Nancy Witcher Langhorne Astor, Viscountess Astor, was an American-born British politician who was the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP), serving from 1919 to 1945. Astor was born in Danville, Virginia and raised in Greenwood, Virginia. Her first marriage, to socialite Robert Gould Shaw II, was unhappy and ended in divorce. She then moved to England and married American-born Englishman Waldorf Astor in 1906.
Charles Dana Gibson was an American illustrator who created the Gibson Girl, an iconic representation of the beautiful and independent American woman at the turn of the 20th century.
Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor, DL was an American-born English politician and newspaper proprietor. He was a member of the Astor family. He was active in minor political roles. He was devoted to charitable projects, and with his more famous wife Nancy became a prominent fixture in upper class English society.
Nancy Lancaster was a 20th-century tastemaker and the owner of Colefax & Fowler, an influential British decorating firm that codified what is known as the English country house look.
Robert Gould Shaw III was an American-born English socialite. He was the only child of Nancy Witcher Langhorne and Robert Gould Shaw II, a landowner and socialite. After his parents' divorce in 1903, he moved to England with his mother Nancy, who later married Waldorf Astor, 2nd Viscount Astor and became the first woman in Britain to take her seat as a member of parliament.
Virginia Episcopal School (VES) is a private, co-educational college preparatory, boarding and day school for students in grades 9 - 12, located in Lynchburg, Virginia, United States. The school was first conceived in 1906 by the Reverend Robert Carter Jett, and opened its doors to students in September 1916. Virginia Episcopal School's 160-acre (0.65 km2) campus is located above the James River in Lynchburg along the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.
Colonel Chiswell Dabney Langhorne was an American railroad industrialist. He was the father of Nancy Witcher Langhorne and the maternal grandfather of both Joyce Grenfell and Michael Langhorne Astor.
Point of Honor is an historic home, now a city museum, located in Lynchburg, Virginia. The property has commanding views of the city and the James River. Its name originated due to the land on which it is built being used as a clandestine dueling ground.
The Willa Cather Birthplace, also known as the Rachel E. Boak House, is the site near Gore, Virginia, where the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Willa Cather was born in 1873. The log home was built in the early 19th century by her great-grandfather and has been enlarged twice. The building was previously the home of Rachel E. Boak, Cather's grandmother. Cather and her parents lived in the house only about a year before they moved to another home in Frederick County. The farmhouse was listed on the Virginia Landmarks Register (VLR) in 1976 and the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) in 1978.
Pine Knot is a historic cabin located 14 miles (23 km) south of Charlottesville, Virginia in Albemarle County, Virginia. The cabin was owned and occupied by the 26th president of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt and his wife Edith Kermit Roosevelt, and used by Roosevelt and the first lady while he was president, although no official business took place there. In 1905, Edith Roosevelt spent $280 to purchase the fifteen-acre property with its rustic worker's cabin, and she bought an additional seventy-five acres in 1911. The cabin is owned by the Edith and Theodore Roosevelt Pine Knot Foundation and is open for visits by appointment.
Mirador is a historic home located near Greenwood, Albemarle County, Virginia. It was built in 1842 for James M. Bowen (1793–1880), and is a two-story, brick structure on a raised basement in the Federal style. It has a deck-on-hip roof capped by a Chinese Chippendale railing. The front facade features a portico with paired Tuscan order columns. The house was renovated in the 1920s by noted New York architect William Adams Delano (1874–1960), who transformed the house into a Georgian Revival mansion.
Grace Hospital is an American historic hospital in Richmond, Virginia. The original Colonial Revival structure was built in 1911 based on a design by noted Virginia architect Charles M. Robinson. The hospital is located to the west of Richmond's central business district and was substantially expanded by additions in 1930 and 1964. The original three-story main structure with an entrance pavilion on West Grace Street, is a Colonial Revival building with paired Ionic order columns and gauged arches. In 1930, a five-story Moderne style addition was built to the south along Monroe Street. In 1964, a further three-story addition was built along Grace Street. The 1964 addition is devoid of ornamentation, and the west wing "projects a modern, utilitarian character."
Gordon C. Felts House is a historic home located at Galax, Virginia. It was completed in 1930, and is a large 2+1⁄2-story stuccoed brick dwelling in the Mission Revival style. It features a terra cotta mission style gabled roof. It also has a large bluestone terrace covered by a pergola supported by six large Grecian Doric order columns, on the south side the house has an enclosed sleeping porch defined with four large Grecian Doric columns. Also on the property are a contributing garage / apartment and playhouse. Currently owned by Nancy and Dr. Samuel B. Luague.
North Danville Historic District is a national historic district located in Danville, Virginia. The district includes 426 contributing buildings in a primarily residential area of Danville. The district includes three blocks of primarily two-story, brick commercial buildings. Buildings within the district were constructed from around 1880 until roughly 1955 and reflect a wide variety of architectural styles, including vernacular Victorian, Italianate, Queen Anne, Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and bungalow designs. Many of these buildings were built by Dan River Cotton Mills founder T.B. Fitzgerald. Notable buildings include the Calvary United Methodist Church (1886), Shelton Memorial Presbyterian Church (1889), Bellevue Public School (1898), Washington Street Methodist Episcopal Church (1910), Keen Street Baptist Church (1927), and Woodrow Wilson High School (1926).
Longwood House is a historic home located at Farmville, Prince Edward County, Virginia, and functions as the home of the president of Longwood University. It is a 2+1⁄2-story, three-bay, frame dwelling with a gable roof. It features Greek Revival style woodwork and Doric order porch. Longwood House has a central passage, double-pile plan. It has a two-story wing added about 1839, and a second wing added in the 1920s, when the property was purchased by Longwood University. The house is located next to the university golf course, and since 2006, athletic fields used by the Longwood Lancers.
Penn–Wyatt House, also known as the Hoffman House, is a historic home located at Danville, Virginia. It was built in 1876, and modified between 1887 and 1903. It is a two-story, stuccoed brick dwelling with Italianate and Second Empire style architectural elements. It features projecting bay windows, a central three-story entrance tower topped by a bell-cast mansard roof, brownstone quoining, a one-story porch with Ionic order columns, and a multi-gable roof.
Birch House is a historic home located at Falls Church, Virginia. It was built in the 1840s, as a 1+1⁄2-story, Greek Revival frame I-house dwelling. It was enlarged to two stories in the 1850s. It was again enlarged in 1873, by an extension across the rear of the original dwelling. A porch across the front was added much later. It was the home of Joseph Edward Birch and his descendants. The house is now owned by former City of Falls Church Vice Mayor and Mrs. Samuel A. Mabry. The Mabrys purchased the house in 1984. The garden has been featured in the Virginia State Garden show twice.
William Beers House, also known as the Beers House, is a historic home located in Richmond, Virginia. It was built in 1839, and is a three-story, three-bay, Greek Revival style brick dwelling crowned by an Italianate bracketed cornice and shallow hipped roof. It features an entrance with sidelights and pilasters framed by a porch containing coupled Greek Doric order columns. The house was enlarged to a full three stories in 1860. In 1965 the house was acquired by the Medical College of Virginia.
Buena Vista is a historic plantation house located in Roanoke, Virginia. It was built about 1840, and is a two-story, brick Greek Revival style dwelling with a shallow hipped roof and two-story, three-bay wing. The front facade features a massive two-story diastyle Greek Doric order portico. Buena Vista was built for George Plater Tayloe and his wife, Mary (Langhorne) Tayloe. George was the son of John Tayloe III and Anne Ogle Tayloe of the noted plantation Mount Airy in Richmond County and who built The Octagon House in Washington D.C. The property was acquired by the City of Roanoke in 1937, and was used as a city park and recreation center.
Building at 216 Bank Street, also known as Holland House Apartments, is a historic home located at Suffolk, Virginia. It was built about 1885, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, three bay stuccoed brick Second Empire style building. It has a polychromatic slate mansard roof and a full-width, one-story, hipped roof front porch. It was built for Colonel Edward Everett Holland as a single-family dwelling. It was occupied by the Suffolk Elks Lodge No. 685 from 1940 to 1965, then converted to a six-unit apartment building.
