Landmark Not Showing Its Age

1797's Rock Hill Farm Noted on Virginia Register

By Kafia A. Hosh

Sunday, June 28, 2009

As an architectural historian working for the state, David Edwards surveyed about 500 historic properties in 1980. Of the dozens of houses, barns, schools and churches he evaluated, Rock Hill Farm in Loudoun County stood out.

“It struck me at that time as an unusually preserved site,” Edwards said.

He remembered Rock Hill last year when he noticed it had been nominated for the Virginia Landmarks Register.

The 68-acre farm, five miles south of Round Hill, was one of 28 historic sites added to the register this month. Most of the farm’s buildings were constructed in 1797, and they include a Quaker-style house, bank barn, tenant house and smokehouse.

The farmhouse still has its stucco exterior, metal roof and original woodwork. Other structures, including the smokehouse, are also intact.

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Rock Hill Farm Added as Virginia Landmark

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Front elevation of Rock Hill near to the original appearance as constructed in 1797 and later altered in 1873. Photos courtesy of Jane Covington. ()

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Graveyard and open country side beyond. The 68 acres of Rock Hill are in conservation easement. Photos courtesy of Jane Covington. ()

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The original portions of the smoke house date to circa 1797. The unique cupola is most likely a late 1800’s decorative addition. Photos courtesy of Jane Covington. ()

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The most important decorative element of the house is the carved overmantle in the master bedroom. Photos courtesy of Jane Covington. ()

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A well preserved example of a Piedmont Virginia bank barn with the framing and construction methods surviving almost unaltered. Photos courtesy of Jane Covington. ()

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Although the house was built using a Quaker floor plan, its original owner, Abner Humphrey, was a slaveholder who was not a Quaker. Humphrey’s taste “shows the Quaker cultural influence on the non-Quakers who also settled in Loudoun,” Edwards said.

Quaker houses were built with a large room and two smaller rooms on the first floor. The hall usually had a fireplace and a wood staircase that led to the second floor, which had two additional smaller rooms.

Historians attribute the farm’s preservation to the fact that it stayed in Humphrey’s family for 150 years. The family made additions to the farm, such as a corn crib, a dairy and an expanded kitchen in 1873.

“Rather than modernizing the house, they just kept building on these different wings,” said Jane Covington, an architectural conservator who worked on the farm’s nomination. “Nothing was torn down.”

Rock Hill had a brief role in the Civil War. It is believed to be the site where Mosby’s Rangers, a guerrilla-style band of Confederate soldiers, divided up money from the Green Back Raid. The raid occurred in October 1864, when Confederate Col. John Singleton Mosby and 80 of his men derailed a train on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Duffields station in West Virginia. The men stole $173,000 that was headed south to pay Union Gen. Philip Henry Sheridan’s troops.

In 1951, Rock Hill was conveyed to sisters Mary K. Willis and Ann A. Titus, who raised thoroughbred horses there for many years. Willis donated the farm upon her death in 2007 to the Nature Conservancy, which placed the property under a conservation easement.

In 2008, Linda Devan and her husband, Vas, purchased Rock Hill, attracted to its open space and historical significance.

“When this place came on the market, even though it was tremendously run-down, we knew it was something special,” Linda Devan said.

The Devans moved into a 1990 addition to the house while they began refurbishing the rest of it and the farm’s other buildings. They hired consultants to prepare the Virginia Landmarks Register nomination. Rock Hill’s listing on the register made the couple eligible for a rehabilitation tax credit from the state.

The restoration work is ongoing and costs $600,000 to $700,000, Devan said. It included excavating the basement and installing a furnace and electrical system. The wood floors were refurbished and had to be replaced in some areas. Repairs were made to the window frames, and the original glass was re-glazed.

Devan hopes the restoration is finished by October so her family can have Thanksgiving dinner in the dining room.

She said she saw the chance to renovate the house and preserve its old character.

“It’s an honor to live in a house that has history like this,” Devan said. “All we want do is bring it back and make it lovely once again.”

The state listing means that Rock Hill automatically is nominated for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Tagged: history, Round Hill

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