The murals in the 1884 A.J. Miller House (also known as the Miller-Hemp House) are the region’s most extensive and best-preserved demonstration of the craft of a 19th-century rural itinerant painter. The wide variety of decoration shows the creativity and broad repertoire of local Augusta County artist Green Berry Jones, who signed and dated his work June 17, 1892. Large, brightly-painted landscape and hunting scenes, along with vignettes containing popular figures such as Buffalo Bill, line the central hallway. Wood-grained doors and marbleized mantels with stenciled designs highlight the second-floor rooms. An amusing feature is the labeling of each room above its hall doorway. Although several other examples of Jones’s artistry remain in the county, none equals the A.J. Miller House. Like much of the Shenandoah Valley interior painting, Jones’s work is a contrast to a very plain exterior.
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
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia