Although its current 26.5 acres represent only a fraction of the holdings of its builder, Ryland Rodes, Mill Hill, established around 1840, contains a complex of domestic and agricultural buildings that reflect the changes in agricultural practices in Nelson County from the antebellum era of enslaved labor to a post-Civil War economy that shifted away from labor-intensive crops to apple orchards and ultimately, in the case of Mill Hill, to a gentleman’s farm. The Mill Hill property includes an altered but rare extant slave dwelling as well as an icehouse, poultry house, school, caretaker’s house, and a circa 1840 bank barn. Southwest of the main house is a circa-1845 stone building foundation, the likely ruins of a mill. The evolved main house retains hallmark Greek Revival woodwork and faux finishes. The timber frame construction, brick nogging, and formerly pedimented, two-level porch are similar to a neighboring farmhouse, Wintergreen. Mill Hill also shares with the contemporaneous house at Riverside Form in Nelson County two distinctive features—an over-sized, in-wall lazy Susan serving a basement dining room and a “lobby stair.”
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
Programs
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
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
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