Claremont Manor

Claremont Manor is an 1,100 acre estate situated on the right bank of the James River about 30 miles southeast of Richmond. A beautiful Georgian manor house sits on the property along with several outbuildings in the same style. Extensive gardens surround the main house which overlooks the James River. The origins of Claremont Manor date back to the 1620s when George Harrison, one of the Jamestown settlers, established a small tobacco plantation on the site. Mr. Harrison died in 1623, the victim of the first recorded duel in Virginia. The estate passed to the Clement family and then to the Allen family in 1681. The Allens built the manor house that exists today in 1750. At one time, the estate amounted to 12,000 acres and was a significant agricultural supplier to the confederacy during the Civil War. However, being on the losing side didn’t work out for the Allens. After the war, their Confederate currency worthless, they were forced to parcel out Claremont (much of it to migrating yankees). The last Allen threw in the towel in 1886 and moved to New York to practice law bringing 205 years of family ownership to an end..

In the ensuing decades after the war, Claremont Manor had many owners but three stand out. In 1940, Millicent Rogers bought the estate. Ms. Rogers was the granddaughter of Henry Rogers, a partner of John D. Rockefeller in the Standard Oil Trust. Millicent was a fashion icon and socialite during the early decades of the 20th century and later became an activist promoting Native American rights. Millicent had an active love life, marrying three times, once to a broke Austrian count, and included among her romantic partners actor Clark Gable, James Bond author Ian Fleming, and various princes from Russia, Italy and England. Mr. Gable was a frequent guest at Claremont Manor and contemplated buying a nearby plantation home. Millicent sold Claremont Manor in 1950 and retired to her home in Taos, New Mexico where she established a museum of Native American art that exists to this day.

Between 1950 and 1964, Claremont was owned by James and Margaret Carter. James owned coal mining properties in Virginia and he and Margaret, although never making Claremont their primary residence, embarked on extensive renovations and additions to the property including adding to the main house and rebuilding various outbuildings. They also bought adjoining parcels more than doubling the size of the property. They sold the estate in 1964 and it served as a parochial school for the next 12 years until it was purchased by Lewis and Ann Kirby. The Kirbys added even more land to the estate bringing it up to its current 1,100 acres. Ann Kirby is a descendent of one of the owners of the Woolworth department store empire. Lewis was a graduate of Princeton University and served in General Patton’s Third Army in World War II. During his time in the service, he fought in the Battle of the Bulge and was present at the liberation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. After the war, he had a long career in the insurance industry. The Kirbys were passionate about Claremont and family traditions and heraldry. Ann passed away in 1996 and Lewis in 2015. Presumably, Claremont Manor is now controlled by their three children.