The Renewal and Preservation of the Brafferton
An effort to preserve one of the College's most important historic buildings.
The College of William & Mary is seeking $4.5 million in private funding for the renewal and preservation of the Brafferton (1723), the second-oldest building on the College's historic campus that today houses the offices of the president and provost.
The Brafferton predates a host of other houses as the earliest surviving example of the prototypical two-story, double-pile Georgian house in Williamsburg. Its completion was a significant step in the process of establishing Georgian architecture, first in Williamsburg and then throughout the colony. The Brafferton escaped the fires that plagued the Wren Building and President's House, yet for more than two-and-a-half centuries, the Brafferton has stood in the shadow of these other two historic structures, receiving less attention. The time to redress this inequity is long past due.
Today, William & Mary turns again to private sources of support for the funding needed to renew and preserve the Brafferton, which owes its existence and its 1932 restoration to the generosity of private benefactors.
The exterior brick walls of the Brafferton are the most substantially original of the College's three colonial buildings. The exterior was restored to its colonial appear ance in 1932 as part of the Rockefeller Restoration of Williamsburg.