Shyndigz owners to turn Ellen Glasgow House into boutique hotel

The Ellen Glasgow House at 1 W. Main St. has been on and off the market for five years. (Image courtesy CVRMLS)

After five years on and off the market, one of Richmond’s more notable 19th-century mansions is in the hands of new local owners who have a conversion project in mind.

The Ellen Glasgow House at 1 W. Main St. is planned to be turned into to a 12-room boutique hotel by Bryon and Nicole Jessee, owners of local dessert shop Shyndigz, and Ed Bowman, president of local contracting firm W.E. Bowman Construction.

The 184-year-old, 11,000-square-foot mansion – named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist who resided and wrote there the majority of her life – was sold Friday to an LLC owned by Bryon and Bowman for $1.6 million.

The parlor room includes a mirror from James Madison’s Montpelier estate. (BizSense file images)

The sale includes an adjoining parking lot that had been removed from the listing since it first hit the market in 2020, when it was priced at $3.5 million.

The Jessees will own and run the hotel and plan to call it “Dear John,” the name they’d had in mind for a 19-room hotel they’ve been planning to build beside Shyndigz on Cary Street in the Fan.

Nicole and Bryon Jessee

With that project currently on hold, the Jessees are taking the concept and applying it to the Ellen Glasgow House, which the frequent travelers noticed was listed for sale while driving back from a trip to Virginia Beach.

“I said, ‘Hey Bryon, that mansion is for sale, let’s circle around and just look at it,’” Nicole said. “We looked at it, saw the price, thought it was worth looking at it. We called Ed that day.”

The couple had previously talked about partnering on the Cary Street hotel with Bowman, whose firm worked on Shyndigz’s new space and has done some restoration and preservation work. The Jessees decided to shift their focus for the hotel to the mansion, which Bowman said he had also noticed when it first became available.

“I had seen the property on the market about five years ago and was excited about it, looked at it, but the problem was trying to find the highest and best use for the property,” Bowman said. “I didn’t pursue it at that time. Then we talked to Bryon and Nicole, and I’m like, this could be a fit. This could fit within the framework and the structure of the building.

Ed Bowman

“It’s such an elegant place,” Bowman added. “It’s meant for hospitality, with the almost 14-foot ceilings and the ornate moldings and details. It’s fabulous.”

Working with agent John McGurn of Providence Hill Real Estate, the group toured the house multiple times, coordinating visits with listing agent Doug Dorsey of Shaheen Ruth Martin & Fonville Real Estate. Dorsey took on the listing a year ago after previous listings by other agents, and an attempted auction, had proven unsuccessful.

The group also met with seller Jack Pearsall, who with wife Tricia had lived there for 34 years. Pearsall had also based his law firm at the property, which is zoned for both residential and commercial use.

“In real estate today, that rarely happens,” McGurn said of sellers meeting with potential buyers. “We’d gotten the word through Doug Dorsey (that for) Mr. Pearsall, this is his baby. He said he’s really worried about who’s going to do this and what the end user will be.”

“Getting together was key to making it happen,” Dorsey added. “With a house like this, there’s a lot of moving pieces. It worked out well that everyone could literally sit around the dining room table inside the house and talk through the ideas and thoughts.”

While such meetings are atypical in real estate transactions, Bowman said it was warranted in this case, given Pearsall’s history with the house and its years on the market.

“Obviously he has a huge heart for this building – he raised his family there, he had his business established there – and, frankly, it had been on the market for a while, so we wanted to understand why he didn’t take other offers and what was going to make our offer different,” Bowman said.

Tricia and Jack Pearsall

“We heard that he wanted to see that it had a real purpose, that it wasn’t speculating or anything like that, that we’re going to take care of the property,” he said. “We like collaborative approaches. It leads to the best outcomes on projects.”

While Pearsall had hoped the house would remain a residence, he said he and Tricia are happy with the group’s hotel plan.

“I was surprised to find that people don’t want to live downtown and this magnificent mansion could be on the market as long as it was without finding a buyer,” Pearsall said. “I think it’s well that there will be a use that brings it into the public eye more so than it has with my ownership. It certainly is one of the landmarks of Richmond and should be so recognized.”

The Pearsalls, who now live in Manchester, said they hope the use also keeps Glasgow’s legacy in the public eye – something that Nicole said is a goal with the hotel. Glasgow lived there from when she was a teen until her death in 1945, writing all but one of her novels there depicting Southern American life, including her Pulitzer-winning final novel, “In This Our Life.”

Ellen Glasgow

“Each room will be unique, no two rooms alike. Our real goal is to honor Ellen and to bring more attention to what she actually did,” Nicole said. “With the whole history of the house, we can’t really change a lot, which we love. My creative team from Shyndigz will just be bringing in a lot of unique art, to put in play the experience that we give at Shyndigz.”

Protective covenants restrict what can be done with the main house, but Bowman said they do allow for bathrooms to be added to the 12 rooms that will be used as guest rooms.

“Basically, it’s going to be a bathroom remodeling project, times 12,” he joked.

Beyond some fresh paint and system upgrades, Bowman said the main house doesn’t need much work after decades in the Pearsalls’ care. They plan to use the carriage house as a caterer’s kitchen or other operational use before possibly converting it to a larger suite for guests.

Bowman said they expect to put more than $1 million into converting the house for hospitality use.

“It’s going to be high-end,” he said of the hotel. “We’re right across the street from The Jefferson (Hotel), so it’s going to be that kind of caliber. We’re aiming for that five-star style with fixtures and things of that nature.”

The home’s downstairs rooms have 14-foot ceilings.

The hotel’s name, “Dear John,” is a tribute to the Jessees’ 4-year-old nephew, as well as a nod to the wish-you-were-here moments Nicole said she experiences when she and Bryon travel.

“We were never able to have kids, so when John came along…he’s become our inspiration and light of our life,” Nicole said. “When you travel or you have one of those special moments that falls in your lap and you’re so overjoyed and have a thought, for me, I write these letters in my head. I hear this voice that says, ‘Dear John, I wish you could see this.’”

Nicole said the “Dear John” name takes on added meanings given the home’s association with a famous author. Bryon said a logo they had designed for the hotel when they were planning it for Cary Street also happens to feature a pen.

The upstairs bedrooms have 13-foot ceilings. (Photo courtesy CVRMLS)

“It’s kind of like the stars aligned that day on our drive from the beach,” Nicole said. “From the time that we pulled in there to look at it, it just felt right. It feels like it was meant to be. It’s so much more ‘us’ with the character and history of it.”

The group said they’re aiming to open the hotel in time for this year’s holiday season. W.E. Bowman will be doing the work, which Bowman said would require city and state approvals and typically take about 12 months.

“We’re going to accelerate,” he said.

While they’re not moving forward with the Cary Street project as they focus on the Ellen Glasgow House, Bryon said a hotel there could still be in their future.

“We’re not going to say never. We’ve got a permit to build (there). But this is definitely the priority,” he said.

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