Berkeley Plantation, one of the first plantations in America, comprises about 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the banks of the James River on State Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia. Berkeley Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred, named after the Berkeley Company of England. In 1726, it became the home of the Harrison family of Virginia, after Benjamin Harrison IV located there and built one of the first three-story brick mansions in Virginia. It is the ancestral home of two presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, who was born there in 1773 and his grandson Benjamin Harrison. It is now a museum property, open to the public.
Sherwood Forest Plantation Foundation is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. The main plantation house, built in 1730, was the home of the tenth president of the United States, John Tyler (1790–1862) for the last twenty years of his life. It is located on State Route 5, a scenic byway which runs between the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg. The house is located approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) from the river. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
Shirley Plantation is an estate on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located on scenic byway State Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg. It is the oldest active plantation in Virginia, settled in 1613 and is also the oldest family-owned business in North America, when it was acquired by the Hill family, with operations starting in 1638. White indentured servants were initially used as the main labor force until the early 1700s, when black slavery became the primary source of Virginian labor. It used about 70 to 90 African slaves at a time for plowing the fields, cleaning, childcare, and cooking. It was added to the National Register in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. After the acquisition, rebranding, and merger of Tuttle Farm in Dover, New Hampshire, Shirley Plantation received the title of the oldest business continuously operating in the United States.
Westover Plantation is a historic colonial tidewater plantation located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. Established in c. 1730–1750, it is the homestead of the Byrd family of Virginia. State Route 5, a scenic byway, runs east–west to the north of the plantation, connecting the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg.
James Madison's Montpelier, located in Orange County, Virginia, was the plantation house of the Madison family, including Founding Father and fourth president of the United States James Madison and his wife, Dolley. The 2,650-acre (1,070 ha) property is open seven days a week.
Wilton House Museum is a museum in a historic house located in Richmond, Virginia. Wilton was constructed c. 1753 by William Randolph III, son of William Randolph II, of Turkey Island. Wilton was originally the manor house on a 2,000-acre (8.1 km2) tobacco plantation known as "World's End" located on the north bank of the James River several miles east of the city of Richmond. Between 1747 and 1759, William III acquired more than a dozen contiguous tracts of land. About 1753, Randolph completed building a Georgian manor house, which he named "Wilton," on a site overlooking the river.
Mount Airy, near Warsaw in Richmond County, Virginia, is the first neo-Palladian villa mid-Georgian plantation house built in the United States. It was constructed in 1764 for Colonel John Tayloe II, perhaps the richest Virginia planter of his generation, upon the burning of his family's older house. John Ariss is the attributed designer while William Buckland (architect) was the builder/architect. Tayloe's daughter, Rebecca and her husband Francis Lightfoot Lee, one of the only pair of brothers to sign the Declaration of Independence are buried on the estate, as are many other Tayloes. Before the American Civil War, Mount Airy was a prominent racing horse stud farm, as well as the headquarters of about 10-12 separate but interdependent slave plantations along the Rappahannock River. Mount Airy is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark as well as on the Virginia Landmarks Register and is still privately owned by Tayloe's descendants.
Greenway Court is a historic country estate near White Post in rural Clarke County, Virginia. The property is the site of the seat of the vast 18th-century land empire of Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron (1693–1781), the only ennobled British colonial proprietor to live in one of the North American colonies. The surviving remnants of his complex — a later replacement brick house and Fairfax's stone land office — were designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960.
Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation is a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Holdcroft, Charles City County, Virginia. The scale and character of the collection of domestic architecture at this site recall the vernacular architectural traditions of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries along the James River.
Merchant's Hope was the name of a plantation and church established in the Virginia Colony in the 17th century. It was also the name of an English sailing ship, Merchant's Hope, which plied the Atlantic bringing emigrants to Virginia in the early 17th-century. The Merchant's Hope was owned by a man named William Barker who was a wealthy English merchant and mariner who patented land in Virginia.
Castle Hill (Virginia) is an historic, privately owned, 600-acre (243 ha) plantation located at the foot of the Southwest Mountains in Albemarle County, Virginia, near Monticello and the city of Charlottesville, and is recognized by the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places. Castle Hill was the home of Dr. Thomas Walker (1715–1794) and his wife, Mildred Thornton Meriwether (widow of Nicholas Meriwether III). Walker was a close friend and the physician of Peter Jefferson, and later the guardian of young Thomas Jefferson after his father's death.
Menokin, also known as Francis Lightfoot Lee House, was the plantation of Francis Lightfoot Lee near Warsaw, Virginia, built for him by his wife's father, John Tayloe II, of nearby Mount Airy. Lee, a Founding Father, was a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Menokin was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1971.
Tuckahoe, also known as Tuckahoe Plantation, or Historic Tuckahoe is located in Tuckahoe, Virginia on Route 650 near Manakin Sabot, Virginia, overlapping both Goochland and Henrico counties, six miles from the town of the same name. Built in the first half of the 18th century, it is a well-preserved example of a colonial plantation house and is particularly distinctive as a colonial prodigy house. Thomas Jefferson is also recorded as having spent some of his childhood here. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1969.
Mayhurst is an 1859 Italianate mansion in Orange, Virginia. It was built by the Willis family relatives of President James Madison as the plantation house for an estate comprising 2,500 acres (10 km2) of fields, pastures and forest. It was a scene of action in the Civil War. It is currently operated as an Inn.
John Tyler Sr. was an American lawyer, planter, politician and judge who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and became 15th Governor of Virginia and later United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Virginia. He was the father of U.S. President John Tyler.
Corotoman was a 17th and 18th century plantation on the Rappahannock River in Lancaster County, Virginia, United States. Corotoman was the residence of Robert Carter I, a colonial Governor of Virginia and one of the wealthiest men in the British colonies in North America. Corotoman was located on a point overlooking the Rappahannock River, and flanked by Carter's Creek and Corrotoman River to its east and west respectively.
Woodburn, also known as Woodbourne, is a historic plantation house located near Charles City, Charles City County, Virginia. The house was built about 1815 by John Tyler, who later served as tenth President of the United States. The Palladian house is a three-part frame structure consisting of a tall, two-story, three-bay central section with a gable-end facade and flanking chimneys, and two, low one-story, one-bay wings. Also on the property are a contributing one-story frame office and an original smokehouse. The Woodburn property was purchased by John Tyler in 1813 when he married Letitia Christian. He resided there until 1821, and sold the property to his brother Wat H. Tyler in 1831. During his residence at Woodburn, he served as Congressman.
Cedar Grove is a historic plantation house located near Providence Forge, New Kent County, Virginia. The main section was built about 1810, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, single pile, brick structure. The frame section was added about 1916. It has a traditional one-room side-hall plan. Also on the property are a contributing smokehouse and several sheds added about 1916. It was the farm residence of the Christians, a leading county family of colonial and early-Republican times. The 19th-century cemetery contains the graves of the Christian family, including Letitia Christian Tyler, the first wife of President John Tyler.
