The Paxton House is centrally located in the Great Valley of Virginia, on the outskirts of the northern Rockbridge County village of Fairfield. The 10-acre property features a notable Federal-style brick house built circa 1820 and a 20th-century frame barn on an older stone foundation. The Paxton House​ has two interior end chimneys that incorporate nine separate flues from the house’s nine fireplaces. The flues are cleverly routed around the attic’s gable-end windows. The house has cove cornices, stucco jack arches with keystone motifs over doors and windows, a gable inscription niche, and a two-tier front entry porch with a mix of original and Victorian detail. The interior features Federal and late Georgian-influenced mantels, a stair with fylfot and italic letter f carving, strap hinges with decorative terminations, and multiple peg rails. Unusual features include what may be a built-in sugar chest, contained in a press in a room interpreted as the dining room, and a Germanic underframe roof structure.  The house is thought to have been built for the Samuel Paxton family and was later associated with the Gessinger (Gisiner) and Sale families.