{"nrhp_refnum":"89001896","name":"Grayson, John, House","other_names":["60-118"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"0.5 mi. NE of VA 613 bridge over Little River","address_restricted":false,"city":"Graysontown","county":"Montgomery County","state":"VA","lat":37.04798840400008,"lon":-80.55759767199999,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1989-11-13","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A mid-nineteenth-century frame farmhouse and its smokehouse on a fenced domestic lot in a bend of the Little River, north of Graysontown, Montgomery County, Virginia. It dates to about 1850 and the builder is unknown.","why_significant":"The house is significant for architecture as an extremely well-preserved example of the regionally popular center-passage dwelling form. It represents the simple frame vernacular houses of the period in Montgomery County and the home of a successful entrepreneur and farmer. Its pristine condition and the frame smokehouse, unusual in an area of log outbuildings, add to its importance.","narrative":"Set in a fertile bend of the Little River north of Graysontown, this farmhouse dates to about 1850 and was associated with John Grayson, who helped found Grayson Mills, later Graysontown, in 1847. The two-story frame dwelling has a single-pile, center-passage plan, a two-story integral ell, a standing-seam metal roof, brick chimneys and a pedimented two-story porch. A full brick basement has its own porch, and one basement room still has a pin rail and pegs and was once used for meetings. A tall frame smokehouse with a stone foundation stands nearby, and a board fence encloses both buildings. The property matters as an extremely well-preserved example of the center-passage form, which was popular in the region as frame houses became more common in the mid-nineteenth century. Only nineteen two-story frame center-passage houses are recorded from the antebellum period in Montgomery County. The house reflects the status and values of a successful farmer and mill builder without elaborate pattern-book ornament.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1850","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"OTHER: single-pile center-passage plan","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Described as having undergone very little alteration since construction; still used as a single dwelling with a secondary structure.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.752729-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/8/6788/41678808/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/89001896.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89001896/85f8aad772-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/89001896/85f8aad772-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Skye Marthaler","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Grayson_House.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Skye Marthaler</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:John_Grayson_House.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41678808","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Grayson_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712631"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/montgomery-county/grayson-john-house-89001896/"}