{"nrhp_refnum":"72001530","name":"Sears House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Sears Hill Rd. in Woodrow Wilson City Park","address_restricted":false,"city":"Staunton (Independent City)","county":"Staunton","state":"VA","lat":38.146008033000044,"lon":-79.07208529699994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1972-02-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small one-and-a-half-story board-and-batten frame cottage with a three-story octagonal tower, standing at the top of Sears Hill in Woodrow Wilson City Park, Staunton, Virginia. It was built in 1866 by a \"Dr. Madison\" and is owned by the City of Staunton.","why_significant":"The house is tied to Dr. Barnas Sears, an educator who lived there from 1867 until his death and administered the Peabody education fund from it. It is also described as perhaps Virginia's purest example of the \"bracketed cottage\" popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing.","narrative":"Perched at the top of Sears Hill above downtown Staunton, this small board-and-batten cottage sits within Woodrow Wilson City Park. Built in 1866 by a Dr. Madison, it is a one-and-a-half-story frame house with a cross-gabled metal roof, shallow scrolled brackets under the eaves, and an arcaded three-bay front porch. A three-story octagonal tower rises at the southwest corner. The design follows the bracketed cottage type popularized by Andrew Jackson Downing, here in its Tuscan rather than Gothic form. Few such cottages were built in Virginia because of the war and Reconstruction, and this one is considered perhaps the state's purest example. The house is also known for Dr. Barnas Sears, former president of Brown University, who bought it in 1867. From here he administered George Peabody's $3,500,000 fund for education in the South, which helped establish free schooling after the Civil War. The tower's first-floor room is reputed to have held his library.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Bracketed cottage (Downing-influenced, \"Tuscan mode\")","criteria":[],"status_note":"At the time of nomination the house was unoccupied and in fair condition, with some vandalism (broken windows), and was being studied for renovation as a community center. Later grant papers describe restoration work.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.927307-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/95/6837/41683795/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/72001530.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72001530/e0ab54b3bf-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/72001530/e0ab54b3bf-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sears_House_in_Staunton_park.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sears_House_in_Staunton_park.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683795","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sears_House_(Staunton,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16899922"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/staunton/sears-house-72001530/"}