Regarded as the city of Martinsville’s most impressive house, Scuffle Hill was originally built in 1905-06 for Benjamin F. Stevens, a former executive of the Liggett & Myers tobacco company. Stevens shared the house with his son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Pannill F. Rucker. Rucker was himself a well-to-do local tobacco manufacturer. The twenty-room mansion, originally called Oak Hill, burned in 1917. The surviving walls were incorporated by the Ruckers into the present house, a grand Georgian Revival work with fine interior appointments. Later occupants have included furniture executive Rives S. Brown and textile magnate Walter L. Pannill, who renamed the place Scuffle Hill. Since 1959 the house as been the Christ Episcopal Church parish house. Though no architect’s name has been associated with Scuffle Hill, the house remains an imposing local symbol of success.  It also contributes to the East Church Street–Starling Avenue Historic District.