Plans for North Side’s Bellevue neighborhood began in the 1880s, when Lewis Ginter, Richmond’s wealthiest citizen, began buying large parcels of land in what was then Henrico County. The Panic of 1893 put the brakes on Ginter’s plans, though, and construction in Bellevue, which runs north from West Laburnum Avenue to Westbrook Avenue and east from Hermitage Road to Brook Road, didn’t begin in earnest until 1919, two decades after Ginter’s death. Buoyed by pent-up demand following World War I, construction in the neighborhood boomed, with approximately 1,000 houses getting built in 25 years. The Craftsman and Colonial Revival styles are prominent in the neighborhood, but it also has exceptional examples of Tudor Revival and Spanish and French Colonial Revival.
