{"nrhp_refnum":"100011638","name":"Lynnhaven House (Boundary Decrease)","other_names":["James Wishart House"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"4405 Wishart Road","address_restricted":false,"city":"Virginia Beach (Independent City)","county":"Virginia Beach","state":"VA","lat":null,"lon":null,"geom_source":null},"listed_date":"2025-04-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Conservation"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A seventeenth-century brick house in Virginia Beach, Virginia, known as the Wishart-Boush House or James Wishart House, built in the latter half of the 1600s on land sold by Adam Thorowgood in 1653.","why_significant":"The house is described as an extraordinary survival of seventeenth-century medieval design and one of the oldest brick houses remaining in the United States. It is also among the few seventeenth-century Virginia houses to keep a significant portion of its original interior woodwork.","narrative":"This brick house in Virginia Beach dates to the latter half of the seventeenth century. Its steep gable roof, massive T-shaped chimneys with tiled splays, English bond brickwork, glazed headers on the gable ends and segmental arched entranceways give it a strongly seventeenth-century character. Flat arches over the windows point to the later part of that century. Inside, a Jacobean staircase with turned balusters and a square newel post survives, along with two large mantels, one with bolection moldings. Later changes include a brick rear ell, altered dormers and the removal of some interior trim. The land was sold by Adam Thorowgood to William Richerson in 1653, and Richerson sold it to James Wishart in 1673. The records do not settle whether Richerson or Wishart built the house. The Wishart family held it until 1795, when it was sold to William Boush, whose family inherited it for several generations. It is considered one of the oldest brick houses in the United States.","period_of_significance":"17th Century","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Seventeenth-century medieval design","criteria":[],"status_note":"Form lists condition as fair and the property as unoccupied; a brick rear ell has been added and the dormers altered.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:03.010263-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/9/6840/41684009/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/69000363.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41684009","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/virginia-beach/lynnhaven-house-boundary-decrease-100011638/"}