Richard Spencer Held Parties in ‘Fash Loft’ for White Nationalists, Court Hears

An apartment above a chocolate shop in Alexandria, Virginia, belonging to white nationalist Richard Spencer became a social hub for organizers of the Unite the Right rally for the six weeks leading up to the violent August 2017 event in Charlottesville, a court heard Thursday.  

It became known as “the fash loft”—and hosted as many as six parties for white nationalist influencers that summer. None of them were recorded. 

Spencer is among 20 white nationalist and neo-Nazi figures and organizations standing trial in a massive civil suit that seeks to hold them accountable for the events that took place that weekend in mid-August four years ago. 

The suit, which was brought by Integrity First for America on behalf of nine Charlottesville residents who sustained physical and psychological injuries, says the defendants conspired to incite racially motivated violence in the small Virginia college town. 

The defendants have racist and white nationalist belief systems in common. 

But many otherwise make unlikely bedfellows. There’s the suit-and-tie white nationalist Spencer, who fancies himself a white nationalist intellectual. Then there’s the motor-mouthed neo-Nazi Christopher Cantwell, who claims to have once dabbled in stand-up comedy and is now better known as the “Crying Nazi.” There’s the Confederate flag–waving Southern nationalists with the League of the South. And there’s also Jason Kessler, a resident of Charlottesville and former liberal turned rabid white nationalist. 

Most of them insist they were no more than acquaintances at the time of Unite the Right, and have used this argument to poke holes in the notion that they could have possibly conspired ahead of the event. 

But evidence trickling out from the courtroom suggests a different story. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have been building out a timeline and mapping out connections between the defendants, using messages from private Discord servers, texts, phone calls, and other digital evidence.

Plaintiff counsel Michael Bloch cross-examined Spencer on Thursday, and ran through various rallies and events he spoke at in 2017 to highlight how influential he was within white nationalist circles at that point in time—and show how many times he’d crossed paths with some of his co-defendants. 

For example, Bloch pointed to photos and videos linked to the so-called Charlottesville 1.0 event, a smaller-scale protest in May 2017 against the planned removal of the Robert E. Lee statue that also featured a torch-lit march—and foreshadowed what was later to come. Defendants including Matthew Heimbach, Elliot Kline, and Spencer were all there—and they attended an afterparty at an Airbnb rented out by Identity Evropa (a now-defunct preppy white nationalist group, who are also named as defendants). Lawyers have shown a video, that was recorded surreptitiously, of about 50 men including Heimbach and Spencer, in a room chanting “Sieg Heil” and doing Nazi salutes. 

Spencer has insisted that, for example, Cantwell was just an acquaintance whom he knew of through white nationalist circles. He said that they only ever exchanged one phone call and seven text messages before Unite the Right, and once met up for lunch. 

But pointing to phone records, Bloch showed that they’d exchanged 88 texts in total, and three phone calls. Bloch also noted that, in June 2017, Cantwell, Spencer, Kessler, plus Identity Evropa founder Nathan Damigo, were all in Washington D.C. for an event. All four men were billed as speakers. 

Spencer and Cantwell took a selfie together, which Spencer then posted to his Twitter.

“After that event, you had a party at your place in Alexandria,” said Bloch, while cross-examining Spencer. “Your apartment was referred to as the ‘fash loft’.” 

“I'm sure people called it that, sure,” Spencer responded. 

“You knew that?” said Bloch, noting that “fash” is shorthand for “fascist.” 

“I’ve heard that, sure,” said Spencer. 

“A number of your co-defendants attended that party,” said Bloch. “Mr. Cantwell too, right.” 

“It would be surprising if he weren’t there,” said Spencer, who was sounding increasingly annoyed by the line of questioning. 

“Kline was there. Damigo too. Other members of the alt-right?” Bloch asked. 

‘Yes,” Spencer replied. 

“And one of the things you discussed at that party was Unite the Right?” Bloch asked. 

“There’s no doubt that at a party, we would discuss Unite the Right,” Spencer responded dryly. 

Spencer confirmed that the “fash loft” was the venue for “three to five” more parties in the six weeks that followed leading up to Unite the Right. 

“Those were private, nobody recorded them?” asked Bloch. 

“I don’t know,” Spencer replied. “Well, I hope not.” 

Spencer rented the top two floors of a townhouse on a bustling street in old Alexandria in Jan. 2017—right above Blüprint Chocolatiers, a designer chocolate shop. (The chocolate shop had only been open 22 months when Spencer moved in, and owners of the quaint business quickly found themselves constantly beating off accusations that they were somehow affiliated with the white nationalist upstairs. The shop has since closed down permanently, and the entire building was sold earlier this year). 

Spencer had secured the property in 2017 with the help of Jason Jorjani, editor-in-chief of white nationalist publishing house Arktos. The men’s vision was to turn the space into a headquarters for the burgeoning alt-right movement, hoping that their proximity to Washington D.C. could help them build influence around the incoming Trump Administration.

When a reporter from The Atlantic went to interview Spencer at the property that month, she noted that there was no furniture in the loft at the time— the only decor was a bottle of whisky that Spencer had been working his way through at around 3 p.m. on a Wednesday. 

The Sines v. Kessler trial is expected to last until at least the end of the month.