The oldest surviving brick house in the city contains on the interior the type of handsome paneling and woodwork that ornamented many eighteenth-century Virginia houses. John Marshall, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, lived here from the time the house was completed until his death in 1835. Marshall was a dignified, unassuming man, and his simple, handsome house expresses the owner's character. In 1907 Marshall's descendants sold the house to the city, whose intention was to demolish it and build a school on the lot. Women's groups banned together to save the house in an effort characteristic of the burgeoning historic preservation movement. The house was deeded to the APVA in 1911, and the new John Marshall High School was built in an L shape around it. Ironically, the high school was later demolished, and now the house is engulfed by the John Marshall Courts Building.