{"nrhp_refnum":"87000609","name":"Verville","other_names":["DHL File # 51-26"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"VA 611","address_restricted":false,"city":"Merry Point","county":"Lancaster County","state":"VA","lat":37.719942100000026,"lon":-76.47740536899994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1987-04-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Commerce","Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Verville is a story-and-a-half brick house with a gambrel roof near Merry Point in Lancaster County, Virginia, built about 1745 by James Gordon I, with three brick additions made in the nineteenth century.","why_significant":"It is one of only a handful of surviving colonial buildings in Lancaster County and was always regarded as an outstanding local house. Its changes over two centuries of continuous habitation are instructive, and the site has major archaeological potential. It is also tied to James Gordon I and II, the minister James Waddell, and the lawyer and judge Ellyson Currie.","narrative":"Verville is a brick house of about 1745 on a hilltop above the Western branch of the Corotoman River near Merry Point, Lancaster County. It has a story-and-a-half, single-pile, central-passage plan typical of affluent colonial Virginia planters and merchants. Scots-Irish merchant James Gordon I built it on land bought from 1742 onward. Around the turn of the nineteenth century, probably under lawyer and General Court justice Ellyson Currie, the house was raised, given a gambrel roof, and fitted with Federal woodwork. Three one-room brick additions followed before the Civil War. A 1959 restoration supervised by architect Walter Macomber, and later additions, left the colonial and Federal fabric largely intact. The house is among very few surviving colonial buildings in the county. The roughly five-acre site also holds archaeological remains of service buildings, and the property is linked to the Gordons, the Presbyterian minister James Waddell, and Currie, who named it Verville.","period_of_significance":"1742-1749; 1803-15","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Colonial Virginia central-passage house, remodeled in the Federal style","criteria":[],"status_note":"Restored in 1959 and extended between 1969 and 1974; described as in excellent condition and occupied 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 02:52:00.538269-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/79/6814/41681479/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/87000609.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87000609/4954e82559-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/87000609/4954e82559-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Unknown authorUnknown author","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verville,_State_Route_611,_Merry_Point_(Lancaster_County,_Virginia).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Unknown authorUnknown author</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Verville,_State_Route_611,_Merry_Point_(Lancaster_County,_Virginia).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681479","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verville_(Merry_Point,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713444"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/lancaster-county/verville-87000609/"}