No one was a bigger fan of the pineapple than Virginia’s William Byrd. For the James River door next to his impressive home at Westover, in 1730 Byrd ordered a carved door-surround from London. It featured a broken- scroll pediment with a pineapple in its center. Across the river from Westover, Brandon Plantation in Prince George County has a pineapple on the pinnacle of its pyramidal roof. Developed from a 1616 patent covering 7,000 acres on the James River, the site had a long and profitable trade connection with the West Indies, hence the prominence of the tropical pineapple.
Shirley Plantation, begun in 1725, has a geometric pineapple at the apex of its roof. Inside, two doorways feature pineapple woodwork dating from 1771. Over the bedroom door leading to the entry hall is a high-relief pineapple set inside a split pediment. And over the parlor door, is a pineapple between the volutes of a broken scroll. On the dining room mantle rests a silver tea caddy made in London in 1787. Its finial is an ivory pineapple with a little silver crown on top.