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Virginia: Valley, Piedmont, Southside & Southwest » Shenandoah Valley » Frederick County » Middletown and Vicinity » Monte Vista

Monte Vista

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1883; 1942 portico. 8100 block of Valley Pike
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)
  • (Virginia Department of Historic Resources)
  • (Photograph by Mark Mones)

Built for farmer and businessman Charles W. Heater, Monte Vista is the largest and most ornate house built in Frederick County during the late nineteenth century. The idiosyncratic brick house that combines elements of Chateauesque and Queen Anne styles features twin gables with large arched windows, a steeply pitched hipped roof, ornamental iron cresting, and tall corbeled chimneys. The two-story portico carried on full-height Tuscan columns replaced an earlier porch. Among the fine collection of outbuildings are a frame bank barn with an elaborate cupola, a scale house for weighing cattle, a summer kitchen, a smokehouse, a stone icehouse, and a brick bake oven. Heater's mother, Caroline, a supposed Union sympathizer, was one of the first citizens in the area to petition the federal government for damages resulting from the Civil War.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Anne Carter Lee

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