NIMROD HALL HISTORY

Nimrod Hall is the sort of beautiful, rambling house that only time can build. Originally built in 1783, the main house consisted of little more than a two story log cabin, and legend has that it was built as a stagecoach stop. Nimrod has been the site for over 200 years as a summer resort for people from all over the country. We have a hotel register dating back to the turn of the century but its history as an Inn is recorded as early as the 1850’s.  Current Owner, Laura Loe, came to Nimrod in the early 1990’s and fell in love with Nimrod and with owner, Frankie Apistolas who became one of her dearest friends and Frankie’s Husband Jimmy Apistolas. After taking over the artist workshop directing in 1997, in 2013 it was natural passing of the ownership. Owning Nimrod Hall is a huge responsibility and only the people who have done it really know just how huge. Jimmy Apistolas passed away in 2020 and is missed every single day by too many people to count. Owned by the Wood Family since 1906, in 2013, artist Laura Loe and her husband, Will Loving, bought the Inn to keep it operating as an artist colony and family resort for those who love it.  When they took the property over, it was the first time Nimrod Hall had changed hands since 1906 from Frankie Wood Apistolas’ family. Laura and Will’s mission is to keep Nimrod as it is. but better. Some change has to happen or things just can’t keep up. What we strive for is a beloved, old fashioned amazing old timey Virginia resort with great food, great people and good wifi.

Nimrod Hall is actually a euphemism for seven buildings that are built around a common inner yard attached to 100 plus acres. The Main house, which houses the dining hall and kitchen as well as a wing of guest rooms, is surrounded by five cottages that are used by guests. One building, affectionately referred to as the old post office, is a cottage used for gatherings, card games and rainy day critiques for artists. It used to be an actual post office until the 1980’s or so. We have one small house new to us, called The Little House that has a full kitchen and is an original log cabin from the 1850’s.

The cottages are built as you'd imagine a turn of the century summer resort with private bedrooms and shared bathroom. None of the cottages have kitchens, only bedrooms, and big, wide-roofed porches overlooking the Allegheny Mountains, or the shaded yard. We are as faithful to Nimrod Hall history as possible, renovating as time and money allow, retaining the beauty and dignity of Nimrod Hall. We have a river and spring fed pond for swimming and are surrounded by over 100 acres begging to be painted, walked, hiked or simply enjoyed. Our under renovating is on purpose. We thrive in the old fashioned feel of Nimrod. Our electric cables are buried and when you sit on a porch and watch the fireflies it can be 2021 or 1921.

There are so many books at Nimrod and so many, many old photos that you could curl up on a couch and read for hours with a glass of red wine or bourbon and go right back in time. The photo below is from 1918 or so and is of the Main House. We lost our tree in 2011 and it was a sad day. But trees. like people, have lifespans and the Hall outlived the tree. And so it goes.

Lewis and Emma Wood bought Nimrod Hall in 1906 and their youngest son, Frank Wood, was the one who stayed home. Nimrod Hall was always a summer resort but there was also a summer camp here for from 1935-1985 that was the passion of Frank Wood. It was great help to the family financially and in that time summer camps were springing up all up and down what is now called Rt 42. Camp Nimrod for Boys has been closed since 1985 but is remembered fondly by hundreds of men as the site of the summer camps they attended as young boys that is now an area by our river landing and our pond.  We renovated the Camp Nimrod for Boys Recreation Hall in 2015 that located in the old cabin row. It is a great place to gather, enjoy the screened in windows and listen to to the waterfall.  The cabins themselves are not still safe to enter and the camp is pretty much a memory but so is the horse racetrack that used to be in the field across the river, the POW Camp of WW1 German soldiers that was on the property and the W&L football training yard from the 1920’s and the days of Nimrod being a hunt lodge in the 1880’s when a good week long trip was literally one buck. Nimrod was a self sustaining farm and they were able to weather the wars, the great depression and as mentioned, the pandemic of Spanish Flu, but these types of resorts were never moneymakers. Hundreds of places like Nimrod used to pepper the entire countryside of the Allegheny Mountains and now I think we are the surviving one that still is clinging to the old ways but not in a stubborn way, we choose to understand that there is beauty in the past and and you’ll never find a place as original as we are. Again by choice.

We are unapologetically old fashioned.

That bring said we believe in cool vintage furniture, good art, good sheets, cool pond toys, comfy chairs, amazing food and a great staff. And obviously, good wifi.

Nimrod Hall has been the site of an artist and writer summer workshop/artist colony for the past 38 years. Minus the two covid years.

A History by Laura Loe

My husband Will Loving and I , who I married at Nimrod Hall in 1997, bought Nimrod Hall in 2013. It was in need of a new owner, since our great friends Frankie and Jimmy Apistolas, who devoted 45 plus years and summers, were ready to retire and see the world with cruise after cruise and Nimrod needed a new owner. I was a natural fit as I spent more time here than anyone aside from them over the years. Their generosity to me when I first took painting as my actual job by letting me hang around and help with dishes was the boost I needed to start what is a professional oil painting career since 1996. We lost Jimmy in 2020. And by lost I mean Lost. We All miss him.

Frankie inherited Nimrod from her parents when they passed away and did such an amazing job we had big shoes to fill. I have been running the artist workshops since 1997 and running Nimrod since 2014. Since we have had 3 kids Sadie, William, and Charlie, who have grown up at Nimrod, it was a good times bad times situation but because of this they spent most every summer at Nimrod, too! Frankie got a lot of my family and never complained. Which is kind if crazy. I came with 3 kids and playpens. and high chairs, and babysitters and the strength of our friendship must have made that work. I can’t even imagine now. Our youngest child is graduating high school this year and it feels great! They loved it here and will be visiting but yes. Having little ones there was a circus! Will is a entrepreneur/owner of Servos, LLC a consulting firm and Laura is a professional oil painter. We bought it with a fair amount of reservation of how we could make this work with everything else. But despite some hiccups it has worked.

Nimrod is not for everyone but the people who love it- love it. We love it. But it is far from luxury and heavy on vintage feel and nostalgia. And yes, there are bugs. We are in the middle of the mountains. : )

The History for the History Nerds

Nimrod started as a stage coach stop, history tells us, and the main house was the first building on the property. The date of 1783 is on the chimney in the front of the house so we think this is the birth date of the place. It was run for many years by a family called the Watsons who were from England and they had the first hotel hunt lodge resort. They ran it for a long time and are buried here in the little tiny gated cemetery on Nimrod Drive. They had a horse racing passion and used to have a racetrack in the lower field that you see from the house and yard so it is called the racetrack field. Annie Watson married and relocated with her husband to Millboro after they sold to a businessman from New York who kept it a very brief time ( like a year!) but long enough to sell off most of the original furniture. He was in over his head I think, being from New York and the turnover to the Wood family came in short order in 1906. Lewis Wood, lived down Rt 42 and bought Nimrod to also run it as a ‘typical of its time’ summer resort. He and his wife, Emma, I think also were overwhelmed about the purchase as I have found a letter that is written to someone in 1909 (or so?) where he is back pedaling on his refusal to sell to someone who was interested and was assuring the man, he would really like to unload it! I can relate. There is a lot of work here. : ) But he and Emma stuck with it and had 11 children and raised them in the main house. Hats off, Emma!

The dining room we know was always the resort dining room only used in the summer, and they spent the rest of the time here as a typical family on a farm. Nimrod was a self sustaining farm with pigs, chickens, and all the things to keep themselves in food. Electricity came to Nimrod from the creation of the pond and the waterfall and a turbine, still seen in front of the barn is being used as a decoration. Our pond house is a re-creation of one that used to sit in the same spot. We are remote even now, but back then it was a long time to get to anywhere. You took the Train to Millboro and they came and got you at the station for a fee. I have the old ledger where guests used to pay to go down to the river! And literally it was a nickel and dime business! And they never made any money to spare. Ask to see the ledger if you’re interested. The drive to Millboro was a nightmare. But then I will read about how someone drove to Richmond from Newport News in a day and I am simply impressed.

The little log cabin across the street on Rt 42 was for many years in the 30’s to 70’s a general store run by Frankie Wood Apistolas’s Uncle Russ so that helped with guests who needed a RC Cola and a Moon Pie and I assume convenience things. Her children who are in their late 50’s can remember walking there to get popsicles! It sounds dreamy. The Little House now for rent is where Russ Wood and his wife raised their 6 children. All of Emma and Lewis’s kids went and did their thing, some coming back, (Russ for example )but most relocating all over. In 1936, the last remaining child to stay at home with Lewis and Emma, was Frank Wood and he decided to build a summer camp for boys in the craziest location on earth….an iron spring filled mountain cliff down by the river. I laugh thinking about how Lewis Wood gave Frank possibly the craziest place to ever build anything. But Frank built it!

It was the Golden age of camping and the camp helped them greatly to keep Nimrod Hall open. However the love and commitment of families to camping cooled in the 80’s, and this, coupled with Franks death, and coinciding with an epic flood of the property in 1985 made them decide to shutter the camp in 1985. It was a time period of many camps closing as the dawn of insurance, integration was upon them and as stated, summer resorts were never big money maker but labors of love (or in many cases a burden passed on to a generation less interested). So things were kind of precarious when the camp closed. Frank had died and Nimrod needed some help and fast.

The very year camp closed (kismet!) a couple of Richmond artists who knew about Nimrod from coming there with their families asked Frankie about coming with a small group to paint. Frankie at this point has lost her father and her Mother was not doing well. Frankie went for it. To this day Nimrod Hall is as an artist colony and we have artist and writer workshops. It turned out to be a perfect fit. The first year was 1986 so it has been inspiring artists for 36 years. Still, even during the summer years, all through the summer camp, Nimrod up on the hill was as it is now, with families renting cottages and coming to stay for a week or i the older days months at a time. They would come the same month or week every year and it was a standing reservation. It was yours until you cancelled then the next person had the same courtesy. So people didn’t cancel very often. It has never been short of people to come, but also never very easy to book a room. It is a small place and if someone proved to be high maintenance or unpleasant there would not be a room the next year for them!

A hunting lodge was Nimrod Halls first purpose and “Nimrod” stands for Great Hunter (and now for someone who does something stupid so …!) so that explains Nimrod Hall. Although there is some history that says that was always a joke name, we are all used to it now! Back in the early hunting days deer were so scarce that to even spot one much less make a kill, was very unusual and reported in the newspaper. Hard to believe as we have so many now. But as said, The name may always have been a bit tongue in cheek, even then.

The original 1887 buildings were the old post office, Square House, and Jennings and Bullock with the Sunset cottages coming later. The house just expanded and was added on too as houses tend to do, with the kitchen modern kitchen we enjoy being built in the 1960s. The main dining room was blue when I arrived on the scene in the early 90’s as a painter and it just always makes me smile as it was virtually the only color on the grounds. Everything else was green and white. I had to add color because I am a painter and need to use my REDS and YELLOWS. So now I have lots of color, but cannot take credit for that crazy blue that we all love in the dining room. That was courtesy of Mae Wood, Frankie’s Mother.

All the land around Nimrod was originally part of the property but as they needed money, it was sold. In the 1940’s Frank sold land beyond the studio’s to the Bryan Family of Richmond, who in turn sold the land to a summer camp, called Camp Rivers Bend, right after we purchased Nimrod. It was a sad day for me, as the road used to be safe and quiet leading to just a few homes down road, but now is fairly busy but really only on opening and closing days of camp.I was worried it would make Nimrod lose its middle of nowhere charm but aside from the extra traffic a day or so a year it has turned out to be just fine.

We have about 26 rooms we can rent (all with shared baths). This includes 5 cottages. Some with 3 bedrooms and one with 8, but most with 2 rooms sharing a bath. See here for the current rooms. All the rooms have their good and bad points and I have stayed everywhere and can assure you they are, if not exactly the same, all have their own charms and downfalls! I have spent a lot of time getting the rooms to be comfortable and hope you are comfortable. I have a bit of a sheet fascination and buy vintage sheets and bedspreads and try to figure out the best smells for them.

Fun fact is with all my buying of vintage sheets I have run across so many we had at my house growing up in Louisiana. There simply were not so many places to buy sheets before this current Target, Wal Mart life. Sears, JC Penny, Montgomery Ward. I have become a bit of a vintage sheet expert! I love to find unused old stock but when you get int hat bed it will smell good and be soft and fabulous!

I took over in 1997 as the art workshop director as a newlywed after coming for 4 years as an artist. My qualifications were enthusiasm, youth, energy, no kids and the fact that I had been to several artist colonies myself so had some very limited experience. The group who started the workshops needed someone to take it over, and it just fell into my lap as life tends to do. I also had an instant bond with Frankie Apistolas that I am old enough now to understand is very rare! And I had the good fortune that my boyfriend then husband also loved it. But my buying it has changed things , too! It now has a more personal feel but a lot more responsibility. These old places are eye opening in their need for upkeep.  But also just a glimpse into a simpler time. Its worth it.

I continue to try to help Nimrod evolve into a place we can keep creatives coming. It is an ongoing thing to try to get it to work!

However, Not everyone is a Nimrod Lover!

From John Woods Genealogy Book on the Wood Family

A story about a Non Nimrod Person from the 1920s or so.

The adaptability of well -born city people to Nimrod country ways was remarkable but not perfect. I quote from a 8/1983 interview with Macdonald ( Mac) Wellford: The ladies, for the most part, didn’t relax and enjoy themselves as much as they do today, and I well remember going down to the Nimrod Hall and having breakfast, and my aunt-it was Mrs. Mary Allen-had her chauffer drive her up here in her new Buick, and she stayed in the square cottage on the second floor and that morning at breakfast my grandmother was in relaxed clothing that would be suitable for being in the country, but Aunt Mary came in with a hat on -a Queen Anne hat we called them, because they sat on the top of the head-quite a display, and she was dressed up for city life. And my Grandmother said , “Mary, why are you dressed like that? Why don’t you put on some older clothes?, “ Aunt Mary said, “Jeannie, I’m going back to Richmond Today.’ And My Grandmother said, ‘Mary, why in the world are you going back? ‘She said ‘Because I came here to relax and I didn’t get a bit of sleep last night. The first thing I knew, I’d gotten to bed and I heard these crickets. And there were other bugs, locusts and what-not that were making a great deal of fuss and I just couldn’t go to sleep. At the crack of dawn I hear “MOO-OO-OO. “ I couldn’t go to sleep then, and so I’ve decided to go back to Richmond, and I’ve told my chauffer to be ready to go in an hour.”

So much fun this quote! A chauffer, the crickets, the locusts and so it has always been and will always be. Some people are Nimrod People and Some just aren’t!

That is my favorite story! Hope you enjoyed the literal scratch of the surface of the history of this place.

As, I continue to research and dig up old facts. Ill keep you posted!