Lewis G. Larus Park's Journal

Lewis Griffin Larus and his brother started the Larus & Brother tobacco company in 1877. Larus bought land at Stony Point in 1915 and later acquisitions increased the estate to over 500 acres. There was an existing house on the estate which burned down in 1924. Larus rebuilt the house in a fanciful mixture of English Tudor, Elizabethan and Jacobean styles. The gardens included a field of daffodils that was the delight of Larus’ wife Anne Gavin Taylor Larus. Those daffodils have been engulfed in the forest edge, but still come up every spring, though rarely bloom. Larus died in 1966 and the family rented the house to Charles S. Valentine Jr. and Elizabeth Williams Gookin, who taught at St. Michael’s School in Bon Air. They opened Stony Point School that year and it remains a school today. The remaining land was donated to the City of Richmond in the 1970s. Lewis G. Larus Park was opened to the public in 2006.

📢 Heads up #RVA! 📢
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The main entrance for Larus Park, located off Huguenot Road at Hayden HIll Road, will be affected by two City of Richmond construction projects over the next 18 months. While access into the park via a temporary trail will remain available at this location, parking will not be. The City is requesting that park visitors DO NOT park along either side of Hayden Hill Road to access the Park.

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There are several other access points for the Park that visitors should plan on using. The closest is along the 3400 block of Stony Point Road. Signs have been placed guiding visitors to the parking. Another is at 3900 Beechmont Road.

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Thank you for your patience while the City works to upgrade its infrastructure.

The upper section of Richmond’s Larus Park is a great reminder that above the fall line of the James, Richmond is still, geologically, at the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Chestnut Oaks don’t tend to live long — not by oak standards, anyway — but while they are living they produce the biggest acorns you will find.

To find this remarkable stand of chestnut oaks, park at the Larus entrance on Huguenot Road, next to the fire station and convenience store/gas station. Walk about 100 yards through some young pines, and you’ll be standing among the oaks.

From "Urban Forest Dweller", August 2020