorboards are restored throughout the public rooms. Generally mulberry, blue, and green paint colors, duplicating local precedent, have been chosen for interior wood trim, and all walls are covered with plaster and simulated whitewash. Hardware and light fixtures are reproductions.

The Alexander Purdie House

The Alexander Purdie House, east of the King's Arms Tavern, has likewise been reconstructed to a third-quarter eighteenth-century appearance. Its owner during that period, from 1767 until his death in 1779, was the printer, Alexander Purdie, one-time editor of the Virginia 7 Gazette. Records of repairs to the dwelling during his occupancy show that it contained at least eight rooms, two passages, and a closet. Outbuildings included a kitchen, laundry, office, dairy, and necessary house. Before and after Purdie's occupancy, the original dwelling on this site housed a variety of occupants, and it was alternately adapted to different residential and commercial usages over the years. One of its early nineteenth-century renters was Cyrus Griffin, last president of the Continental Congress.

Only fragmentary foundations of the house remained in 1949, but enough archaeological evidence survived to verify its size and general characteristics. The building was constructed originally in two stages, the east portion being earlier and smaller, so that vertical joints visible in the front and rear, reconstructed, brick foundations express the progressions in its development. Nineteenth-century insurance policies fortunately validated the structure's frame construction and overall dimensions.

The Purdie House in many ways resembles the King's Arms Tavern, yet a subtle variance in exterior details lend contrasting individuality. The dwelling measures approximately 27' x 60', its size slightly larger than the front portion of the King's Arms Tavern, and it boasts a symmetrically disposed seven-bay facade. The weatherboarded exterior is painted in reverse of the King's Arms' color scheme, with dark gray on the walls and white delineating the trim. An interesting 8 detail balancing the design of the structures is the placement of two basement grilles at the extreme far ends of both fronts. The house form and roof type at Purdie's are substantiated by documentary descriptions, revealing that the building had an unusual clipped gable roof much like the original example nearby at Wetherburn's Tavern.

The front and back, shed roof porches are conjectural features, added for convenience in wet weather. The pantry lean-to on the south elevation, which connects with the King's Arms Tavern, also represents a modern service addition. Within this connection, a small passage partly obscured behind the King's Arms Tavern brick chimney provides interior access for waiters and diners between the two buildings. An upright, weatherboard bulkhead at the southeast corner of Purdie's dwelling, identical in design to the King's Arms southwest cellar entry, resembles an original rebuilt bulkhead at the Taliaferro-Cole House. Like the tavern next door, the Purdie House has five dormer windows ranging along the front and back elevations (although these are hipped roof dormers in contrast to the King's Arms pedimented ones); round-butt, simulated wood shingles cover its A-roof; and a modillion cornice trims the eaves. Paneled wood shutters, exhibiting a three-panel arrangement typically Georgian and found in Virginia, for example, at Christ Church in Lancaster County, fit the first floor windows of both structures. 9 The Purdie House has conventional paneled doors more mundane than the transomed, cross panel entrance door of the King's Arms Tavern, which duplicates a plate from William Salmon's 1748 edition of Palladio Londinensis. Both houses rest on English bond brick foundations, and are equipped with ground-level brick gutters. Purdie's dwelling has two interior chimneys, with T-shaped stacks projecting above the roof ridge.

Interior details, like all exterior features, are authentic facsimiles of prevalent eighteenth-century designs. Documentary records, coordinated with archaeological findings, determined the divisions of the plan into rooms, passages, stairways, and established fireplace locations. The interior arrangement at the Purdie House is somewhat adaptive, however, since the first and second floor rooms are intended to function as dining facilities. In a domestic household, some of these would have been parlors and bedchambers during the eighteenth century. Here, as at the King's Arms, the whole basement is devoted to kitchen and service utilities. All paneling, moldings, paint colors, and finish details of the first and second floor interiors are fashioned according to colonial architectural precedent. Special materials include antique pine flooring, and a Breche rose marble surround in the fireplace of the first floor, west dining room.

The most elaborate rooms in the Purdie House, the west dining room, the stair passage and east dining room, are handsomely appointed but slightly less lavish than interiors 10 at the King's Arms. The west dining room on the first floor is finished with an imposing paneled fireplace wall, based on similar treatments at Poplar Grove in Matthews County and Shirley in Charles City County, and featuring fluted pilasters, projecting chimney breast, and dentil cornice. The cornice and a molded chair rail encircle the plastered walls of the rest of the room. The L-shaped stair passage is arranged to provide a small middle dining room at its southwest corner, and is distinguished by paneled wainscoting, open string stairway, molded cornice, and a keystone trimmed archway inspired by arched openings at Carter's Grove, Sabine Hall in Richmond County, and Berkeley in Charles City County. Th middle dining room has a simple, but decorative, mantel copied from the Semple House. In the east dining room, the projecting chimney breast is paneled in the manner of eighteenth-century facings at Wilton in Richmond, Toddsbury in Gloucester County, and Marmion in King George County. It is equipped with paneled cupboard doors at both ends with semicircular upper moldings similar to an entrance door motif at Four Mile Tree in Surry County. Interestingly, a paneled summer beam intersecting one corner of the chimney breast cornice expresses the original existence of a partition wall dividing this space into two rooms. A molded cornice and chair rail are carried around the other three walls. Upstairs, as the King's Arms Tavern, the less important, and originally private, second floor rooms are trimmed unpretentiously. 11 All plastered wall surfaces are finished with simulated whitewash. Hardware and light fixtures throughout the House are reproductions. Paint colors in the Alexander Purdie House are generally mulberry, light grey blue, and rose tan.

The King's Arms Tavern and The Alexander Purdie House, though conjectural restorations, duplicate with the greatest possible accuracy the original structures existing on their foundations. They demonstrate, furthermore, that creative functionalism can be achieved in planning adaptive reconstruction projects without compromising architectural fidelity. The authentic tavern setting revived in these buildings has provided the public more than twenty-five years of dining pleasure in the same spirit that prevailed when the King's Arms entertained guests during the eighteenth century.

The King's Arms Tavern
Block 9, Building 28A
Colonial Lot 23
Reconstructed

The Alexander Purdie House
Block 9, Building 29A
Colonial Lot 24
Reconstructed