The state’s Board of Historic Resources has added six new locations to the Virginia Landmarks Register, including a former Danville elementary school and a former tavern in Augusta County.
Cedarbrook Elementary School in Danville was built in 1962-63 and is considered “architecture representative of mid-20th–century educational trends and their effect on the development of suburbs in Virginia after World War II.” The school, which was later renamed the W. Townes Lea Elementary School, closed in 2012. The property is now privately owned and is currently vacant.
The Mint Spring Tavern in Augusta County is “a rare surviving example of a Scots-Irish settler’s home in the Shenandoah Valley,” according to the board. The building began as an illegal tavern in 1779 and has gone through multiple uses over the years, including an inn, a general store, a post office and eventually a tourist home for motorists in the 1930s and 1940s. The property is now a private residence.
Also added to the register, along with their official descriptions by the Department of Historic Resources, were:
- Ivy Hill Cemetery in Alexandria.
Ivy Hill Cemetery was established in 1854-56 as a nondenominational community burial ground in the city of Alexandria to provide a serene, park-like setting in which citizens could be laid to rest. With its pastoral landscape, winding footpaths and driveways, and natural water stream, Ivy Hill embodies the philosophies of the Rural Cemetery Movement of the mid-19th century, which promoted the establishment of cemeteries in peaceful, bucolic settings, away from the bustle of cities.
- The James Minor house in Charlottesville.
Built circa 1937 for James Minor, an attorney who was associated with drafting the Virginia State Constitution in 1902, the James Minor House in the city of Charlottesville exemplifies the early work of Milton L. Grigg, who is best known as one of the architects responsible for the 20th-century restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. The James Minor House showcases Grigg’s talent for incorporating elements of colonial Virginia’s classical architecture into the economical construction of the Great Depression.
- Criglersville Elementary School in Madison County.
In Madison County, Criglersville Elementary School played an important role in the education of the children of residents who were forced to relocate to the area from communities that were in the path of what would become Shenandoah National Park. The architecture of the school — which comprises a main school building completed in ca. 1949, a home economics building built ca. 1935, and an agricultural building also constructed in ca. 1935 — exemplifies a vernacular interpretation of the Modernist style in rural Madison County.
- Triplett High and Graded School in Shenandoah County.
From 1939 to 1959, the Triplett High and Graded School served as the only school for white students in the Shenandoah County town of Mount Jackson and the surrounding areas. The Colonial Revival-style school building, constructed in 1939 with New Deal funding, features a prominent Doric-inspired portico and includes a classroom, an auditorium/gymnasium, and a cafeteria.
