Commonwealth Preservation Group

304-308 E. Bank St. (Colonial Marble), Petersburg, VA

Colonial Marble, Petersburg, VA

This c.1890 warehouse was used by the Barnhart Mercantile Company as a showroom and manufacturing facility for cultured marble bathroom and kitchen products. After the business relocated, the structure underwent a conversion into an 85-unit rental residential building. The warehouse’s interior was divided into apartments incorporating many of the building’s industrial features, such as exposed brick walls, beams, and pipes. In order to meet sound and fire code requirements, workers applied dry wall to the building’s wooden ceilings; this treatment is reversible and does not harm the historic wood underneath.

The building’s original exterior was reestablished by removing modern additions and a loading dock. At the conclusion of the project, the building maintains an appearance similar to that which it displayed in the 1890s, even so far as the historic, hand-painted signs identifying it as the headquarters of the Barnhart Mercantile Company.

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