The austere White House was erected ca. 1760 by Pastor Martin Kauffman II, and takes its name from its whitewashed stucco covering. Kauffman founded the Mennonite Baptist Church and held meetings in his house. He later removed himself from the Baptists in a disagreement over their pro-military stand and in 1793 formed the Separatist Independent Baptist Church. Kauffman’s house began as a two story, Germanic-type Flurküchenhaus, or three room plan house with a center chimney. Other features of the house type found here are a vaulted cooling cellar and a two level storage loft. The interior finish of the White House was remodeled in the Federal style, and it retains the striking woodwork and much early paint from that alteration. The unoccupied house preserves its rural setting in the shadow of the Massanutten Mountains, along the South Fork of the Shenandoah River west of the Page County seat of Luray.
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