After languishing for much of this decade, the old Dibrell House is sparkling again with new paint and new life. Dubbed Broad Street Manor, this Queen Anne style structure is one of Danville’s three newly-opened Bed & Breakfast inns; its revival in less than a year is a credit to a former resident of Long Island, New York, who adopted this house and Danville as her home. 

Like most Danville mansions of the late-Victorian era, this handsome brick structure is an exponent of the City’s post-Civil War tobacco prosperity, when entrepreneurs came here to make a name for themselves. One such man was R. L. Dibrell, who built this house. In 1873 eighteen-year-old Richard Louis Dibrell and his elder brother Alfonso left Richmond for Danville. Here they established the tobacco processing and brokerage firm of Dibrell Brothers — now a Fortune 500 company. 

In 1884 R. L. Dibrell married Ida Nelson of Boonsville, Missouri, and in March of 1885 he purchased from the Thomas B. Doe estate the lot where he built his first Danville home, probably employing the design and building skills of T. B. Fitzgerald. With its superb brick craftsmanship, finely detailed gable, windows and entrances, the house is rated as one of Danville’s EXCELLENT architectural landmarks. Dibrell took a vital Interest in his adopted community, working tirelessly for good roads, and for Mt. Vernon Methodist Church, where he was a charter member. He was president of the Danville Tobacco Association for five terms. After the death of his wife in 1896, he married Mary E. Boyd of Reidsville, North Carolina. About this time, in 1903, he also purchased the C.H. Conrad mansion on Main Street at Chambers, where he lived until his death in 1920. The house at 124 Broad became the property of Louis “Skid” Nelson Dibrell, son of R.L. Dibrell and his first wife. He lived here with his wife, the former Louise Glass of Caswell County, North Carolina, until his death in 1956; she died here in 1963. Their sons Louis Nelson Dibrell, Jr. and Ill, still reside in Danville, and Louis Dibrell, III, Is active in the Dibrell firm. While the L N. Dibrell’s lived here, contractor C. M. Weber added three rooms to the rear, upstairs and down, and enlarged the front porch. 

After remaining in the Dibrell family for nearly 85 years, the house was sold to Mrs. Worth Griffith in 1969. She adapted the house as apartments and lived here until 1981 when she sold the property to Mr. and Mrs. Berthol J. Harbrant of Baltimore. The house remained In limbo until about a year ago when Joyce LaPolla came to Danville and toured the structure which had been for sale for some time. It was “love at first sight”. Ms. LaPolla has directed this love Into an intensive renovation of the house, reconstructing exterior details long damaged or missing, and revitalizing mellow old floors in high-ceilinged rooms accented with deep crown mouldings, rococo medallions and several stunning mantels.