The John Miley Maphis House is a two-story, frame farm house built in 1856. Located on high ground across a creek from the Shenandoah County village of Lantz Mill, the house was the residence of a prosperous miller and merchant, and contributed to the development of the bustling pre-Civil War milling community of Lantz Mill. The John Miley Maphis House is a nearly unaltered example of the type of “hall-and-parlor” houses that were widespread in the Shenandoah Valley in the mid- to late-19th century. In addition to the house, the property also features a circa-1870 bank barn with forebay that replaced one destroyed during the Civil War, a circa-1900 wash house, and circa-1920 chicken house.