Thomas Harding visited a historic Jefferson County home, the fabulous early nineteenth century home of the Dandridge family in Kearneysville.

It’s an over-heated summer’s day. The kind of day you can imagine Tarzan would have appreciated in whichever African jungle he liked to roam.

I am on my way to one of Jefferson’s County’s most historic properties, The Bower. The top is down on my 1994 Mazda Miata. Not a smart thing to do on such a humid day, but what’s the point of owning a rag-top if you can’t enjoy the wind through your hair ?

I arrive at The Bower drenched in sweat. Louise doesn’t seem to mind. This is a relaxed, go-with-the-flow kind of place. Nobody is standing at attention. The Bower is somewhere to enjoy the pleasures of life. It is not a place of rigor and discipline.

At first we sit on the front porch, an enormous deck with long wooden tables, rocking chairs, and assorted children toys. Then Louise gives me a tour inside. We stroll into a large living room with a huge becandled chandelier that still shows signs of being burnt over a hundred years before. We take a peek at the dining room, with fourteen foot ceilings, giant fire place, and sepia pictures of earlier generations hanging from the wall.  Up the wide wooden stairs—mahogany maybe—and we bump into Louise’s family members on the second floor landing. Two of them are tapping feverishly away at their laptops. Apparently the wireless connection only works well on the landing. We waive hello. I poke my head into various bedrooms, some painted pale yellow and blue, other with plaster au naturale.

We walk upstairs and Louise shows me the walls where four generations of Dandridges and McDonalds have scribed their names and heights. There must be over 200 names on the wall. She points to where an uncle fell through the ceiling from the attic. She shows me where her dad fell over the second floor banister and plunged to the ground floor. He survived, thankfully. It is a place of family lore and sweet memories.

Louise leads the way and as we walk she tells me about the rich history of the place.

The Bower land was acquired from Lord Fairfax by Adam Stevens in 1752. The parcel totaled some 6,000 acres and was called the Adam’s Bower—a bower being a shaded glen or arched tree-covered area.

Construction of the house was begun in 1804 by Steven’s grandson, Adam Steven Dandridge. It was completed by 1811. The bricks that make up the majority of the house were fired on the property. The clay for the bricks was probably dug from local river banks.

Today the house sits on 360 acres and still belongs to the Dandridge family—a remarkable achievement in itself. The Bower comprises 11 bedrooms and two bathrooms. The kitchen was moved upstairs at the end of the nineteenth century by a relative who was fed up with preparing meals in the basement. A fire destroyed much of the furnishings of the house in the nineteenth century, but many of the most important items were saved. Today, some of these remain in the house, but most have been donated to historic homes and museums around the country.

The land has been continuously farmed. Today horses are kept on part of the land. Much is being left fallow after years of abuse by former tenant farmers.

There are some ten family members who share the ownership of the property. They are all active in the management of the place. No one wants to split up the land; they are united in preserving the home and the acreage into the future.

Louise grew up in a transient family, traveling across the country. She lived in Minnesota, California, and Asia. The Bower is what she calls home. When she was growing up she would visit The Bower during summers, as did many aunts, uncles and cousins. Now she lives at the Bower with her husband Jim and three children, William, Serena, and Skye.

Louise has many stories to tell about the house. She says that J.E.B. Stuart’s Confederate cavalry camped at The Bower off and on during the war. There is even a picture him in the main hallway of the house. Sam Sweeney, a famous banjo player, strummed at The Bower to celebrate Stuart’s raid on Chambersburg.

As the tour continues, it becomes clear that the house is not in pristine condition. Paint is peeling from the ceilings. Furniture is stacked in the dining room. There is no central heating in the house. Louise tells me that the cold in the winter is almost unbearable.

But The Bower is not a Homes and Gardens house. This is where much of its charms lies. The Bower is, and has always been, a functional family house, albeit of grand historic proportions. The Bower still plays host to the family hordes every summer—cousins, uncles, aunts, grandchildren, all eager to get together, to catch up, to savor the warm summer evenings—to take a float down the Opequon River that runs through the property.

The Dandridge family has a grand tradition to live up to. A grand tradition to continue into the next century.

Above; The Bower from the front; The Dandridge Family (page, left to right) William McDonald Newman, Kirsten Lee, E.L. McDonald, Mary Lloyd McDonald, Ashlynn Sims, Joy Lee Waltermire, Lousie McDonald, Holmes McDonald, Holmes Waltermire, with Zach the dog. Louise’s husband Jim was absent; Blackened Chandelier hangs in living room; JEB Stuart portrait in hallway.