{"nrhp_refnum":"91000015","name":"Aurora","other_names":["Pink House","Boxwood","Penn Homestead"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"VA 629 S of jct. with US 58","address_restricted":false,"city":"Spencer","county":"Patrick County","state":"VA","lat":36.60107786000003,"lon":-80.05289940999995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1991-02-04","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Aurora, also known as the Pink House, is a two-story Italian Villa style frame house built between 1853 and 1856 near Penn's Store in southeastern Patrick County, Virginia, with a small frame office building on the same five-and-a-half-acre property.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that Aurora is a rare Virginia example of the Italian Villa style, drawn largely from Andrew Jackson Downing's pattern books. It departs from Downing in its ornate iron and wood porch, its Greek Revival details and its inventive cruciform plan. It is also significant as the home of Thomas Jefferson Penn, a prominent farmer, merchant and tobacco manufacturer.","narrative":"Aurora is a two-story frame house in southeastern Patrick County, Virginia, built between 1853 and 1856 for tobacco farmer and manufacturer Thomas Jefferson Penn. Painted pink, it follows the Italian Villa style, with round-arched windows, clustered chimneys, wide eaves and a hipped roof. Its west porch is the standout feature, with cast-iron panels in a grapevine pattern and a matching wooden railing, an urban detail that is very rare in a remote rural county. Inside, a cruciform plan places wide halls around a central stair, and the two parlors have marble mantels and Greek Revival touches. The design draws on Andrew Jackson Downing's pattern books, though no architect is known. Penn's wealth from tobacco paid for the house, and his son Frank Reid Penn later built a tobacco company that was absorbed into the American Tobacco Company. A small frame office once used for the Penn tobacco payroll stands nearby. Aurora is the only known Italian Villa example in Patrick County.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1853-ca.1880","architect_builder":"Unknown; built by Thomas Jefferson Penn (architect, if any, unknown)","architectural_style":"Mid-19th Century: Italian Villa","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Exterior and interior are described as in good and virtually unaltered condition, though the west porch railing and the northwest parlor are deteriorated.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:01.1663-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/44/6824/41682444/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/91000015.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91000015/ec78214292-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91000015/ec78214292-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"MarmadukePercy","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aurora_Penn%27s_Store_Patrick_County_Virginia.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">MarmadukePercy</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:Aurora_Penn%27s_Store_Patrick_County_Virginia.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41682444","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_(Spencer,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15194020"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/patrick-county/aurora-91000015/"}