Updyke Farm consists of 362 acres in the mountainous Point Pleasant area of Bland County between the communities of Mechanicsburg and Bland Court House. The house was built circa 1910 for Junius Marcellus Updyke. Together the main house and associated outbuildings provide an outstanding example of early-20th-century vernacular domestic and agricultural architecture in Southwest Virginia. Character-defining features of the Junius Marcellus Updyke Farm include a full-length front porch supported by Ionic columns and pent roofs in the gable ends of the house, and an unusual two-story smokehouse, as well as an intact collection of agricultural outbuildings.
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