House Porn: Inside Richmond's Agecroft Hall

demetria lucas January 12, 2016

Agecroft Hall was my first stop in Richmond.

I do a LOT of house tours. It took awhile, but I've passed the newly convert stage where I have to see every single house available, and have become more discriminatory. I’ve figured out the time period that I enjoy most, roughly plantation houses of the one percent and the Gilded Age, 1890-1920 or so.

Agecroft Hall falls way outside the parameters. It’s an 500 year old English Tudor mansion that originally resided in Lancashire, England. So how did it in end up in Virginia? That’s what I was there to find out.

The Biltmore Estate, as seen from the Italian Gardens.

HOuse Porn: Inside Biltmore Estate: Once The World's Largest Bachelor Pad

demetria lucas January 11, 2016

Visiting the Biltmore Estate has been on my bucket list for awhile. I have a thing for Gilded Age Mansions specifically, and home tours in general. Each time I visit one, the guide or someone on the tour asks, “have you been to Biltmore?”

That’s why I decided to go.

It’s the largest private residence in the U.S., sitting on 125,000 acres of land. The actual house, a French Renaissance chateau (it looks like a church) is 175k square feet with 250 rooms, 43 bathrooms and 65 fireplaces.

Members of the Krewe of Zulu parade down St. Charles Avenue on a cold, wet, Mardi Gras Day in New Orleans. JONATHAN BACHMAN / Reuters, courtesy of NBC News

Race, Racism and Stereotyping Black Boys as Threatening Men

demetria lucas December 29, 2015

I just finished reading Kirsten West Savali’s excellent article on The Root about the grand jury failing to indict the officers who gunned down 12-year old Tamir Rice in Cleaveland. ""Given this perfect storm of human error, mistakes and communications by all involved that day, the evidence did not indicate criminal conduct by police," prosecutor Tim McGinty said on Monday.

In her piece, Savali quotes an officer who radioed in Rice’s slaying describing the boy as “black male, maybe 20.” Savali accurately points out, “in a country that overwhelmingly distorts black childhood to fit its vile and violent racial prejudice, Tamir never stood a chance.”

It made me think of something my “Aunt”, (really a cousin, but the age difference makes me think of her differently) said when I visited my family in New Orleans for Mardi Gras in 2012.

House Porn: Inside Richmond's Agecroft Hall

HOuse Porn: Inside Biltmore Estate: Once The World's Largest Bachelor Pad

Race, Racism and Stereotyping Black Boys as Threatening Men

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