Friday Homes

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.

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.

Pink House Property

In 1825, Lewis Klein opened this building as a tavern. He had purchased the lot from Quaker William Hough a decade earlier for $80. Like many of its neighbors on Main Street, it was designed for mixed use—a store or other business on the ground floor and a residence above. It therefore had no interior staircase between the first and second floors until a 1950s modernization.

The present large downstairs room was built as two rooms with a central corridor; it has seen many uses over the years. After serving as a tavern, the space became variously an apothecary and hardware store. In the 1880s the building was the home and office of Dr. G. E. Connell, an enterprising physician. He introduced the first telephone to the village in 1884 and charged customers ten cents to call the railroad depot at Clarke’s Gap, three miles distant. In the early 20th century, a side addition was used as a barbershop. In the early 1950s, a new owner painted the house the color “of the setting sun on Waterford brick.” The paint was meant to slow weathering of the soft, locally-made brick; it has been repainted in other shades since. In more recent years, the Pink House has been a popular bed and breakfast destination.

The present garden area has seen a succession of buildings over the past 200 years, including blacksmith and wheelwright shops and a succession of stores well into the 20th century. A town hall and informal auditorium occupied the loft area of a large stable on the site. One of these shops stood where the new stone kitchen now stands. That building served briefly as a residence. During an exceptionally rainy period with water pouring down the hill behind, a tenant joked, “I have the most modern house in Waterford— running water in every room!”

The previous owners, Dr. and Mrs. Charles Anderson protected the Pink House with the gift of an easement to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

The Pink House is open through the courtesy of Isaac Johnson and Jeff Darrah.

Jacob Mendenhall

15620 Second Street

Quakers Jacob Mendenhall (1788-1822) and his wife, the former Beulah Thomas, were “received on certificate from Baltimore Monthly Meeting” in 1813. The couple immediately settled into their new village, buying two quarter-acre lots from the estate of Mahlon Janney in 1814 for $97.25 and constructing the house shortly thereafter. It was built of locally made brick and has two front doors, a feature more commonly seen in Pennsylvania.

As a new member of Fairfax Meeting in 1815, Jacob served on a meeting committee to establish a school for Quaker education and became headmaster that year. One of his students, Noah Swayne, later achieved prominence when appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by Abraham Lincoln in 1862.

Mendenhall and Isaac Walker owned and operated a store in Waterford from 1816 to1819. Mendenhall was a stockholder and cashier of the first bank in Loudoun County—also in Waterford—where he was responsible for day-to-day operations. Jacob served as clerk of Fairfax Meeting.

Jacob’s only child, Hannah, who inherited the house after her father died in 1822, operated a school in the large first-floor room in the 1830s. She married Lewis D. Worley, postmaster of Waterford, in 1838. One of their daughters, Susan Worley, taught at Frying Pan Road School in Fairfax County and boarded at nearby Sully Plantation.

In 1867 the Worleys sold the house to Rachel Steer, who made it her home for 20 years. Rachel (1814 –1912) is buried in the Quaker Cemetery.

In 1896 the house was conveyed to the Methodist Church and was used as a parsonage for almost 50 years. The brick kitchen wing burned in 1915 and was replaced with a larger frame addition.

The most recent addition (to the rear of the house) was completed in 2009.

The Jacob Mendenhall House is protected through a preservation easement to the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission.

The Jacob Mendenhall House is open through the courtesy of Bob and Judy Jackson.

Talbott’s Tavern (#2 on map)

40162 Main Street

Open on Friday: 1:30pm to 5pm

The structures that now comprise 40162 Main Street were originally two separate commercial buildings built at different times – Palmer House (the stone house also known as the Charles Divine House – built ca. 1797) and Talbott’s Tavern (the extension of Talbott House was built c. 1811). Palmer House and Talbott’s Tavern were combined in the 1950s.

The stone house on the left-hand side of the block as you face the buildings is referred to as Palmer House. Palmer House was one of the early structures built on Main Street in Waterford and was thought to have been built in 1797 by Quaker John Williams. This structure pre-dated Talbott’s Tavern (next door) which was constructed in the early 1800’s. In 1808, Joseph Talbott, the owner of the “soon-to-be-constructed” Talbott House at 40170 Main Street, leased the first floor of Palmer House for his saddle making shop. In its early years, Palmer House was known as the Charles Divine House, named after one of its earliest owners. Palmer House, as it has more recently come to be known, wasn’t owned by Alfonzo Palmer, a local farm worker, until 1906.

Talbott’s Tavern (the extension to Talbott House), the stone and brick structure on the right-hand side of Palmer House was an addition to the original Talbott House at 40170 Main Street. This addition to Talbott House became known as Talbott’s Tavern and was thought to have been constructed in approximately 1811. This expansion to Talbott House enable Talbott to host more guests and hold meetings in the large room on the 2^nd floor. At the time, open doorways between the structures allowed guests to flow freely between the two buildings.

Both Palmer House and Talbott’s Tavern were originally just one-story, however they eventually became two-story structures with retail located on the first level and more refined guest spaces upstairs. Later, the third and fourth floors were added to each side. A large porch spanned the front of the buildings and patrons would enter the 2^nd story via the front porch stairs. The downstairs rooms were very rudimentary and likely had dirt, brick, stone, or wood floors.

Talbott’s Tavern is open through the courtesy of Kay Chewning.

Braden House (#6 on map)

Braden House

Loudoun entrepreneur, miller and banker Robert Braden (1765-1827) appears to have purchased the lot on which this house stands about 1820; the house was built soon afterward of brick fired in the meadows behind the houses across the street.

Later in the nineteenth century, the house was bought by Decatur H. “Dick” Vandevanter, mayor of Waterford from 1891-1892. Vandevanter, a son-in-law of Lewis Neal Hough, inherited his chair manufactory and undertaking establishment next door. Dick was a forward-thinking man. He owned one of the first automobiles in Waterford and caught the notice of Leesburg’s Washingtonian-Mirror in August 1903 when he had “fixtures placed in his residence for heating the same with hot water.”

The house today reflects a variety of architectural styles from the 19th and 20th centuries. The Federal-style house with brick-on-stone foundation, Flemish bond and closers on the front façade and five-course common bond on all other sides, is common to the area. The Victorian style wrap-around porch and the south bay window were added by local builder “Eb” Divine in 1913. A portion of the side porch was later enclosed and used as a medical office by Dr. Robert Caldwell, one of Waterford’s country doctors. The beaded woodwork in the kitchen, random width flooring upstairs and narrow winding staircases are typical of many Waterford homes.

Typical, too, are the stories of its various residents, including Rebecca K. Williams, who acquired the house around 1842. On a Sunday in September 1863, in wartime Waterford, Quaker Williams noted in her diary, “…soldiers in all directions riding and walking, but none have been in this morn for food; to meeting [at Fairfax Meetinghouse], when we came home found the cellar had been broken open, butter & pies taken. Quite a disappointment & provocation.…”

The Braden House is open through the courtesy of Peggy and David Bednarik.

Charles Merchant House (Garden Only) (#6 on map)

15539 Second Street

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

The land on which this house stands was originally purchased from the “Mahlon Janney Estate” auction in 1814 by Isaac Walker. Later owners included Robert Braden and then William Nettle, the master joiner of Waterford, who died in 1855. The lot then passed to his wife, who died in 1879. The first indication of a building on the property is noted on the 1875 Survey of Waterford, which shows an agricultural or work shop building on the lot. Possibly this initial building was the work shop of Waterford’s master joiner. In 1891, Franklin and Mary Steer sold the property to James T. and Sarah Merchant, who then sold the property to his son Charles A. Merchant in 1906. He and his wife, the former Anna Mary Berry (“Mamie”), who had moved to Washington D.C., returned to Waterford for the health of their infant son Leo and purchased the lot in 1906.

Charles Merchant, a carpenter and painter, contracted with John Spinks, of nearby Paeonian Springs, to build a house. It seems quite possible that the main section of the house was constructed on the foundation of the prior building, and a new stone foundation was constructed for the rear portion of the house. Merchant lived here until the early 1930s. Herb Edwards, a later owner, lived here from 1943 until his death in 1987.

The renovations done by the present owners, Antonia Walker and Timothy H. McGinn, were designed and built by Mr. McGinn. The back of the house, which originally had only one window, has been opened up with two windows and a door to a back porch, orienting the view to the farmland to the west and allowing access to the flagstone patio and herb garden.

There is a new two-story addition just off the kitchen which includes a winter studio for Ms. Walker and bathroom on the second floor. Whenever possible, vintage building materials have been used or recycled to retain the character of the original house. The back door came from the Thomas Moore house on Bond Street and the balustrade of the porch was fashioned from the old kitchen cabinets.

The Charles Merchant House Garden is open through the courtesy of present owners Antonia Walker and Tim McGinn.