Captain John Cussons, a native Englishman, confederate scout, author, and entrepreneur, married Mrs. Benjamin Allen (after whose family Glen Allen was named). He settled here after the Civil War and established a printing company. In 1881, he built a six-story fashionable resort hotel with over 100 elaborately decorated rooms known as Forest Lodge adjacent to the railroad tracts. The resort hotel occupied 1,000 acres, which also boasted a hunting preserve, lakes, boathouses, gardens, parklands, and an amphitheater. Forest Lodge was never the success it was hoped it would be, and in later years served first as a boarding house, and later as apartments. The parklands reverted to woods. Forest Lodge was demolished in 1989 due to development plans. The County of Henrico restored the top cupola, all that remained of the building, and it is now located on the corner of Mountain Road and Old Washington Highway.
- Available for viewing from the outside.
- (County of Henrico, November 2003 HCHS newsletter)
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