Regarded as the city of Martinsville’s most impressive house, Scuffle Hill was originally built in 1905-06 for Benjamin F. Stevens, a former executive of the Liggett & Myers tobacco company. Stevens shared the house with his son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Pannill F. Rucker. Rucker was himself a well-to-do local tobacco manufacturer. The twenty-room mansion, originally called Oak Hill, burned in 1917. The surviving walls were incorporated by the Ruckers into the present house, a grand Georgian Revival work with fine interior appointments. Later occupants have included furniture executive Rives S. Brown and textile magnate Walter L. Pannill, who renamed the place Scuffle Hill. Since 1959 the house as been the Christ Episcopal Church parish house. Though no architect’s name has been associated with Scuffle Hill, the house remains an imposing local symbol of success. It also contributes to the East Church Street–Starling Avenue Historic District.
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