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Welcome to Riddick’s Folly

While Mills Riddick’s contemporaries may have mocked his Greek Revival home when it was built in 1837, the house now stands as a beautiful reminder of the past.

This most impressive structure on Main Street in Suffolk features striking architectural details. The five frieze band windows across the front of the house are rarely seen in eastern Virginia. The front of the mansion is bricked in Flemish bond, and double chimneys rise from both ends of the stately historic landmark. Slender columns of the Greek Revival period frame the main entrance. The interior showcases intricately carved, gilded moldings and elaborate ceiling medallions throughout the main floor of the house.

Riddick’s Folly has four floors, twenty-one rooms, and sixteen fireplaces. All four floors are open to the public. The building features elegantly furnished double parlors, a gentlemen’s library, and adult and children’s bedchambers, as well as a bathing and dressing room on the third floor, slave quarters on the fourth floor and the winter kitchen which is housed in the English basement along with the laundry and dining rooms. We also have a tastefully stocked Gift Shop in the English basement which was once the larder or pantry. Upcoming projects include restoring portions of the carriage house and outside fencing.

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