{"nrhp_refnum":"73002222","name":"Old Stone House","other_names":["Poe Museum"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"1914 E. Main St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Richmond (Independent City)","county":"Richmond (city and county)","state":"VA","lat":37.532204430000036,"lon":-77.42610570699998,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1973-11-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small colonial stone townhouse at 1914 E. Main Street in Richmond, Virginia, in the Shockoe Valley neighborhood. It probably dates to the second quarter of the eighteenth century and now forms part of the Poe Museum complex.","why_significant":"It is Richmond's only surviving colonial dwelling and a rare regional example of colonial-period stone construction. It retains much early fabric and has few major alterations. It has also been used since the 1920s as a museum honoring Edgar Allan Poe and early Richmond history.","narrative":"Tucked against the front edge of its lot in Richmond's oldest neighborhood, Shockoe Valley, the Old Stone House is a small colonial townhouse of coursed rubble stone, probably built around the second quarter of the eighteenth century. It has a three-bay facade, a gable roof with dormers, and a simple hall-and-parlor interior with plastered walls. The rounded brown stones were likely taken from the nearby James River. It is Richmond's only surviving colonial dwelling and a rare regional example of colonial stone construction. Firm records begin in 1783, when Samuel Ege, a flour inspector, lived there. The Ege family held it until a 1911 auction, when the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities acquired it and saved it from demolition. After use as an antique shop and a period of vacancy, it became a shrine to Edgar Allan Poe and opened as the Poe Museum in 1922. Poe never lived there. Today it is shown as a colonial residence beside a garden and museum buildings.","period_of_significance":null,"architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Colonial townhouse; three-bay facade, gable roof with dormers, coursed rubble stone walls","criteria":[],"status_note":"Good condition; occupied and used as a museum (Poe Museum), with a formal garden and twentieth century annex and museum buildings.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:58.18346-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/99/6830/41683099/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/73002222.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73002222/1fa9bdf163-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/73002222/1fa9bdf163-1600.webp","licence":"No restrictions","author":"VCU Libraries Commons","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Stone_House,_Richmond,_Va._Main_near_20th._(16629565017).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">VCU Libraries Commons</a>, <a href=\"https://www.flickr.com/commons/usage/\" rel=\"license noopener\">No restrictions</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Old_Stone_House,_Richmond,_Va._Main_near_20th._(16629565017).jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"71000982","name":"James River and Kanawha Canal Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/virginia/james-river-and-kanawha-canal-historic-district-71000982/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683099","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Stone_House_(Richmond,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q136720428"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/richmond/old-stone-house-73002222/"}