Homes

Ephraim Schooley (#7 on map)

15547 Second Street

Open on Friday: 10am to 5pm (Garden Only) & Sunday: 10am to 5pm

The Ephraim Schooley House is also known as the Parker Bennett House is a Federal period home. The land was acquired in 1820 by weaver John Morrow who began building the left side, shorter portion of the house ca. 1820 using Flemish Bond brick construction. You can see that the center window of the left side of the home would have been the front door. The house was initially a weaving establishment for not only Morrow, but also later Thomas Donaldson who weaved carpet and dyed both carpet and cloth here. During the economic depression of 1819 – 1822, Morrow lost the property. It was bought at auction by Richard Henderson in 1824, who then sold it to Jesse Gover in 1830. William Mayne took over the weaving establishment in 1828 where he accepted jobs for all kinds of weaving. Ephraim Schooley, the Quaker for whom the home is named, bought the property from Gover in 1834. The taller structure on the right side of the home was likely constructed in 1851 using Common Bond brick construction and was a separate residence.

Saddler Asa Brown (1794 – 1872) lived in the home in the 1850’s and 1860’s. The Civil War split his large family down the middle. Asa, a veteran of the War of 1812, was a loyal Unionist, as was his son and two daughters. Sons Charlie and “Ab” were supporters of the confederacy, as was wife Aurena and a third daughter. All managed to survive the war, though Charlie took a Yankee bullet at the First Battle of Bull Run.

The house was used as two separate dwellings that were both sold to H.C. Bennett in 1876. From 1919 to 1959, the property was owned by the H.B. Parker family. Harvey, a blacksmith, came home from WWI and feuded with his brother Fred who had run the smithy in his absence. The two never spoke again. When Mr. and Mrs. John Lewis bought the property in 1959, they restored the home and named it “The Parker-Bennett House”. The two-level addition was added in the 1970’s and an easement was granted to the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission. Further additions were done in the 1980’s. Although you would never know it by looking at it from the street, this is one of the largest lots in Waterford. There are four acres in the back. The house was built with “Waterford bricks,” which were fired right here on the property.

The Ephraim Schooley property is open through the courtesy of its current owners, the Manch family.

Monroe Hough House (#7 on map)

This house stands on lots 20 and 26 of a 64-lot of land owned by Quaker Mahlon Janney and auctioned after his death in 1812. In 1851, Carpenter Samuel C. Hough (1811-1887) a

Methodist, purchased the two lots, still-undeveloped. Shortly before he died in 1887, one of his and Mary Smallwood Hough’s nine children, Andrew Monroe Hough (1852-1915) bought the pair for $95 and combined them into one lot.

By the end of 1888 “Roe” Hough’s purchase featured a new frame house and the property was valued at $750. He married Edith Virginia, daughter of Waterford blacksmith Silas Corbin. Roe worked as a dry goods clerk in Waterford for much of his life, including at the Corner Store. Edith, at one point, worked in a millinery store on Main Street. The couple had no children but Roe was civic-minded.

In February 1888 a county newspaper reported that Mr. Hough lent a neighborly hand to two little children “who were brought to town on the morning of the 3^rd, in a dreadful condition, having their feet, and the stomach of one, badly frozen. ”Roe” raised money to get some necessary clothing. Kind people of the town furnished them suitable garments and Dr. G. E. Connell administered medical aid.”

That same year, Hough served as registrar for an election in the village. Roe died in 1915; Edith in 1946, two years after selling the house to Eleanor Love James, of a long-time Waterford family. The house subsequently passed through several owners until 2002 when the Hertel family purchased it from Elaine Reynolds, who with her husband Neil had enlarged it in 1982.

The house includes overhanging eaves, shingle siding, and two-over-two windows, all popular at the time of its construction.

Asbury-Johnson House (Garden Only) (#9 on map)

15567 Second Street

Open on Sunday: 10am to 5pm (Garden Only)

This house is the first of three Victorians built on contiguous vacant lots along the southwest side of Second Street in the late 19th century. During the Civil War, in October 1862, a Union division commander described the location as a beautiful site “in front of a most excellent family of Quakers on the opposite side of the street . . . They offered a nice room, but I prefer my tent,” (where he could keep an eye on his men bivouacked on the adjoining Phillips Farm).

Armida Athey Love (1841-1926), widow of a Union army surgeon, bought the land in 1886 and by the following year had added a new frame dwelling. The house was built by carpenter Asbury R. Johnson (1842-1905), whom she married in March 1887. The local press reported the following month that “Mrs. Kate Rickard, nee Compher, has purchased the handsome new residence lately built by Mrs. Love . . . as her [Kate’s] future home.” Kate, herself a widow, remarried John S. Paxson in 1889, and the property remained in the Paxson and Rickard families until 1956.

A protective easement on the house is held by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR). Many homes in Waterford have this protection. It prevents inappropriate changes to the original structure. And in fact there have been few alterations made—plumbing and wiring aside. It is less exuberantly embellished than its labor neighbors to the south. In 2010 an earlier deck was rehabilitated and a porch added that is sympathetic to the original architecture.

The Asbury-Johnson House is open through the courtesy of Debbie Zongoli & George Rambo.

Flavius Beans Property

Throughout most of its history, Waterford was a relatively isolated community. One result of this isolation was that architectural styles arrived later in Waterford than in many other parts of the country. The Flavius Beans House illustrates this delay. It is a fine example of mid-Victorian architecture, although Flavius Beans did not have it built until about 1890.

The architectural details are more elaborate and “prettier” than would have been the case earlier; for instance, around the edges of the upper sash of each window are small square panes. The gabled pediment along the front roof line has a turned peak ornament at the top and decorative shingles within. The windows in the side pediments have small square panes, also surrounded by decorative shingles. Notice also the jigsaw trim above the bay window and the dentils and brackets. At one point there was probably more of this “carpenter Victorian” trim, which was removed as succeeding owners tried to keep up with the newer styles.

The high style of the Flavius Beans House is evidence of the economic strength of Waterford in the late nineteenth century. It also reflects the availability of commercially cut and sawn timber as a result of the extension of the railroad through nearby Paeonian Springs.

The Flavius Beans House property is open through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Nicholas Ratcliffe.

The Bank House (#14 on map)

40149 Main Street

Open on Saturday: 10am to 5pm

This finely crafted house was probably built about 1806 by young Israel H. Thompson. Unfortunately, he died the same year, at age 22. The building he left is notable for its precisely mortared brickwork and an elegant architrave under the eaves.

Thompson’s executors sold the house to Richard Chilton in 1809, and in 1815 Isaac Steer and his son Jonah purchased the building. Early on, Isaac rented a “storeroom” in the house to the newly formed Loudoun Company, a bank founded by local farmers and businessmen. The enterprise was short-lived but, according to tradition, the steel door of its vault was repurposed to cap a horse-mounting block across the street.

The Chamberlin family that began the restoration of Waterford bought the property in the late 1930s and held it for more than 70 years. Wellman Chamberlin, National Geographic’s chief cartographer, made extensive repairs and improvements to the old building at mid-century, including replacing a dilapidated porch that spanned the front façade with a hand-carved door surround he fashioned himself. Renovations continued after Wellman’s tenure by his son and daughter-in-law.

The Bank House is open through the courtesy of Tracy and Paul Schorn.

Ephraim Schooley (Garden Only) (#7 on map)

15547 Second Street

Open on Friday: 10am to 5pm (Garden Only) & Sunday: 10am to 5pm

The Ephraim Schooley property is open through the courtesy of its current owners, the Manch family.

Old Waod/Off the Rails (#8 on map)

Old Waod/Off the Rails

This is one of several village buildings that look older than they actually are. A “1769” inscription, installed in jest by the original owner George Bentley, fooled visitors who marveled at the house’s “fine condition” for such an “old house.” Actually Bentley constructed it two centuries later than 1769, using discarded railroad ties from the defunct Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, hence the playful name. According to a newspaper account at the time, Bentley called it “Old Waod,” pronounced “Old Wood.” The current owners, in keeping with the whimsy of the “Old Waod” name, have dubbed it “Off the Rails.”

Mr. and Mrs. Bentley came to Waterford in the 1940s and raised a family, soon becoming active and loyal members of the non-profit Waterford Foundation. They were tireless workers each year at the annual Waterford Homes Tour and Craft Exhibit, and both served on the Board of Directors. Ruth Bentley wrote a weekly column about Waterford for the Loudoun Times-Mirror through the 1960s. Both worked on other houses they purchased in the village, all the while commuting to Washington, D.C. to work. These houses included their residence, the Hough House at 40205 Main Street, the Lloyd Curtis house on the Big Hill, and the Weaver’s Cottage on Water Street.

This log cabin originally served as storage space for the Bentley’s home on the hill above, but was converted into a home beginning in 1992, and the lower lot was made a separate parcel in 1997. The land on which it is built had belonged to the extensive Hough family who dominated village history—off and on—from this lot from 1801 until the 1940s.

Like many local properties, this lot features extensive stonework which is credited to the late village stonemason Norman Weatherholtz. There are two very large stone retaining walls behind the house, one of which helped to define a flat area for the log building, and the other of which divides the lower lot from the Hough House in back. In the mid-20th century, the Weatherholtz family lived at 40139 Main Street in the “Griffith-Gover House,” and more of Norman’s work can be seen along Main Street in that front garden wall.

The present owners of Old Waod/”Off the Rails” have recently refreshed the interior of the house, and also worked with Allen Kitselman, the original architect for the 1992 house conversion, as well as Rhoads Restoration and the Loudoun County Historic Review Committee to add a third floor with a bathroom and master bedroom. They have also tamed an especially steep and challenging backyard area with additional stonework and new garden areas.

Old Woad/Off the Rails is open through the courtesy of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Davis.

Janney-Means House (#1 on map)

40128 Bond Street

Open on Saturday: 10am to 5pm

The stone portion of the Janney-Means House is one of the oldest structures in Waterford. Tradition holds that it was built by Mahlon Janney, son of the village founder, around 1762.

An early owner, Philadelphia Quaker Asa Moore, was one of the village’s wealthier men. He added the brick wing in about 1800 and owned the tannery that filled most of the meadow in front of his house. On his death in 1823, his son-in-law Samuel Harris inherited the residence. A physician, he had his office in a stone wing on the north end that was later removed.

In 1850, Samuel C. Means, an enterprising young miller newly arrived in the village, bought the house from Dr. Harris; he served as mayor of Waterford in 1853. Though not a Quaker himself, Means married Quaker neighbor Rachel Bond in December 1855; by publicly acknowledging her “marrying out of unity” a month later, Rachel was allowed to remain a member of the Society of Friends, even after her husband’s later military leadership.

Early in the Civil War, Means rejected Confederate overtures to join the Cause (in which one of his brothers served and died). He was later personally commissioned a captain in the Union Army by Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton, and raised a cavalry company, the Independent Loudoun Virginia Rangers, one of the only organized units of Virginians to fight for the Union; he was a persistent thorn in the side of the Confederacy. The war bankrupted Means, who lies buried with other family members in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C.

A late 19th- and early 20th- century resident of the house, J. Elbert Divine, was the son of one of Means’s Rangers and one of Waterford’s most active builders in that period. “Eb’s” handiwork included wraparound porches seen on two village houses on Second Street but not this one—“Eb’s porch” was removed by a subsequent owner. More recently the house has been painstakingly restored to its early 19th century appearance.

The Janney-Means House is open through the courtesy of Ann Belland.