Farrington Hall, Shelby County Road 203, Aldrich

Source document Quoted word for word from HAER ALA,59-ALDR,2-. Not written, edited or summarised by this site.

Shelby County Road Aldrich, Shelby County, Alabama. Date of Construction: Builder/Architect/ Engineer: William F. Aldrich Proj ect Information This report is based upon written documentation donated by the Birmingham Historical Society, reformatted to HABS/HAER guidelines. Description: This two-story brick structure with gambrel roof features a full-basement, gabled entrance and central chimney. The roof overhang is supported by decorative scrolled iron brackets. The structure employs structural steel and concrete. Steel beams in the interior ceilings were covered with walnut board. Italian artist Monetta hand painted murals depicting the phases of a man's life in realistic landscapes around the entire wall of the main room, which also features leather wainscoting.

The construction budget was rumored to be Two original cast iron light fixtures and decorative iron work inset in the gable ends at second story remain. The structure faced the mining camp's superintendent's residence, Rajah Lodge, which is no longer standing. It currently serves as a private residence. FARRINGTON HALL HAER No. AL-127 (Page 2)

Historical Overview

Farrington Hall was built as a library, office building and club house for William F. Aldrich's personal use. The basement was designed to allow Aldrich's mechanically-minded 18-year-old son Farrington to work on then-newly-invented automobiles. In Farrington attempting to clean one of the coal mine reservoirs, developed typhoid fever and died just as the building was being completed. It is named for him. For many years Farrington Hall, called "Check Office," was used as offices, for the Montevallo Coal Mining Company, with company doctors Dr. F. B. Givhan and Dr. L. C. Parnell seeing patients in the basement.

Farrington Hall brick entrance gates and a gardener's residence are the only surviving structures on the former "Rajah Lodge" estate, an multi-turreted 30-room frame residence surrounded by gardens, fish pools and walks designed by a German landscape architect brought from the botanical gardens in Washington D. C. The Aldrich family name was spelled out on a bank alongside the driveway leading to the carriage house. Area residents considered the private grounds and the conservatories among the most magnificent private gardens in the South. Builder of Farrington Hall and the Rajah Lodge and gardens was William F.

Aldrich, a New York born civil engineer who came to Alabama in In with others, he formed the Montevallo Coal and Transportation Company and personally superintended the building and conduct of the mines and community of Aldrich, which according to one source, became a "model of order, quiet peacefulness and cleanliness." Lawlessness was not a problem as Mr. Aldrich would dismiss any person of questionable character. In Aldrich married Josephine Cables of Rochester, New York. In the Aldrichs moved to Birmingham. Their residence, later a boarding house for workmen at the mine, was demolished in (Emfinger Sources Consulted Meroney, Eloise, Montevallo: The First One Hundred Years, p. 47 Emfinger, Henry A., The Storv of Mv Hometown. Aldrich. Alabama, pp. Site Visit with Henry Emfinger,