Carver Homes

Carver Community Overview

This historic neighborhood has survived neglect and dissection by highways to undergo a renaissance. Fueled by a strong community organization, streets and homes in Carver have become a showcase of renewal and rebirth. In the 1840s, Carver was built on an area of Richmond divided by steep ravines at the western edge of Jackson Ward. Originally, Carver was settled as a working-class neighborhood of predominantly German and Jewish merchants and tradesmen. They later were supplanted by black families, and Carver became an important part of the thriving black community in Jackson Ward.

The movement west of lumberyards and brickyards to Carver from what is now downtown Richmond gave the neighborhood an early industrial component. In the 1930s, Belvidere Street sliced Carver off from the rest of Jackson Ward. Despite this, the area remained a thriving Black neighborhood with a social mixture of working poor and upper-class professionals.

As a part of the urban renewal programs of the 1950s, many historic Carver homes were demolished. The 1960s saw the construction of Interstate 95, which again erased entire blocks of Carver and cut off access from the north.

To combat these continued incursions and other losses of the architectural fabric of the neighborhood, the Carver Civic Improvement League was founded. This organization has fought to preserve the charming Victorian homes of the area.

A walk through Carver reflects a neighborhood in transition. This decline experienced for years has been replaced by a growing interest in restoration and the construction of new homes sensitive to the appearance of the neighborhood in both their scale and their historic style.