Exploring Richmond: The Branch Museum of Architecture & Design

This Tudor Revival style home was designed by famed architect John Russell Pope and completed in 1919 for the Branch family as their winter home.

If you’re wondering how a 27,000-square foot home could be merely a winter home, same. 

The answer: Banking. According to the museum’s website, “after the death of his father, John Kerr Branch became president of family-owned Merchants National Bank (later named First and Merchants, then Sovran, and now Nations Bank).” He and his wife were both very active in multiple civic and social organizations in Richmond, New York, and Florida, and they had homes in New York and Italy.

In 1983, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places, and in 2003 the property was sold to The Virginia Foundation for Architecture. It’s now The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design, the first museum of its type in the southeast. 

When Retex’s Josh & Katelyn Lewis visited the museum, much of the interior was being used to showcase recent 3D printing and Smart Home projects from Virginia Tech students, a fascinating pairing of the old with the new in architectural design.