About

The Daniel Munch House is a handsome, two-story, brick, Federal-style farmhouse overlooking Passage Creek in the Fort Valley, a narrow valley within the Massanutten Mountain range in eastern Shenandoah County. Built in 1834 for Daniel Munch, a prosperous Fort Valley farmer and distiller, the dwelling contains exceptionally fine and intact examples of 19th-century polychrome painted decorative woodwork executed in the German tradition. Its faux graining and marbling in bold shades of green, black, yellow, and cream are remarkable for their survival. Munch's parents were immigrants from the Rhine River Valley who first settled in Philadelphia and then proceeded to move to Fort Valley by 1779. The property stayed in the Munch family until 1961. In its bucolic setting the farm also contains a frame bank barn, built in 1929, and other early-20th-century agricultural outbuildings.