It’s the construction of a $2.2 million home, according to records at Henrico County’s building permit office.
The owner of the new mansion at 6705 River Road is its next-door neighbor, businessman and philanthropist William H. “Bill” Goodwin, chairman of CCA Industries and owner of such posh properties as The Jefferson Hotel, Sea Pines Resort in Hilton Head and The Sanctuary at Kiawah Island. This month Virginia Business magazine named Goodwin the state’s 62nd wealthiest and most influential resident, estimating his worth at more than $100 million. Friends say he’s worth more than $1 billion.
Goodwin declined Style’s requests for comment on this story.
The land on River Road and what sat atop it made news a decade ago when Goodwin donated a 1915 stucco mansion, the first in Richmond designed by New York architect William Lawrence Bottomley, to UR. Attempts to sell the 6,000-square-foot Georgian with a library wing had been unsuccessful because it sat too close to the road, university officials told the Richmond Times-Dispatch at the time. So Goodwin gave the historic home to UR and paid roughly $100,000 to move it across the street, where it now anchors the university’s Jepson Alumni Center on College Road.
As for the new home, the 7,000-square-foot house will be constructed in nearly the same spot where the Bottomley house stood, according to architectural plans. Located 145.9 feet from River Road, the coursed rubble-stone mansion will hold more than 20 rooms topped by a graded slate and copper-rolled roof. Four fluted Doric columns mark the portico to an entry hall. An octagonal library wing will jut from right side of the dwelling to the east, and a driveway will be laid at the former site of the Bottomley house’s west wing.
In the course of construction, what has long appeared to be a charming cottage on the property will go. The quaint buff building with teal shutters that flanks River Road, along with another storage garage, is slated for demolition.
Henrico County approved Goodwin’s permits for the residence June 7. S
