By Ed Simmons, Jr. cpreporter@verizon.net

Now preserved by the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities, "Gay Mont" has found a new owner. "Gay Mont," two miles west of Port Royal on Route 17, was a noted location during the Civil War.

On June 12, the APVA closed on the sale of the 1798 property with John Cay, III, of Charleston, South Carolina. Easements on the house and its 300 acres will prevent changes to the home not approved by the Department of Historic Resources and block any future development of the land. The home's collection of furnishings was also transferred with the sale.

The money from the sale will be invested in the APVA's long-term reserves which produce interest that funds operating expenses. The funds will also buy historic objects and be used for their preservation.

"Gay Mont" was gifted to the APVA by James Patton and his wife in the late 1970s. They had bought the home from the Robb family in the 1950s after a fire destroyed the structure. From memory and photographs, the home was reconstructed. With the death of Patton in November 2007, the home passed to the ownership of the APVA. The new owner, John Cay, has received permission to modernize the kitchen and bathrooms and rebuild the rear wing which was a music room. Only the music room's foundations presently exist. Cay also intends to restore the gardens.

"When the house was acquired," said APVA Director Elizabeth Kostelny, "there might have been a brief thought that it would function as a historic house museum." That idea was judged economically untenable.

Kostelney described the Patton's rebuilding effort as "quite a love story of two individuals to recreate what was lost."

Originally the home belonged to the Bernard family. During the Civil War, four of the Bernard sisters kept diaries and wrote letters describing the war years and visits to the home by Confederate military notables including "Jeb" Stuart and Major John Pelham who was nicknamed "The Gallant Pelham."

The diaries and letters were collected and edited by Fredericksburg author Rebecca Campbell Light. The resulting book, first published in 1998, is called War at Our Doors – The Civil War Diaries and Letters of the Bernard Sisters of Virginia. The volume, in the Caroline Collection at the Bowling Green Caroline Library, is considered a resource for Civil War history and those interested in local history.

Copies of the book are also available from Historic Port Royal by calling Port Royal Town Councilman Bill Henderson at 804-742-5036. "We are very pleased to have preserved this historic home," said Kostelny.