{"nrhp_refnum":"79003088","name":"Beechwood","other_names":["Jericho"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"NE of Courtland on VA 643","address_restricted":false,"city":"Beales","county":"Southampton County","state":"VA","lat":36.75298930800005,"lon":-77.00123932599996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-02-01","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Beechwood, also called Jericho, is a rambling two-story frame plantation house in rural Southampton County, Virginia, near Beales and Courtland. It was built in stages from the fourth quarter of the 18th century into the late 19th century.","why_significant":"The nomination presents it as a good example of the spacious but unpretentious side-hall-plan plantation houses favored in southeastern Virginia in the early 19th century. The enlarged house also incorporates earlier, smaller house forms from the post-Revolutionary years. It is further tied to the Denson-Pretlow family and to Governor Colgate W. Darden, a recent owner.","narrative":"Beechwood is a wooded-lot farmhouse in the flat country of Southampton County, Virginia, that grew in several stages over about a century. It began in the late 1700s as a one-room, one-story house built by Jordan Denson, then gained a rear lean-to, a side passage, a second story, a dining room wing and a late 19th-century rear ell. The main block has beaded weatherboards, a modillion cornice and a pedimented front porch with Tuscan columns. Inside, plain but well-made Federal mantels and recessed-panel wainscoting survive, along with an early brick-floored kitchen behind the house. The property was long held by descendants of the Denson and Pretlow families. Colgate W. Darden, who served in Congress, as Virginia governor from 1942 to 1946, and as president of the University of Virginia, later owned it. It was listed as a representative plantation house of southeastern Virginia that preserves earlier, smaller house forms within its structure.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899, 1900-","architect_builder":"Jordan Denson (original portion)","architectural_style":"Federal woodwork; side-hall plan plantation house","criteria":[],"status_note":"Privately owned; the form marks the property as occupied and describes a surviving original kitchen behind the main block.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:56.814451-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/5/6837/41683705/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/79003088.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003088/1b923be9d8-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003088/1b923be9d8-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beechwood_entrance_with_gate.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Beechwood_entrance_with_gate.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683705","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beechwood_(Beales,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15198075"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/southampton-county/beechwood-79003088/"}