THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 6, 1994 TAG: 9407020203
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 08 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Long : 196 lines
AFTERNOON BREEZES have just begun to waft across the wide front porch of Four Square, when the door of the two-century-old plantation swings wide in welcome.
The greeting of the home's newest hostess, Amelia Healey, is as warm, as welcoming, as the inviting entrance with its grapevine wreath and wooden rocking chairs.
And inside, in the spacious foyer, are more signs of hospitality: flowers, family portraits on the walls, a guest book that, on one page, marks the end of one era, on the next page, the beginning of another.
The book was brought from Pennsylvania, where Roger and Amelia Healey, until last spring, ran a bed and breakfast in a 150-year-old, restored farmhouse.
When they decided to move to Virginia, Amelia Healey said, the guest book, like the bountiful collection of family antiques now gracing Four Square, came with them.
The decision to migrate south was easy, Roger Healey said. Last winter, in their home near Pennsylvania's famed Amish country, they lived through 88 inches of snow from Jan. 1 through the end of March, temperatures that bottomed out at 61 degrees below zero, considering the wind-chill factor, and 21 inches of snow on the porch roof.
``This past winter was not exactly swift up there,'' Healey said.
Still, moving one more time was not high on the Healeys' list of priorities. For the couple, it was the 24th relocation.
Roger Healey retired from the Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1980. Since they were married around the time of the military buildup for Vietnam, they have lived, to name a few locations, in Panama, Brazil, North Carolina, Kentucky, Texas, California and twice in Virginia.
During the late '70s, the moves became more difficult because the Healeys began to inherit family antiques, most of them very large, very heavy.
``You simply can't get some of this stuff in a conventional home,'' Amelia Healey said, chuckling and waving her hand across the parlor. ``I carried a 25-foot tape measure around in my purse. I was always prepared.''
Roger Healey's father and grandfather both were antique dealers, mainly in armaments, from the turn of the century until the 1940s. Grandfather Healey made 138 trans-Atlantic voyages to purchase goods.
While in Europe, Amelia Healey said, both men succumbed to whatever struck their fancy in the way of furnishings, even if it happened to be a 98-inch-long dining room table out of a Spanish monastery, dating to the 1500s.
``I knew I had to have a dining room at least 16 feet long,'' Amelia Healey said. ``The table just doesn't get any shorter.''
It was the table, in a roundabout way, that led the Healeys to Four Square.
Roger Healey worked in the defense industry for about 10 years after he retired.
During that time, the couple purchased the old farm in Pennsylvania with the three-and-a-half-story farmhouse.
With little else to do with 14 rooms, and acquaintances from all the years of traveling frequently dropping in, the Healeys opened a bed and breakfast.
They enjoyed it, Amelia Healey said. They loved the company, enjoyed the after-dinner conversations. In addition, Amelia Healey was able to use the skills she learned when she ran her own catering business.
But last year, when the couple got an offer they couldn't refuse on the farm, they started to search for another home.
Hampton Roads was a prime consideration. , They had lived in the area before, and the close connections here to the military was a prime consideration.
Another prime consideration was the monstrous monastery table.
``We weren't even going to do a bed and breakfast,'' Amelia Healey said. ``But we had to have the dining room. When a friend in real estate put that requirement into her computer, three places came up. One of them was Four Square.''
And it was the first one the Healeys looked at.
``There was no comparison,'' Amelia Healey said. ``I called Roger and said, `Hey, I found this place but . . . if we could use it as a bed and breakfast, it would be viable.' ''
At that point, Amelia Healey had only a hint of the old Isle of Wight County home's connection to her own family. In addition to accommodating the table, she thought, the house may have been the ancestral home of her parents' best friends.
``I always called Waverly Gwen Thomas my other mother,'' Amelia Healey said. ``Her father was J. Waverly Thomas. Her grandfather was J.O. Thomas, the one who was famous for holding the foxhunts here. I called Waverly and her son answered. I said, `Tell me. What was the name of your family's property in Smithfield?' ''
The answer, of course, was Four Square. That sealed the sale.
After getting clearance from the county for a bed and breakfast, the Healeys moved in on April 7. Most of the changes they wanted to make to the house, Amelia Healey said, were decorative, and they started work immediately.
First came the parlor, finished on Mother's Day. After the dining room was made over to grace the table, the Healeys started working on the three upstairs bedrooms, to serve as guest rooms.
The Thomas Room, named for the family that made the house so well-known for its hospitality, is decorated in mauves and greens, generously splashed with family heirlooms and Amelia Healey's needlework.
The Woodley room, done in shades of rose, features its own private bath, yet to be remodeled, and is named for the family who built the home. The Vaughan Room takes its name from Amelia Healey's family, originally from Gloucester and Middlesex County. Many of the cherry and oak furnishings in that violet and green room belonged to Amelia Healey's mother.
Eventually, Amelia Healey said, all the fireplaces in each of the guest rooms will be opened. Later, the Healeys plan to add gas logs for ambiance, and for safety as well.
``We have feather mattresses to go on the beds during cooler months,'' Amelia Healey said. ``We'll have all of the down stuff that makes everything so warm and comfy.''
The Healeys welcomed their first overnight guests, who found Four Square by calling the local Chamber of Commerce, in earlyJune. As soon as she received the call, Amelia Healey went shopping.
Breakfast is the only meal Four Square can serve under the bed and breakfast guidelines, but Amelia Healey plans to make those meals memorable.
``We had grapefruit, blueberry muffins, coffee or tea, an onion and cheese omelet, Virginia ham,'' Amelia Healey said.
She started the practice of feeding travelers well before she sent them on their way in Pennsylvania, she said, and she is determined to continue. Often, she said, she'll serve a ``theme'' breakfast. For the Southwestern theme, the guests get eggs in flour tortillas.
``Always there will be fruit, homemade bread and an entree,'' she said. ``I serve some vegetarian dishes. I try to find out if the guests have any special requirements.''
Since taking over Four Square, Amelia Healey said her own priority is to return the old home to its former glory, to restore its reputation for hospitality. She has made it clear throughout the community that the house is part of the county's past, and it should be considered part of the county's present.
``Four Square has always had a history of people coming in, of hospitality,'' she said. ``The house will be available.''
Already, the county Tourism Bureau has used the grounds in front of the house for that organization's annual meeting. The county arts league is talking about holding a fund-raising dinner on the grounds later this year.
``Everybody is welcome,'' Healey said, smiling.
Four Square, she said, is likely her family's final move. They have found a climate and an atmosphere they enjoy.
But there is something more.
The house in Pennsylvania, Healey said, was always ``the house'' or ``the farm.'' Southern-bred, Healey said she never called that house ``home.''
``Here, I have been home since I walked through the front door,'' she said. MEMO: HOUSE'S HISTORY
Four Square was built in 1807 by Andrew Woodley, a man who was born
on the huge plantation established in 1664. Woodley was county sheriff,
a major in the Virginia Militia and presiding judge in the county
court.
The house, a Virginia Historic Landmark on the National Register of
Historic Places and the Historic American Buildings Survey, is a
Colonial, L-shaped, two-story frame structure. Many of its rooms feature
elaborate woodwork and moldings. Four Square has three chimneys, double
entry doors and a central hallway.
Its name came from the fact that the original plantation encompassed
a square mile, referred to since biblical times as ``four square.''
According to a brochure on the house, it ``ranks among the largest of
its type with one of the finest collections of outbuildings surviving in
southeastern Virginia.''
In 1854, the house was passed to Julius O. Thomas, a Woodley nephew,
and a history of fox hunting began at the plantation. For 50 years, a
hunt was held annually on Feb. 6.
``The walls of Four Square resounded with mirth and revelry, to
cultivate good fellowship and dispense a generous hospitality,'' says
the book ``Four Square and Fox Hunting,'' written in 1905 by R.S.
Thomas.
Four Square passed to the Bank of Smithfield in 1933.
In 1985, it was auctioned to J.E. and P.F. Crocker and E.H. Doggett,
who still own the surrounding lands.
The Healeys purchased the home this spring from John and Bonnie
Kuhnemann.
- Linda McNatt
ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
NEW BED AND BREAKFAST
[Color] Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
The Isle of Wight County Tourism Bureau gathers at Four Square
Plantation for its annual meeting. The owners hope to restore the
house's reputation for hospitality.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
The dining room at Four Square is large enough to accommodate the
Healys' 8-foot-plus monastery table - a selling point that drew them
to the plantation house.
Roger and Amelia Healey, at left, have a special feeling for their
new house. It was the ancestral home of close friends of Amelia
Healey's family. That's another factor that sealed the sale and
brought the couple to Virginia from Pennsylvania.
A four-poster, a fireplace and samples of Amelia Healey's needlework
will welcome guests to this bedroom - one of three available in the
bed and breakfast.
by CNB