Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion, Renaissance Revival mansion in Tuscaloosa, United States.
The Jemison-Van de Graaff Mansion is a Renaissance Revival building in Tuscaloosa with 26 rooms, 18-foot ceilings, and detailed woodwork throughout the interior. A wraparound porch on the western side provides access to several rooms and defines the building's outdoor character.
Samuel Sloan designed the 26-room Italianate house for Robert Jemison Jr., a planter, politician and businessman who pressed the Alabama Legislature to place the Alabama Insane Hospital in Tuscaloosa. John Stewart, Sloan's former partner, supervised construction from 1859; it was mostly finished in 1862, though war shortages left work undone. Jemison died there on October 16, 1871, and the house stayed with his descendants until J.P. and Nell Burchfield bought it in 1945.
The house is named for Robert Jemison Jr., who pushed the Alabama Legislature to place the state insane hospital in Tuscaloosa after the capital moved to Montgomery in 1846. His descendant Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, born here in 1901, later gave the mansion its second name. From 1955 to 1979 the rooms held Tuscaloosa's Friedman Public Library.
The mansion stands at 1305 Greensboro Avenue in Tuscaloosa, run since 1991 by the Jemison–Van de Graaff Mansion Foundation as a museum and event venue. Because rooms are rented for private functions, confirm opening times and tour availability before travelling. The house is a 26-room structure, so allow time to walk the ground floor and upper rooms.
Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, the physicist who developed the Van de Graaff electrostatic generator, was born in this house in 1901. The mansion also had its own coal gas plant, which supplied gas lighting and fuelled the kitchen stove.
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