{"nrhp_refnum":"89000363","name":"Solitude","other_names":["150-100-3"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Greenhouse Rd. on Virginia Polytechnic Institute campus","address_restricted":false,"city":"Blacksburg","county":"Montgomery County","state":"VA","lat":37.226275662000035,"lon":-80.42692387099999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1989-05-05","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Solitude is a two-story frame and log house with two early log outbuildings, set in a landscaped park beside the Duck Pond on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, Montgomery County, Virginia. It was built in several campaigns in the nineteenth century, with a major expansion in 1859.","why_significant":"The nomination argues significance under Criterion C as an excellent example of early and mid-19th-century local architectural forms and how they changed over time. It folds earlier log houses into a large Greek Revival center-passage dwelling of unusual scale and decorative quality. It is described as the grandest of 19 frame two-story single-pile center-passage dwellings from the period, and its pair of log outbuildings is called very unusual.","narrative":"Solitude is a nineteenth-century house on the Virginia Tech campus in Blacksburg, set in a park beside the Duck Pond and a smaller mill pond. It grew in stages. The earliest part is a weatherboarded log section facing Stroubles Creek, and a second log section was later added to it. In 1859 Robert Preston added a hip-roofed frame wing and reworked the log portions into a five-bay, center-passage Greek Revival house with a six-column porch, paneled front wainscot and plastered porch walls. Two V-notched log outbuildings survive nearby: a stone springhouse with a log upper story and a log kitchen or office. The name Solitude appears in a letter of 1808, and the land passed through members of the Preston family. Forty acres were sold in 1872 and became the core of the college campus. The house was later used for faculty housing and then for classrooms and offices. It was recognized for its architecture, which shows changing local building styles over the century and is notable for its scale and detail.","period_of_significance":"1808-1859","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Greek Revival center-passage house incorporating earlier log sections (hall parlor; single-pile center passage)","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Used for faculty housing until the 1970s, then as a classroom and office facility; the university was preparing to restore it for use as an Appalachian studies center. Some later partitions and dropped ceilings are described as easily reversible.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.294666-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/77/6819/41681977/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/89000363.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89000363/283cf8e1c3-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89000363/283cf8e1c3-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Quentin Stoeffler","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solitude_building,_winter_2012.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Quentin Stoeffler</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Solitude_building,_winter_2012.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681977","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solitude_(Blacksburg,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713221"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/montgomery-county/solitude-89000363/"}