On Saturday, December 7, the 2019 Harbour House Tour will be held from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. in Urbanna. There are six stops on the tour. Tickets are available at Cyndy’s Bynn, Lowe Tide, Fin and Pearl, Bristow’s Store, If It’s Wood and More, ReSail Boutique, and Simply YaYa’s. Town businesses will be open extended hours for shopping that evening.
The tour is sponsored by Urbanna Beautification Inc. and the Town of Urbanna. Visit www.urbanna.com or call 804-758-4477 or 804-815-1060 for more information.
Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 on the day of the event. Box lunches will be available for purchase.
This year’s tour houses include The New Burton House, Foley House, Riverside Retreat, Wyatt Condo, Agnor Condo, and Little Dipper.
In the coming weeks, each house will be profiled with a photo in the Southside Sentinel.
The New Burton House
In the 1870s the original Burton House was purchased by Columbus “Lum” Burton (a Civil War veteran) and his wife Lucy where they raised eight children. Later their residence became a boarding house. They also owned and ran the steamboat dock just a few hundred feet away from the home on Urbanna Creek. People coming from the steamboats could walk up the hill to find a place to board during their stay.
The Burton family was a dynamic family unit. Lum’s son Aubrey ran his father’s steamboat dock at the end of Watling Street (Burton’s Wharf) until it closed in the late 1930s. The entire family was talented in art and music and emphatically Methodist. They were also very involved in helping to establish Urbanna United Methodist Church. Circuit Methodist ministers longed to preach at the town’s Methodist Church because Lucy Burton served up a wonderful Tidewater-Virginia home-cooked meal afterwards. Capt. Lum would slip the ministers $6 for their efforts, good or bad, in payment for their sermons.
Lum’s great-granddaughter, Beth Justice, grew up in the Burton House and raised her family there as well. She and her husband Rod had been living in the home for many years until January 6, 2018 when fire quickly burned it to the ground. Sadly, they lost everything, including their animals.
The community lovingly supported Beth and Rod while they recovered from their injuries and found temporary housing. As soon as the debris was cleared, The New Burton House was being planned to replace the family homestead with Virginia Building Solutions. The new house is about half the size of the original Burton House, but the water views from 3 sides are spectacular! The two-story house is 2,250 square feet with 10’x40’ double back porches overlooking beautiful Urbanna Creek and the Rappahannock River. It has three bedrooms, three full baths and a gourmet cook’s dream kitchen with a large food pantry that Beth’s Grandma Lucy would have loved! The gingerbread railing and corbels reflect the original Victorian look of the family home.
Beth and Rod are very excited to be back living in their new home after an extraordinary year and a half.
