Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

There are no restrictions.

Preferred Citation

Carneal and Johnston, Grace Baptist Church and Sunday School, Architectural drawings and plans, 1948-1955. Accession 41192, Drawings and plans collection, Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia

Acquisition Information

Gift of Grace Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia, 11 May 2004

Biographical/Historical Information

William Leigh Carneal, Jr. and James Markam Ambler Johnston began their firm around 1908 after spending a year working independently out of the same office space. The firm went on to become one of the most prolific and long-established architectural practices in Virginia.

Carneal, born in Richmond on October 24, 1881, graduated in 1903 from the Virginia Military Institute. He began his architectural practice around 1906 following a three year stint as a clerk in his father's company, Sitterding-Carneal-Davis Company. Johnston, born in Rockbridge County on May 18, 1885, studied engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and Cornell University before moving to Richmond in 1906. He worked at the Richmond Cedar Works for one year until he began his own architectural practice.

From 1908 until 1950, the firm of Carneal and Johnston (the firm was known as Carneal, Johnston, and Wright from 1928 through 1945, when Oscar Pendleton Wright was a partner) helped to mold the architectural environment of central Virginia, especially Richmond. Responsible for over 1300 buildings, Carneal and Johnston practiced in a wide-range of project types, from the mundane to the monumental. While they did execute some residential buildings, the firm generated a far greater number of public, commercial, and industrial structures. Some of their most notable structures include First Virginia Regiment Armory (1913), the Virginia Mutual Building (1919-1921), the Virginia State Office Building (1922-1923), Saint Joseph's Villa (thirteen buildings, 1930-1931), the Virginia War Memorial (1932), and various structures on the campuses of Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) and Virginia Military Institute.

The firm survived following the founders' retirements in the 1950s. Subsequent owners were Miles Cary Johnston, James Beck, and Raymond Browder who sold the firm to employees Carlos H. Costas, W. Fred Hughes III, and Kenneth E. Bunch in 1984. In 1999, the surviving firm of Carneal and Johnston merged with Ballou Justice Upton, Architects, and ceased to exist as an architectural firm.

Scope and Content

These 41 Blueline prints and 40 Blueprints (the latter being two sets of 19 and 21 each) represent three sets of architectural drawings for two Grace Baptist Church building projects undertaken by the Richmond, Virginia, firm of Carneal and Johnston. The earliest drawing set (Commission #1186), dated July 6, 1948, depicts a new sanctuary building constructed on donated land in the Windsor Farms neighborhood of Richmond. This structure replaced an earlier sanctuary at the southeast corner of Grove Avenue and Boulevard in Richmond and was the result of a growing congregation and need for expansion. Additionally precipitating a need for a new structure, the earlier church building suffered a devestating fire on January 26, 1946. The drawings illustrate floor plans, elevations, sections, details, and mechanical plans for the sanctuary building.

The two additional sets of plans (Commission # 1309) are incomplete plans for a Sunday School addition to the previously constructed sanctuary. Dated December 17, 1953, the sets are missing some architectural sheets and other extant sheets are heavily damaged and torn. These appear to be working sheets, as corrections and changes have been made in red pencil directly on the drawings. These drawings also depict floor plans, elevations, framing, sections, details, and mechanical/electrical plans for the structure. The electrical sheets have been revised and are dated January 11, 1955.