Although built on an unpretentious scale, Hermitage in Accomack County has the architectural quality characteristic of the Eastern Shore’s larger residences. With its chevron-decorated brick gables, dormer windows, symmetrical façade, and pleasing proportions the house is an excellent example of Virginia’s early gentry architecture, exhibiting both quaintness and formality. It is also among the best preserved houses of its type in the area, retaining a richly decorated parlor chimneypiece and a Georgian stair with molded handrail and turned balusters. Hermitage was constructed in two stages between 1769 and 1787 by Emmanuel Bayly, a member of a prominent Eastern Shore family. Bayly conducted a notably successful farming operation here, raising corn, oats, flax, cattle, sheep, and hogs. The house preserves its rural setting.