Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 05/15/1979
NRHP Listing Date 07/24/1979
NRHP Reference Number 79003089
Elm Grove is a vernacular domestic complex little changed since the 19th century, and is thus valuable for illustrating the rural life-style of Virginia’s southern Tidewater region. The farm was probably organized by the Williams family in the late 18th century. The house began as a one-room dwelling with a lean-to, an elementary domestic form widely employed even among the region’s more prosperous planters well into the 19th century. It was expanded to its present, hardly insubstantial appearance, by the 1820s. Its outbuildings include an early 19th-century office and an early dairy with ventilation slats. There is also a comparatively large saddle-notched log smokehouse which encloses four smokepits, the only known multi-pit smokehouse in the state. This unusual outbuilding is probably contemporary with the earliest portion of the main house.
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: October 1, 2021
