Lunenburg Courthouse Historic District

Lunenburg Court House is a small Virginia village that has changed little in size or appearance since before the Civil War, with a population of around forty. Its centerpiece is a two-story brick courthouse with a tetrastyle Roman Doric portico, completed by 1827 after a 1787 frame courthouse was judged inadequate. County officials ordered the new building to follow the plan of the recent courthouse in Charlotte County. The designer and builders were not recorded, but the classical proportions suggest someone familiar with Thomas Jefferson's Roman Revival style. The courthouse was extended by two bays in 1939 for the clerk's office. Nearby are a 1938 colonial-style brick building, a former tavern known as the Lunenburg State Inn, the early-nineteenth-century Hotel Gary, and other period buildings. Set on high ground amid cleared land, the village keeps the courthouse visually dominant, preserving a picturesque courthouse community and the architectural setting around it.