“THE VILLAGE

BEAUTIFUL”

What got constructed…

What didn’t get built…

What else got erected…

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Introduction… “The Village Beautiful” was a slogan adopted by the Hilton Civic League when it was organized in 1919. The story of Hilton Village’s rapid construction the year before is well documented elsewhere and is also nicely summarized by this historical marker, located near the intersection of Warwick Boulevard and Main Street. Less well known is what was originally contemplated…and what was not…in the concept’s innovative design. Several major features of the master plan for Hilton Village were never realized. Others were modified during and shortly after the 1918 construction period. Plus, there were also a few unplanned additions made during this bedroom community’s first few years. Over the nine-plus decades of Hilton Village’s existence, many far-reaching changes have been realized, resulting in a somewhat eclectic mix of structures. The original homes, both modified and unchanged, still stand, for the most part. But they are now surrounded by numerous businesses and public service facilities. All together, Hilton now exhibits a wide range of architectural styles never contemplated by the Village’s planners and architects. The following pages provide a descriptive overview of the portions of the original master plan that were realized, plus a discussion of several additions, modifications and deletions that were made during the community’s first decade.

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What was planned… The original plan for Hilton Village, which was at first referred to as ‘an industrial housing development’ included much more than just residences, as many housing projects just did that were later created. Hilton Village’s projected five hundred residences were to be provided with an infrastructure that included paved roads, street lights, a domestic water and fire main system, and sewers. In addition, the following facilities were contemplated:

• A village square on Warwick County Road [present day Warwick Boulevard] at the original eastern termination point of Main Street

• Lots for twenty stores, two churches and a village hall near the square • A school and community center on the banks of the James River, at the

western end of Main Street and fronting on River Road [an architect rendering for this combined-use facility, designed to be compatible with the village’s housing is provided below]

• Two additional lots reserved for churches near the school • A railroad station and a trolley line • A community garage and apartments adjacent to the railroad station • Athletic playing fields near the village square and a riverside park near

the combination community center/school structure • Roadways that could be extended north and south to connect with future

developments including the streets that now connect the village proper with Brandon Heights and Rivermont [which were developed years later]

There is no mention of a fire station being provided for in these community-comprehensive plans. The contemplated community garage may have been originally intended to include housing for fire apparatus. During construction, a fire truck and associated equipment were kept at the contractor’s work camp, which was located on the James River, adjacent to the Hilton farm house which once stood near the intersection of Post Street with River Road. But like all plans of ambition, there were major changes made along the way…

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What was constructed … One of several things impressive about Hilton Village’s beginning is the rapidity of its creation. From conception to completion, the community’s hundreds of English Tudor styled, sturdy residences and basic infrastructure were conceived and built in less than two years. The need for housing for shipyard workers at the beginning of America’s entry into World War I became acute when Newport News Shipbuilding’s employee ranks swelled from a pre-war low of seven thousand to a war-time high of fourteen thousand. Construction of the Washington Avenue Apartments, row housing on Huntington Avenue and side streets near the shipyard somewhat eased the shortage of available housing. There was even a tent city erected for single men near the shipyard. But those additions were not enough to satisfy the need. In October 1917, the shipyard hired a nationally acclaimed town planner to develop a housing plan for use on a tract of largely wooded land two miles north of the shipyard. Transportation to and from the shipyard was to be provided by an extension of Newport News’ trolley system. When those plans were completed, shipyard president Homer L. Ferguson took them to Washington, DC in January of 1918. On January 11, 1981, his efforts resulted in the US Shipping Board authorizing $1.2 million to create Hilton Village. The Shipbuilding Realty Corporation was created on February 7, 1918. Detail plans for a variety of single, duplex and row houses were finalized, including input regarding the interiors of residences from wives of shipyard workers. A Pittsburgh firm was selected to do the building, and land clearing began on April 18, 1918. To help facilitate the delivery of materials, a temporary spur track from the C&0 railroad’s main line was built, running across Warwick County Road and into the heart of the construction site. The spur line is depicted on the next page, along with other photos taken as Hilton Village became a reality.

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A dedication ceremony was held in the village on July 7, 1918, before any of the homes were completed. Two months later, the first families moved in, albeit largely surrounded by mud, construction debris and in residences largely bereft of any landscaping. By October 1, 1918, there were thirty-one families living in Hilton Village. But the end of World War I on November 11th precipitated several changes in the completion of Hilton Village. The number of houses originally contemplated was scaled back from 500 to 473. Row housing, such as show below, was erected along both sides of Warwick County Road. In later years some of these residences became retail shops. The next year, the only structure built as part of a planned, much larger commercial district was a multi-use village hall, which occupied the second floor of the large building depicted below, which included space for several businesses on the first floor. It was once located where a present-day parking lot exists; on the west side of Warwick Boulevard, across from the Hilton Baptist Church. In addition to being used for village business purposes, it also was a social center where some of the first talking movies were shown. One of the earliest commercial tenants was Seward’s Grocery, located on the first floor of this building at the far left end. The awning visible in the following faded photo shaded produce that was set out and displayed on the sidewalk every day.

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The trolley line extension from old downtown Newport News went into service on September 30, 1918. The trolley line ran through Hilton and north to the World War I site

of Camp Morrison. It terminated in a loop about where Cedar Lane presently intersects Warwick Boulevard. Until the mid-1940’s, trolley tracks ran parallel to the original, two-lane Warwick County Road in what is now the grassy median south of the village.

What didn’t get built… Amongst the facilities never built were a planned railroad station and the combination community hall/school. A short road, identified for years as Station Street, ran along the northern side of the village square from Warwick County Road and dead-ended at the railroad tracks. Station Street, for years, was mistakenly believed to have been named for the Hilton Fire Station [not built until 1936]. But in actuality it was intended to provide vehicular access to, and was named for a never-built, railroad station. Depot Street, shown on this segment of a 1918 plot plan also never existed. Main Street was apparently first extended eastward before ‘Hilton Square’ disappeared. That street development followed the general path of Station Street, but stopped at the railroad tracks. It was later extended across the tracks [to Jefferson Avenue in 1947, and under them in 1961]. That’s why Main Street curves in the vicinity of the Newport News Main Public Library building.

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A village office/garage, barely visible in the aerial photo on Page 2, was erected behind Hilton Square, perhaps in the 1920’s. It may have also housed the village’s fire apparatus until the adjacent Hilton Fire House was built in the 1930’s. Large lots on the west side of Warwick County Road that flanked Main Street, where the Village Theatre and nearby businesses now stand were left vacant for years. They also can be seen by inspecting the Page 2 photo. Athletic playing fields located east of Warwick County Road, where a parking lot behind the Methodist church is now situated were just unimproved fields. The Hilton farmhouse and a fire truck were turned over to the newly-formed Hilton Village Fire Department in late 1918 by the construction company after finishing its work. The department’s all-volunteer residents of the village converted the structure into a club house, but also allowed the Hilton Civic League, formed in 1919 use it for community meetings and social events. The department’s membership later raised funds to build a recreational pier nearby for public use. Appearing in the upper right hand quadrant of the vintage aerial photo on page 2, it once jutted far out into the James River and was located several hundred yards north of the present-day Hilton Pier. Both farmhouse and that fire department-built pier have been gone for decades. A Riverside Park, per se, was never established. The closest thing to such a community recreational facility was the playground between Hilton Elementary and the river, and a thin strip of sandy beach. A later addition, at a corner of the school property was the original and popular Hilton Pier. Destroyed by a hurricane, it was replaced by the larger and more substantial current pier.

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Planned apartment buildings were also never realized in Hilton Village. Instead, their lots were later used as sites for a few more ‘Hilton style’ houses, which were erected near the intended railroad station site. The four lots set aside for churches remained vacant, albeit for relatively short periods of time. Following the war, the Shipbuilding Realty Corporation, which was an arm of the US Shipping Board, offered houses in Hilton Village to those shipyard workers/renters in residence at a price of $2,800. These sturdy structures typically had 1,200 square feet of livable space in each of the detached dwellings. Their cooking facilities consisted of a coal stove in the kitchen; heat was provided by a fireplace in the living room. $2,800 was a bargain, for the cost per unit to the US Government, including a pro rata share of the village’s infrastructure had been $3,200. But in 1919, there were no takers. The shipyard cut back drastically on employment, following the wholesale cancellation of most of its numerous naval contracts. Surplus ships, both military and commercial, resulted in few new shipbuilding contracts being awarded to Newport News Shipbuilding for several years. The jobs of the workers that remained on the shipyard payroll and who lived in Hilton Village were uncertain, at best. Making a commitment to purchase a home was unthinkable, so they continued to rent until times. Rental for a six-room home was $24 to $36 per month, based on each skilled craftsman’s ability to pay, which was based on monthly wages ranging from $123 to $182. What else got erected… Shortly after the Shipbuilding Realty Corporation abandoned the idea of building a combined community hall and school, the Warwick County School Board started to make plans to erect an elementary school needed to help educate the younger citizens of Hilton Village. Their interest and financial capability, of course, was limited to providing just an educational facility. The US Shipping Board donated the necessary land and the school board funded the building’s construction with a twenty-year bond. The original Hilton Elementary school building, completed in 1919, replaced temporary classrooms in a nearby vacant residence. The new structure was a fraction of the size of the present-day school complex. A boxy, brick structure it looked nothing like the original design…nor did it compliment the architecture of the other structures in the faux English village.

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Once there were sufficient numbers of people in residence in Hilton Village, four religious dominations organized small flocks. Initially they met in such places as the village hall located above store fronts on Warwick County Road, classrooms in the elementary school and the fire department clubhouse. As their numbers grew, they each claimed one of the lots that had been set aside for churches. Based on fragmentary records, St. Andrews Episcopal Church was established sometime in 1919, and this small framed sanctuary of the same general architectural style as that of nearby homes was erected soon thereafter and consecrated on August 22, 1920. This building was ultimately replaced by a much larger edifice. A duplex residence located behind the church became a parish house for St. Andrews. In June of 1919, 37 Methodists and Presbyterians residing in the village organized a shared Sunday School in the firemen’s clubhouse. Roughly a year later, ground was broken for what was first named Hilton Methodist. This structure was completed in 1921 and later replaced and renamed [the present-day and much enlarged First United Methodist Church]. The history of that church includes this charming explanation of its unusual starting time for Sunday worship services:

“There is a story behind how we came to meet at 10:45 a.m. instead of 11:00 a.m. as is more customary. There was trolley service to

Hilton from downtown. An electric trolley system ran down the middle of Warwick Boulevard. The worship service had to be out in time to

catch the trolley and thus the earlier time. This story has some detractors who believe the Methodist simply wanted to beat the

Baptists across the street to the local restaurants. The trolley version is considered the more plausible of these two tales, given the date of

the church's establishment.”

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Members of the Baptist faith first met in the village hall. After receiving title to the vacant lot across the road that had been set aside for just such a purpose for the token amount of $1.00, this structure was erected, facing Warwick County Road. The first service held there took place on January 9, 1921. Like other village churches, Hilton Baptist expanded several times; eventually becoming the present-day and much larger sanctuary that fronts on Main Street.

The congregation of Hilton Presbyterian Church totaled 49 when it was organized on December 21, 1919. An old building in Newport News was cut up and moved to a corner of Main Street and River Road. Small and sparsely furnished, it was replaced by a more permanent structure in October of 1921. No photographs of either of these early church buildings could be found. A third structure, the much larger current church building was completed in the 1980’s. Vacant Hilton homes were donated by NNS’ real estate operation to each of the four church’s congregations for use as parsonages. Mrs. Homer L. Ferguson, wife of the shipyard president is credited with being the driving force behind this charitable effort that indirectly benefited her husband’s employees. By 1921, more than half of the completed homes in Hilton Village stood vacant. That same year, the US Government declared Hilton Village surplus and put the property up for auction. Henry Huntington, chairman of the shipyard offered the highest bid; thereby putting NNS somewhat reluctantly in the real estate business. The shipyard formed the Newport News Land Corporation to handle village rentals and upkeep, and to continue to try and sell individual homes. It was years before all of Hilton Village’s residences were sold to private interests. To promote sales, the Newport News Land Corporation created six model homes on Main Street. In 1926, gas lines were run in the village, providing a more efficient heating and cooking source of energy for its inhabitants. Ten of the houses proved particularly hard to sell. Closely clustered in groups of five, they were located on both sides of Main Street between Warwick County Road and Piez Avenue. By 1926, no one was any longer renting any of those properties. The head of NNS’ real estate operation proposed using the vacant structures to build an inn; primarily to house prominent visitors to the shipyard. His idea was accepted, and Henry Huntington provided the necessary funding to create the Colony Inn; reportedly $80,000 [in 1927 dollars].

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The inn opened for business in May of 1927, and operated until 1960, when it was replaced by nondescript commercial buildings. The Colony Inn was carefully crafted to reflect the overall English Tudor style of Hilton Village. The following vintage photos indicate how its two buildings, which flanked Main Street, blended into their surroundings.

Over the next several decades, many more structural additions were made to the Hilton Village ‘grand plan’. Commercial buildings eventually filled all the open spaces along Warwick County Road and spilled over to some side streets. Their architecture was generally not of the style envisioned by the village’s planner. Many of the row houses along that road eventually became small shops, or were torn down to make way for ‘progress’. But in the heart of Hilton Village, architectural time essentially stood still. Although many of the homes experienced changes, both internally and externally, generations of appreciative residents have largely maintained the flavor of the original plan. The development of a preservation plan was started in 1968 by the village’s residents and Newport News city officials. That plan, completed and adopted three years later, took longer than it did to create the village from scratch. Hilton Village was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1969. Today, this 95 year-old development sits serenely under a canopy of mature trees; in stark contrast to this 1920 image of Main Street which shows planned and one of the unplanned elements of this then-newly finished community.

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Postscript… Many of the images used in this article were captured by long-time shipyard photographer E. P. Griffith. He served in that capacity from 1901 until 1948, and left us thousands of vintage photographic memories taken all over the Virginia Peninsula, including over 200 made during the village’s construction. When I was born in 1936, my parents lived on Hopkins Street in “The Village Beautiful”. I was baptized in St. Andrews Episcopal Church. Sometime later, my family moved to old downtown Newport News; closer to my father’s workplace. In 1945, we moved again, to the Huntington Heights area, but in Warwick County, a few blocks from what was once the City of Newport News’ northern boundary. I attended Hilton Elementary, where my best friend was Bobby Carleton. His father was the minister at Hilton Methodist. I spent many a happy hour in this duplex residence at 226 Hurley Avenue, often waiting for my mother to come for me following one of those ‘rainy day’ sessions at Hilton Elementary. While visiting in the Carleton home, I witnessed people bringing food in payment for various services conducted by Bobby’s father. And, I now suspect, to subsidize what likely was his father’s meager salary. In 1947, Bobby’s father was reassigned to a church in Roanoke and they moved away. Recently, after recalling that idyllic, albeit abbreviated childhood friendship, I searched the Internet and found him. Surprised by my call after 66 years of non-contact, he enjoyed our subsequent telephonic reminisce. Other pre-teen activities included attending Saturday morning shoot-em-up movies at the Hilton Theatre. Later on, I was a member of Boy Scout Troup 40. We met in the basement of the Baptist Church educational building and camped out in the wooded lake-side wilds where Riverside Hospital is now located. Those are but a few of many childhood experiences that flood my memory. Far too many to mention…and a few best not documented! Back then, I didn’t pay much attention to what was happening to the physical entity called Hilton Village. Now, I cherish that part of my past. In appreciation, I offer this insight into how it all began and evolved in the village’s first few years of existence to the current residents safeguarding this one-of-a-kind community.

Bill Lee February 2013

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“THE VILLAGE BEAUTIFUL”