Sporting Art Finds New Home

The National Sporting Library in Middleburg has been the only place of its kind since its founding in 1954 -- the country's only scholarly facility dedicated exclusively to equestrian and field sports.

But from its name, one would not guess that in addition to the 16,000 books on its shelves, including 17th-century manuscripts and newly released novels, the library has a collection of more than 100 sporting prints, paintings and sculptures by well-known artists.

The library has embarked on an ambitious effort to give this art a proper home. Its board announced plans last month to transform Vine Hill, a three-story 1804 Middleburg mansion, into a museum that will display the library's permanent art collection and many pieces on loan from museums, including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the Yale Center for British Art in New Haven, Conn., and the Sir Alfred Munnings Art Museum in Britain.

One of the goals is to give the museum's visitors a feeling of intimacy not unlike what they experience at the library, with its small reading alcoves. Library officials said Vine Hill's Federal architecture -- high ceilings, arched doorways, handmade mantelpieces and a curved staircase -- will create such a mood. The two buildings are next door to each other.

"The whole idea with the library was to make it feel like you're in a private home, rather than in a public library," said Nancy Parsons, the library's president and chief executive. "What we want to do with the museum at Vine Hill is to keep that feeling alive. We want it to feel very residential, like a Virginia country house."

The board hopes to start building the Museum of Sporting Art at Vine Hill next year and open it in late 2010. Through private donations, it has raised about half of the $7 million needed for construction and an operating and maintenance endowment, Parsons said.

Vine Hill was built from handmade brick brought by ox cart from Fredericksburg and has passed through several owners, said Lisa Campbell, a librarian who has researched the mansion's history. At one point, it was owned by William Cochran, a Middleburg physician whose wife kept a diary during the Civil War. It also once belonged to Asa Rogers, a Civil War general.

In 1969, the mansion was purchased by George Ohrstrom Jr., a horsing enthusiast whose father had founded the National Sporting Library, Campbell said. The library was housed in Vine Hill from 1969 to 1999, when it moved to its current location, a new building that resembles a carriage house.

Vine Hill sat relatively unused until 2005, when the library acquired the property through Ohrstrom's will. That was when officials began to consider converting the mansion into a museum, Parsons said.

"This is something that has been talked about for many years as a sort of a vision. But it wasn't until 2005, when the house was given as a bequest, that we really started discussing what to do with it," Parsons said.

Although most of the original building will be preserved, some changes are planned. Officials want to build an entrance hall and construct an addition on the west side. The expansion will increase the building from 3,500 to 5,000 square feet, Parsons said.

They are also consulting with experts to add a security system, art lighting, and a heating and cooling system that would preserve the collections.

Officials are planning one to two exhibits a year, and several museums have expressed interest in lending their art, Parsons said.

Although sporting art, which depicts activities such as fishing, fox hunting, horse racing and polo, often caters to a particular audience, officials anticipate that the unusually large collection and the building's history will attract a variety of patrons.

"It's an important building even for people who aren't interested in sporting art," Parsons said.