{"nrhp_refnum":"94000459","name":"Oakley Hill","other_names":["VDHR No. 42-137"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"VA 156 S side, 2500 ft. W of jct. with VA 643","address_restricted":false,"city":"Mechanicsville","county":"Hanover County","state":"VA","lat":37.59492719650004,"lon":-77.34017304347822,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-05-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Oakley Hill is an antebellum plantation of about 100 acres near Mechanicsville in Hanover County, Virginia, centered on a wood-frame I house built around 1839 for Edward and Sarah Sydnor, with a servants' house and smokehouse.","why_significant":"The house is argued to represent the many simple wood-frame dwellings of small inland plantations around Richmond, showing the persistence of vernacular forms such as the I-house plan. It also preserves a rare, little-altered two-unit servants' house and an early smokehouse, within a rural setting increasingly lost to suburban development.","narrative":"Oakley Hill is a plantation of about 100 acres between Mechanicsville and Cold Harbor in Hanover County, Virginia. Its main house, a wood-frame I house on a high brick basement, was built around 1839 for Edward and Sarah Sydnor as a story-and-a-half dwelling and raised to two full stories in the 1850s. A cedar-lined avenue leads to the house through open fields and old oak trees. Interior details include a two-flight open-well stair and Greek Revival moldings. Behind the house stand a two-cell servants' house, largely unmodernized, and an early smokehouse. The property is considered important as a typical example of the modest dwellings that served small inland plantations around Richmond, and for the survival of rare outbuildings. Most neighboring land has been subdivided for housing, which makes this historic farm one of few remaining. The Sydnor family and later the Bowles family were the only owners, which helped preserve the architectural integrity of the house.","period_of_significance":"1839-1895","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"Greek Revival","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Maintained in excellent condition and still used as a single dwelling; the servants' house is used for storage.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.7862-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/54/6811/41681154/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/94000459.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000459/06ce15c0bc-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000459/06ce15c0bc-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Nickmorgan2","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Oakley_Hill.JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Nickmorgan2</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:Oakley_Hill.JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681154","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oakley_Hill","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14713001"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/hanover-county/oakley-hill-94000459/"}