Surrounded by farmland and a view of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Harper House is located outside Stuarts Draft in Augusta County. The two-story brick house was built circa 1888 for farmer John J. Harper, his wife Sarah, and the couple’s family and later passed in the early 20th century to George Harper, an educational reformer who helped modernize Augusta County schools, and his wife Carmen. The house has a richly ornamented front porch with sawn and pierced woodwork and inside Greek Revival woodwork–mantels and a stair newel carved with a star design. Still in the Harper family at the time of its listing in the registers in 2005-2006, the property retains several historic domestic outbuildings including a large meat house and a structure that likely served as a summer kitchen, laundry, and dwelling before functioning as a workshop most recently. A large mortise-and-tenon frame granary on the Harper House tract features a threshing floor flanked by grain bins and a slatted corncrib.
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
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DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
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