Stonefield arose in 1860 in the city of Charlottesville as a simple, vernacular, two-story, one-over-one-room frame house on a high brick basement (finished, and used as a dining room). Between 1880 and 1884, new owner Mason Gordon added a two-story Victorian Queen Anne “façade,” two rooms in width and one room deep, effectively masking the original rambling vernacular structure. In 1915, Nancy Burr Gordon, Mason’s daughter, moved the school that she had operated downtown since 1911 to the house where it became Stonefield School. Stonefield served as Gordon’s residence and schoolhouse until the year after her death in 1954. The school then merged with the University Country Day School to form Belfield School and moved elsewhere.
The buildings and districts listed under the Charlottesville Multiple Resource Area nomination represent a cross section of all the city’s historic periods, from the founding of Charlottesville in the 1760s through the advent of the automobile and the impact it had on the city’s expansion. Also included are buildings that have played an important part in the history of Charlottesville’s black community. Stonefield was listed in the registers under the Charlottesville MRA without a formal nomination document.
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