Cooperative Living June 2021 - 17

The Virginia legislature elevated
him to the state Supreme Court in 1930,
and he became chief justice in 1947.
Hudgins married Lucy Wren Morton
in 1910. They built their first home
directly across the street from the
property that now makes up the
museum and gardens. In 1929, when
the couple moved into their new home,
Lucy started the gardens. She named
them MacCallum More to honor her
Scottish heritage.
She was distantly related to the first
Duke of Argyle, Archibald Campbell,
and the seat of the head of the Campbell
clan was called MacCallum More
in Gaelic.
She also had unique qualities.
" One interesting personal fact about
Mrs. Hudgins is that she apparently
had a skin condition on her ankles,
and her physician told her to expose
them to the sunlight, " says Diana
Ramsey, director of buildings and
grounds.
" She used to go up to the attic and
take naps with her bare feet sticking
out of the third story window, surely
creating an unusual sight for her
neighbors and other passersby. "
Lucy Hudgins was passionate
about genealogy. The late Dr. Joseph
Eggleston, former president of the
Virginia Historical Society and of
Hampden-Sydney College, once
described her as " an outstanding
Virginia genealogist. "
So it's no wonder that several of
the dedicated plaques in the gardens
are tributes to her family lineage.
Many local folk tales also portray
Hudgins as a free spirit and a oneof-a-kind
personality.
Edwin and Lucy Hudgins had two
sons, Edward Morton Hudgins, born
in 1910, and William " Billy " Henry
Hudgins, born in 1915. After World War
II, Billy worked
directly under
President Harry
S. Truman and
Gen. Dwight D.
Eisenhower in a
special detail in
1950, and served
as a senior aide to
Adm. Robert B.
Billy Hudgins
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The artistic displays inside
and outside the museum and
gardens are a plethora of unique
items that all help to tell the
story of a former chief justice
of the Supreme Court of Virginia,
and his family, who lived there.
Carney from 1951 to 1953 during
the formation of NATO.
THE HOME & GARDENS
Built in the Colonial Revival style
in 1929 by famed Richmond architect
Carl M. Linder, the MacCallum More
house has many historically significant
features.
The paneled wainscoting in the
dining and living rooms and the mantel
came from Stoneland, the 1711 home
of Revolutionary War Col. Lewis
Burwell, rebuilt in 1816 after a
catastrophic fire.
In addition, the blue silk damask
wall covering in the dining room
was once used as a backdrop in the
Virginia Supreme Court chambers,
while the crystal chandelier with
blue Bohemian glass is said to have
come from a historic palace in
Vienna, Austria.
Edwin and Lucy Hudgins made
MacCallum More their home until
their deaths in 1958 and 1964,
respectively.
In 1965, Billy Hudgins, long
retired from the Navy, and having
just logged his second million
miles of travel as a senior
cruise director with Matson
Cruise Lines in San
Francisco, became the
sole owner of the property.
" It was under Billy's ownership that
the gardens became something truly
unique, " says Thorpe, noting that he
expanded the original 1.24-acre tract
by purchasing adjacent lots as they
became available.
He then stocked the garden
with an untold number of statues,
sculptures, artifacts and architectural
examples imported from Europe,
obtained from local area houses and
from demolished buildings in
Richmond and Norfolk.
Today the home, gardens and the
museum, which was established in
1996, all sit on a combined 6 acres. All
are assembled into an indescribable
mix that renders the word
" eclectic " obsolete and brings
about visions of what it might
have looked like if Charles Foster
Kane had opened and
displayed the contents of
every crate shown at the end
of the movie " Citizen Kane. "
Many of MacCallum
More's artifacts also have
hidden or secret histories in
addition to their artistic
merits, such as the cornstalk
ironwork embedded in the wall
(continued on page 16)
June 2021 | Cooperative Living | 15
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Cooperative Living June 2021

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