University News

UVA restores chain gate pillars with a nod to the past

The University of Virginia’s new Chain Gate is like the old one, but without the chain.

Facilities Management workers restored the Chain Gate pillars on Ruppel Drive, flanking the University’s entrance from Jefferson Park Avenue, as part of the McIntire School of Commerce’s Cobb and Shumway halls building project. The new pillars, which have a concrete block core and brick exterior, were moved from their original positions and rebuilt, from the footings up, to look like the originals.

an original ornamental element of the Senff Gates

An ornamental element of one of the gate pillars waits to be lifted into place on the new pillars at the Chain Gate. (Photo by Matt Riley, University Communications)

“They should be almost identical, less the settling cracks and dirt and grime from decades of weathering,” said Craig Hilten, senior project manager in capital construction and renovations for UVA Facilities Management. The original gates had a chain to block through traffic on Hospital Drive, which then stretched from Jefferson Park Avenue to University Avenue.

Hospital Drive is no longer a through street and ends in a turnaround in front of Varsity Hall, which was relocated in 2005 to make way for the Robertson Hall addition to Rouss Hall at the McIntire School. The University renamed the remaining short portion of Hospital Drive running from the other side of Varsity Hall to Jefferson Park Avenue as “Ruppel Drive” in honor of the late Andrew Charles Ruppel, who taught management of information technology at McIntire for 38 years before his death in 2010.

The reconstructed pillars remain at the same point on the road, but with more distance between them.

“They were moved to be more accessible for fire truck ingress and egress and to accommodate an Americans With Disabilities Act-compliant entrance from Jefferson Park Avenue onto Ruppel Drive,” Hilten said.

“The paved surface will become more flush with the existing grade of JPA and be less severely sloped to accommodate accessibility requirements,” he said before the project. “Utilities were set deeper, and soil was cut away. It will be about 24 inches lower in the area near the gate structures.”

Gustavia Tapscott Senff, a Richmond native, paid for the original gates, first installed in 1916. She was the widow of Charles H. Senff, a director of the American Sugar Refining Company in New York City, who died in 1911, leaving an estate valued at around $11 million.

the new pillars of the Senff Gates on Jefferson Park Avenue

The new pillars, which have a concrete block core and brick exterior, stand in their new placements along Jefferson Park Avenue. They were moved from their original positions and rebuilt, from the footings up, to look like the originals. (Photo by Lathan Goumas, University Communications)

Gustavia Senff began supporting the University in 1912, funding improvements to the entrance of the old Temperance Hall on what is now University Avenue. Then-University President Edwin Alderman enlisted architect Henry Bacon, designer of the Lincoln Memorial, to craft the gates on the north end of Hospital Drive. Dedicated on Founder’s Day 1915, the gates marked the beginning of Senff’s gifts, which later included decorative pillars at the south end of Hospital Drive, where it connected to Jefferson Park Avenue.

While the larger, more ornate gates on the north end of the road bear the Senff name, the south gate became known as “the Chain Gate” after William Lambeth, then the superintendent of buildings and grounds, suggested in a letter to Alderman using chains across the road to restrict public access.

“Unless this gateway is closed, … the private road of the University will at once become a public road of the county, which will result in the destruction of this road,” Lambeth wrote.