At the upcoming University of Virginia Board of Visitors Finance Committee meeting on Sept. 12, the university is expected to lease and transfer the historic Oak Lawn home to Charlottesville City Schools for a “nominal fee.”
The 5.2 acre property was built in 1822 by enslaved African Americans and designed by the same carpenter who was employed by Thomas Jefferson for Monticello and the university campus in the distinctive Jeffersonian style. It was later sold to James Fife, becoming a cornerstone of the Fifeville neighborhood.
CCS Superintendent Royal Gurley wrote in a press release that Oak Lawn may “enable Cville Schools to achieve many of the benefits for students that we initially envisioned in our proposal to acquire the Federal Executive Institute,” with the expansion of programs such as early childhood education, alternative learning and career and technical education…