A 19th century downtown building whose namesake fought alongside Napoleon Bonaparte is up for grabs for the first time in more than 50 years.
The Crozet House at 100 E. Main St. was listed for sale in recent weeks with an asking price of $1 million.
The two-story brick building dates back to the early 1800s and came to have its name when it was owned and occupied by Claudius Crozet, a French civil engineer who’d served under Napoleon before coming to the U.S. in 1816. Crozet became known for engineering multiple railroad tunnels that cut through the Blue Ridge Mountains near what’s now Afton and Waynesboro. He was also a founder of Virginia Military Institute.
The property changed hands a few times throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, and it eventually shifted from being a residence to an office, notably housing architecture firm Marcellus Wright and Son, which designed the Hotel John Marshall and former General Assembly building downtown.
For the last 50-plus years, it’s been owned by the Adamson family. Vincent Cassel Adamson bought the building for $125,000 in 1973 and used it as office space while serving as a juvenile court judge. He later passed it to his son, Vincent Cassel Adamson Jr., who used it as the offices for his law firm, Adamson & Adamson.
John Adamson Jr., who used the building as a law office for decades (Courtesy Adamson family)
The building has been mostly vacant since the 1990s, when Adamson Jr. retired. He passed away late last year, leaving the property in the hands of his children, John, Vincent III, Louise and Kirkpatrick.
John Adamson said since he and his siblings don’t have a need for the property, they made the difficult decision to put it on the market.
“We’ve decided that after 50 years, it’s time to hand the baton off to the next user that we hope owns it for 50 years and loves and enjoys the building,” Adamson said. “As a family, we are interested in trying to make sure that we put it in the right person’s hands and that we aren’t just selling it to sell it.”
The property hit the market in recent weeks, with One South Commercial’s Justin Sledd and Chris Corrada handling the listing. It totals about 7,400 square feet across its two floors, plus an English basement, and it sits on a 0.2-acre plot with 12 off-street parking spaces. The building is on the National Register of Historic Places and is being marketed as a historic tax credit renovation opportunity.
Adamson said the building is not without its flaws. He said it’s due for a new roof and some of the brick needs repointing. But he said he’s proud of the degree to which his father helped preserve the building, with many of the original plaster moldings and millwork remaining.
“(My father’s) greatest contribution, after using and loving the building for 20 years, is the fact that it’s unmolested. It’s been a little bit of a time capsule, and there are not many buildings you can walk in and have that,” he said. “It’s been preserved, or ‘pickled’ maybe, and in a way that gives the next owner a lot of flexibility and latitude as to what they want to do and how they want to do it.”
The property was most recently assessed by the city at $875,000. It’s currently zoned B-4 Central Business District, which allows for commercial and residential uses, and the city’s proposed rezoning initiative, Code Refresh, would see it zoned MX-7, which allows for a mix of residential and commercial uses. Adamson said he’d be wary of selling it to an apartment developer.
“That wouldn’t feel like I was doing the building any favors,” he said. “I would ideally love to see it go to somebody that will use it as an interactive space so people have an opportunity to go in and enjoy the building and the history of it. That would be the highest and best use, in my mind.”
Elsewhere in Monroe Ward, another historic building is getting new life a few blocks up. The owner of The Jefferson Hotel is busy converting the former Second Baptist Church Building on East Franklin into a banquet hall and event space.
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