Branch House History

The Branch House was designed by renowned architect John Russell Pope for financier John Kerr Branch and his wife, Beulah Gould Branch. Constructed between 1917 and 1919, the 27,000-square-foot Tudor Revival residence was created to house the family’s collection of European art, antiques, tapestries, and furnishings.

Though it served primarily as the Branch family’s winter residence, the home was built for entertaining on a grand scale, with eleven levels, a dramatic great hall, long gallery, library, and dining room for hosting guests and displaying the family’s treasures. Ornamental plaster ceilings, leaded glass windows, stonework, and intricate wood detailing created a richly layered backdrop for the family’s collections.

Pope, who also designed the Jefferson Memorial, National Archives Building, and Richmond’s Broad Street Station, created the Branch House as one of the earliest and most complete examples of Tudor Revival architecture in Virginia. Its interiors remain among the finest surviving examples of Tudor, Elizabethan, and Jacobean Revival design in the United States.

Today, it remains the largest single-family residence ever built on Monument Avenue and the only individual house on the avenue listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Following decades as a private residence and later office space, the house opened as a museum in 2015. Today, The Branch Museum of Design is Virginia’s only museum dedicated to design.

Chronology

1919 The 27,000 sq. ft. Tudor Revival style Branch House designed by John Russell Pope, is completed.

1953   Branch family gives the house to the United Givers Fund, a precursor to the United Way.

1982 Robert E. Pogue and his wife Janice W. Pogue of Richmond buy the house and set up the offices of Pogue & Associates, Inc., an insurance agency representing Northwestern Mutual.

1982 The Pogues subsequently donated a preservation easement to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources. In exchange for tax benefits, the easement stipulated that "no major changes (could) be made to the exterior or interior, in perpetuity."

1983 The Pogues successfully apply to list Branch House on the National Register of Historic Places.

2003   Virginia Center for Architecture Foundation purchases the house.

2005   Virginia Center for Architecture opens to the public.

2015 The mission and vision expands to The Branch Museum of Architecture and Design.

2025 The Branch changes its name and focus to The Branch Museum of Design.