Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/08/2006
NRHP Listing Date 09/06/2006
NRHP Reference Number 06000802
Oak Lawn is a Georgian and Greek Revival–style, two-story, frame house, with a pair of gable-end chimneys on each side. The western Amherst County house evolved during two construction phases. The original section was likely built by Ambrose Burford during the first two decades of the 19th century and expanded by his son Sylvester L. about 1857. The entrepreneurial Sylvester Burford was identified as a carriage maker in federal censuses, but was also a mill and store owner, a coffin maker and undertaker, and an inventor who patented a wooden shoe sole with the Confederate Patent Office during the Civil War. Oak Lawn and its six-plus acres, including a late 19th-century latticed well house in the front yard, remained in the intermarried Burford and Wortham families until the 1930s.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: January 27, 2022
