{"nrhp_refnum":"94000550","name":"Cuckoo","other_names":["Cuckoo Place","VDHR No. 54-16"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"Jct. of US 33 and VA 522 S","address_restricted":false,"city":"Mineral","county":"Louisa County","state":"VA","lat":37.953043590500045,"lon":-77.8968377340467,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1994-08-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Health/Medicine","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Cuckoo is a brick house with a complex of outbuildings and a family cemetery at the junction of US 33 and US 522 near Mineral, Louisa County, Virginia. The main house was built about 1819 for Henry Pendleton.","why_significant":"The nomination argues that Cuckoo is significant under Criterion A as the home and offices of several generations of Pendleton family doctors, with two surviving doctor's offices showing how rural medicine was practiced. It is significant under Criterion C for combining Federal-period features, including an unusual semicircular chimney closet, with high-quality Colonial Revival renovations of about 1910. Its location beside a major highway also makes it a visual landmark that gave its name to the nearby village.","narrative":"Cuckoo is a two-story, three-bay brick house with a slate roof, built about 1819 for Henry Pendleton beside US Route 33 in Louisa County. Four exterior-end chimneys and an unusual semicircular closet between two of them mark the Federal-period core. About 1910 the Pendleton family carried out a Colonial Revival remodeling, adding a two-level portico, widening the center passage and installing a new stair. In 1938 Charlottesville architect Stanislaw J. Makielski designed a bow-front porch on the rear ell. The grounds hold two doctor's offices, a well house, a smokehouse, a barn, a garage and the Pendleton family cemetery. The property matters for its medical history as well as its architecture. Members of the Pendleton family practiced medicine here from the second quarter of the nineteenth century until 1979, and eleven doctors trace their descent to the builder. The offices show how rural physicians worked, and the house forms a well-known landmark on the highway.","period_of_significance":"1819 - 1938","architect_builder":"Makielski, Stanislaw J.","architectural_style":"Federal; Colonial Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"The house and cemetery are still in use; the larger doctor's office is now used as a tenant house, and the small office displays medical implements and books of the Pendleton doctors.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.840045-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/1/6817/41681701/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/94000550.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000550/65e5ddc2e0-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/94000550/65e5ddc2e0-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"Acroterion","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuckoo_VA1.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Acroterion</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuckoo_VA1.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681701","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuckoo_(Mineral,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5192355"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/louisa-county/cuckoo-94000550/"}