Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 12/10/2020
NRHP Listing Date 02/19/2021
NRHP Reference Number SG100006157
Glencoe, located in Botetourt County, is a highly intact two-story brick house with Italianate and other stylistic affinities completed in 1871-72 for James Madison Spiller and his wife, Caroline Kyle Spiller. As a canal contractor before the Civil War, James Spiller oversaw partial completion of the Cabell Lock and Dam on the Botetourt section of the James River & Kanawha Canal. As a lock builder, Spiller was well aware of the properties of water and damp, which may explain notable architectural features of the house—a raised limestone foundation encircled on three sides by a narrow dry moat with stone retaining walls. Spiller’s chief carpenter for Glencoe was Schuyler White Smith, the builder of the 1848 Botetourt County Courthouse. Notable on Glencoe’s well-preserved interior is a built-in punched-tin dining room cupboard and extensive faux-grained woodwork. Behind the house stands a two-story brick smokehouse (ca. 1871), and two slatted corncribs (ca. late-19th- and early-20th-century), one of which reused boards with graffiti associated with the adjacent Castle Mills.
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: April 16, 2021
