Edgewood

About this property

Edgewood is a historic home located at Stanleytown in Henry County, Virginia, United States. It was built about 1830, and consists of a projecting two-story, three-bay, pedimented, Greek-temple-form central mass and two-story flanking wings, in the Greek Revival style. The house features three semi-integral end chimneys, and a one-story front porch. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2007. Edgewood is an 1830s-constructed manor house which follows a Palladian-style three-part form that is uncommon in Henry County, Virginia. At the time of its construction, Neoclassical architecture such as Edgewood's Greek Revival styling would have been unknown to most people in the area. Edgewood remains a rarity in the region as a brick house of both significant age and size. The three-bay, pedimented central portion is flanked by two wings. These three elements are all two stories tall, with the central portion slightly taller than the wings. The exterior walls are laid in Flemish bond brick 15 in (38 cm) thick, with the flanks possessing brick cornices and the central portion a wooden cornice. Molding surrounds the windows and doors, and symmetrical paterae corner blocks are present. Each wing is topped by a gable roof done in standing seam tin. The home originally had a T shape, with the first floor featuring a foyer and three rooms and the second floor possessing a staircase landing and three rooms. The interior walls are mostly brick 12 in (30 cm) thick and, like the ceilings, are covered in plaster. The house's six fireplaces were finished with wooden surrounds and mantles in a Greek Revival style based on Asher Benjamin. The wood floors, presumably made of chestnut, remain in good condition. There are three end chimneys and a one-story, north-facing front porch. A major renovation of the whole house designed by the architect William Roy Wallace took place from 1951 to 1953. It turned the back porch into a sunroom featuring skylights, and reduced the original front porch (once longer and reaching two stories) to a shorter one-story format. The 1950s renovations also saw the dirt cellar converted into a concrete basement. The house's brick foundation was simultaneously reinforced by including concrete retaining walls in the basement, measuring 22 in (56 cm) by 20 in (51 cm). The 1950s renovations added several new elements to the home. Among them was the introduction of bathrooms and closets, with two full baths and seven closets in total. A garage was constructed in 1951, with a "maid's room" atop it. This garage was adjoined to the house with a kitchen/laundry room addition. These renovations also introduced a forced hot water heating system. Further renovations in the 1990s saw the kitchen remodeled, marble added to both the foyer and fireplace surrounds, and the attached garage converted into an all-purpose room. A free-standing garage, which is not a contributing element of Edgewood's National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) listing, was completed in 2003.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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