About

On a carefully chosen site with the Blue Ridge Mountains as backdrop, Locust Grove was built ca. 1798 for Isaac Davis, Jr. (1754-1835), a successful planter, land speculator, and a slave owner, who served in the Virginia House of Delegates and held various appointive county offices. Although this Greene County house lacks academic architectural character, its two stories and four-room plan made it a vivid contrast to the humble abodes common to the rustic dwellers of the Blue Ridge foothills. The exterior preserves early beaded weatherboarding and porches, and the interior, with its original paneled wainscoting and paneled mantels, retains its original, well-appointed character. Davis, being a public figure, used the exterior to signal his rank, with the principal rooms serving as social spaces for entertaining the public as well as friends and family. The house was restored in the mid-1980s, prior to listing in the registers.