The Blue Ridge School (formerly the Blue Ridge Industrial School) was founded in Greene County in 1910 by the Rev. George P. Mayo as a missionary effort of the Episcopal Church to bring educational opportunities to isolated mountain communities. In 1924, Mayo determined that the school should have a chapel and boldly sought the services of Ralph Adams Cram, the nation’s foremost practitioner of the Gothic style. Cram, best known for such monumental works as the West Point and Princeton university chapels, donated the Blue Ridge chapel design, listed in his log as job #670, 1928. The spare but deft work, executed in native fieldstone, was carried to completion in 1932 under the supervision of Charlottesville architect Stanislaus Makielski, and is known as the Gibson Memorial Chapel. Makielski also designed the adjacent Tudor-style Martha Bagby Battle House, built in 1934 as the headmaster’s residence.
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