The Dunnington Mansion Foundation is a registered 501c3 nonprofit organization.
Mission
1) Preserving and promoting the historical and cultural significance of Poplar Hill. Our website currently houses the most extensive collection of information on Poplar Hill in existence. Our goal was to create a timeless, inclusive resource for those wanting to learn about this amazing property and the people who lived and worked there from 1740 to the present.
2) Rehabilitating the property for adaptive reuse as an event and education center. Our mission is to save a historically important structure and teach associated and inclusive history while remaining financially solvent. The unique pairing of event tourism with history-telling and educational outreach will contribute to the economic development of rural Virginia.
We Need Your Help!
We are raising money to cover website expenses, legal expenses, historical research and for rehabilitation expenses to restore the mansion. We are actively trying to acquire the mansion from the investor group who owns it.
If you would like to be a part of this amazing and ambitious project please donate today.
Donations are tax deductible. No amount is too small and EVERY LITTLE BIT HELPS!!
If you have questions, comments, or are uncomfortable donating through a digital platform please feel free to contact us!!
The DMF is also applying for many grants to secure funding for our historic preservation and rehabilitation efforts.
Board of Directors
Heather Beach (President)
Heather Beach is the founder of the Dunnington Mansion Foundation. She fell in love with the beauty and the tragedy of Poplar Hill in 2021. This website she created is dedicated to preserving the history of the house and the people who lived and worked on the property.
"I am a full time small animal veterinarian, graduating from the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine in 2005. I practiced in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia before relocating to south central VA with my husband and two small children. I love historic properties and the joy of sharing their history with the public. Poplar Hill is very close to my heart."
Ryan Murtagh (Secretary)
" I'm a Richmond based photographer that fell in love with abandoned and forgotten places. I joined a Facebook group of like minded individuals and shot a multi-part series on the "Dunnington Mansion". This attracted the attention of Heather Beach and thus the Dunnington Mansion Foundation was born!
I'm self taught in the art of photography using role models like Taylor Jackson and Peter McKinnon to inspire my eye. In 2017, I started my professional career that has taken me to so many wonderful places and allowed me to meet some of the best people.
I'm big on legacy and much like this beautiful historic mansion, I hope to leave a legacy behind that helps inspire others to follow their passions."
John Prengaman (Treasurer)
"After college I married my wife Chris and started a career in the wholesale food industry, spending twenty five years in sales, marketing, purchasing, private label product design and direct importing.
I then decided to get into the golf industry, getting my PGA professional certification and working as a Director of Golf as well as a General Manager at two different facilities in Pennsylvania. Five years later I was presented the opportunity to come to Farmville, Virginia and oversee the final construction of the Poplar Hill Golf Club, now named the Manor, and opened the course in June 2006 as the GM.
In 2012, I was hired as the Facilities Director at Hampden-Sydney College until I retired at the end of 2020. After retiring, I took on the role of construction manager for the new Pauley Science Center project at the college.
I am looking forward to spending quality time with my three children and eight grandchildren. "
Ann Shields Stone (Board Member)
"I am the great-granddaughter of India Knight and Walter Grey Dunnington, whose daughter Lucie was my grandmother. My brothers and I grew up spending many weeks of the summer in Farmville with our parents Ann and Watt Shields throughout the 1950’s and 1960’s. Poplar Hill, of course, is a large part of those summer memories."
Clint Mooney (Board Member)
"As a realtor, photographer/videographer and previously, a State Park Interpreter, I was drawn to this mansion and the goals set forth by this foundation. A group of people inspired by something bigger than themselves!
Farmville Virginia is an amazing place to live and has been for a long time. The Dunnington Mansion’s history is a perfect example of that. I feel honored to be a part of this group. One day I hope to see this home restored and become a beacon for the community where all can enjoy such an amazing piece of local history."
Richard McClintock (Board Member)
Richard McClintock of Farmville is trained as a Latin Professor, but for years his day job was as editor and graphic designer at Hampden-Sydney College. A lifelong preservationist and architectural historian, in retirement he produces build-it-yourself kits of historic houses, as fund-raisers for the sites.
He is active in local arts organizations, as former co-president of Central Virginia Arts, as a member of the advisory boards of the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts and of the Atkinson Museum of Hampden-Sydney, and as a volunteer designer for local groups, like the Heartland Regional Visitor Center, High Bridge Trail State Park, the Heart of Virginia Festival, and the Moton Museum. He is an appointed member of the Prince Edward County Tourism Committee.
John Karratti (Board Member)
"I'm a photographer based in Meherrin, VA. I'm currently working for the Farmville Herald and several non-profit organizations in the Prince Edward County area.
I am extremely passionate for anything nature and history related. The Dunnington Mansion holds a special place in my soul, as our own home in Meherrin was built in 1754 and has some ties to Poplar Hill. I am humbled to be a part of the DMF and the mission!"
Jeffery A. "Free" Harris
Jeffrey A. “Free” Harris is a Hampton, Virginia based historian & historic preservation consultant who works with preservation organizations, historic sites, and non-profit organizations on issues related to diversity in the preservation movement and historic site interpretations. He is a national public speaker on US history, as well as on issues related to African American, US music, LGBTQIA+ and diversity broadly within the broader historic preservation movement.
Currently, Free is working as a consulting historian on an architectural survey of Thomas W. Boyde, Jr, the first registered African American architect in Rochester, NY; he also served as a consulting historian on a multiple property document focused on Virginia’s African American waterman communities around the Chesapeake Bay. He served as a consultant on the first phase of an historic context study of the LGBTQIA+ communities of Raleigh, NC.
Free was the first Director for Diversity at the National Trust for Historic Preservation; he also served as Program Coordinator for the organization’s African American Historic Places Initiative. Free currently is the Board Chair of the Rainbow Heritage Network, a national organization that advocates for the preservation of LGBTQIA+ historic places. He also served most recently on the Virginia Board of Historic Resources (2019-2023).
In July 2024, Free gave a lecture at the Preservation Institute Nantucket (a part of the University of Florida’s historic preservation program) on making the intangible in historic preservation tangible. Free gave the 2023 L. C. Dillenback Lecture at the Syracuse University School of Architecture on Thomas W. Boyde, Jr. (the first Black graduate of the school’s architecture program) and his place among African American architects of the early to middle 20th century. He contributed the chapter “’Where We Could Be Ourselves’: African American LGBTQ Historic Places and Why They Matter” to the National Park Service’s 2016 LGBTQ Heritage Theme Study.
Past consulting clients have included the Heritage Ohio, the Nevada Preservation Foundation, Hanbury Preservation Consulting, the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, and Cliveden (a National Trust Historic Site).