This imposing Federal-style mansion on Red Hill Farm was built from profits amassed by Charles Ellis through various mercantile ventures. Ellis, whose family had owned the property since the 1750s, formed a partnership with Richmond businessman John Allan, foster father of Edgar Allan Poe. Completed in 1825, Red Hill was the home of Charles Ellis’s younger brother, Richard Shelton Ellis, who managed the family’s Amherst properties. The Adamesque detailing and formality of the spacious plan suggests that the Ellises were familiar with the grand Federal-style town houses then being erected in Richmond. The spiral stair is based on a design in Owen Biddle’s Young Carpenter’s Assistant, (1810), a work sold in Richmond. From 1869 to 1898 Red Hill was owned by the Presbyterian preacher/architect Robert Lewis Dabney. The 20th-century portico replaced an earlier porch.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
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DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
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DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia