{"nrhp_refnum":"79003097","name":"Wirtland","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"S of Oak Grove on VA 638","address_restricted":false,"city":"Oak Grove","county":"Westmoreland County","state":"VA","lat":38.15719886300005,"lon":-77.00784664594161,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-03-15","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Landscape Architecture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Wirtland is a Gothic Revival villa completed around 1850 on a landscaped park near Oak Grove, Westmoreland County, Virginia. It was built for Dr. William Wirt, Jr.","why_significant":"The nomination presents Wirtland as a textbook example of the mid-nineteenth-century American villa as defined by Andrew Jackson Downing, combining a carefully detailed Gothic Revival house with a romantic park. It ranks among the state's outstanding Gothic Revival domestic buildings. Its park, with many original trees, is described as a rare survival of Victorian landscaping.","narrative":"Wirtland is a two-story Gothic Revival villa near Oak Grove in Westmoreland County, Virginia, completed around 1850 for Dr. William Wirt, Jr., son of the jurist and biographer of Patrick Henry. The cruciform brick house is covered in stucco scored to imitate masonry. It has a gable roof with deep eaves and cusped bargeboards, and a central porch tower with Tudor-arched openings and a Gothic-style balcony. Inside, the stair hall niche, marble mantels and plaster ceiling medallions survive. The house sits on a low terrace within a romantically landscaped park reached by a winding drive, planted with specimen trees. It matches the villa ideal described by Andrew Jackson Downing, whose pattern books spread the Gothic style across the country. No architect has been identified, and a local builder may have worked from published plans. After Wirt's death the estate operated as a girls' boarding school, Wirtland Seminary. The house remains in excellent condition.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Gothic Revival","criteria":[],"status_note":"Described as in an excellent state of preservation and maintained as a private residence.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:57.779234-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/16/6841/41684116/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/79003097.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003097/4a18bf543f-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79003097/4a18bf543f-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wirtland_fields.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wirtland_fields.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41684116","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirtland","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8027032"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/westmoreland-county/wirtland-79003097/"}