VAF-Chesapeake Chapter
We’re official! The VAF Chesapeake Chapter was formally accepted as a chapter affiliate of the national Vernacular Architecture Forum by a vote of the board at its meeting on May 14, 2025. The Chapter will be taking steps in the coming year to adopt by-laws, and elect officers and board members. Founding organizers include Heather Barrett, Lisa Davidson, Jeff Klee, Catherine Lavoie, Marcia Miller, and Tom Reinhart.
Right: VAF members from the Chesapeake region at Schifferstadt, Frederick, Maryland. Photo courtesy of Willie Graham.
Site Tours:
Over the last four years, chapter organizers have arranged tours at various sites in Maryland and Virginia, usually in the spring and fall, as follows:
2021
On September 25, 2021, VAF members from the Chesapeake region held their first event, a tour of two rare houses in Frederick, Maryland, the Dutch H-bent Beatty-Cramer House (1748) and the German Georgian Schifferstadt (1758). These buildings represent the early settlement of the region and the assimilation of various immigrant building traditions. Our host was the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation, including architectural director, Jospeh Lubozynski.
Highly unusual for Maryland, the Beatty-Cramer House was built for Thomas Beatty following the building traditions familiar to his Dutch wife Maria Jensen, who migrated here from the Hudson Valley. The original two-room, single-pile section exhibits the heavy timber, transverse “H-bent” construction emblematic of Netherlandic framing, featuring posts connected by an anchor beam to form an H-shape.
Schifferstadt is an exceptional surviving example of colonial-era German architecture constructed ca. 1758 by German immigrant and owner Elias Bruner. It features a distinctive Durchgangigen or center-hall arrangement of interior spaces. Also noteworthy are its central wishbone chimney, Liegender Stuhl (leaning truss system), vaulted cellar, stone kitchen window sink, decorative hardware, Stroh Lehm (mud and straw) paling insulation, and five-plate jamb stove, all characteristic of German architecture.
2022
On May 7, 2022, chapter members visited two, mid to late eighteenth-century houses in Virginia, Clermont in Berryville and Fort Bowman in Shenandoah County. They likewise represent divergent immigrant building traditions. Our tour guide was Dennis Pogue.
Clermont evolved in four major building campaigns and is one of the best preserved, and most intensively documented historic structures in Clarke County. Beginning with 1756, one-story frame, jerkin-head-roofed house, and adding a kitchen in 1777, a dining room in 1788, and a two-story stone kitchen and quarters in 1836. Outbuildings include a log duplex quarters for the enslaved and a stone and log spring house.
The 1771 Fort Bowman house is a remarkably well-preserved example of an eighteenth century hybridized vernacular assemblage featuring a combination of English and Germanic styles. English patterns are manifested in the symmetrical façade with end chimneys, while the irregular plan, framing techniques, and details reflect the Bowman family’s German heritage.
On September 24, 2022, the Chapter headed to the Eastern Shore to visit two of Maryland’s oldest structures, the recently restored Cloverfields house and gardens in Wye Mills, and Third Haven Friends Meeting House in Easton. Our tour guides were Willie Graham and Carl Lounsbury.
Cloverfields, as one of Maryland’s oldest houses, offers primary evidence of early building practices. It began in 1705 as a two-story, hall-parlor house with an old- fashioned stair tower, erected by owner, builder, and planter Philemon Hensley. It received changes in additions in 1729, the 1750s, 1760s, and 1783-84. Among the remarkable components that set this house apart are its massive bent principal rafters, heavy board false-plate, and a variety of brick bonding patterns, including an early use of glazed-header Flemish bond with rubbed stretchers, and a belt course and water table stepped at the corners in the English mode.
Third Haven Friends Meeting House is among the oldest positively dated buildings in Maryland and likely the oldest extant Friends meetinghouse in the country, dating to 1684-1685. It was erected by carpenter John Salter approximating specifications outlined in two surviving agreements. As built, it encompassed a T-plan with cross-wing entrance and stair hall to the front. In 1797 the wing was removed, and a six-bay section was added that featured a retractable partition and dual entrances into separate men’s and women’s spaces, as was indicative of the emerging American Friends meetinghouse prototype.
Group visiting Concord.
2023
On June 24, 2023, we toured the former Aquia Quarries in Stafford County, Viriginia that supplied the stone for both the White House and the US Capitol. Aquia freestone is a definitive element in this region’s vernacular architecture. It was used architecturally from at least the 1660s to the 1970s, due to the fact that it was easily quarried and worked by the most rudimentary agricultural tools. Our tour guides were Jerrilynn and Rick McGregor, respectively the historian and former president of the Stafford County Historical Society.
The Aquia Church, 1751-1757.
Also visited were buildings that utilized Aquia freestone, including nearby Concord, with its stone end chimneys. Built during the second quarter of the eighteenth-century as a hall-parlor house, it has been in the MacGregor family since the 1850s. The tract included at least five quarry pits and three landings on Aquia Creek for ease of transport. Next, was the Robertson-Towson house, a c. 1815 ruin built of Aquia freestone. The house is one a few buildings in Stafford that was constructed of blocks of freestone rather than rubble and featured a simple side-passage design with a hall and one room on each floor. It remained in the Towson family until at least 1999. The final stop was the open-span, cruciform design Aquia Church, an impressive and well-preserved 1750s brick structure with Aquia stone embellishments. Construction of this magnificent building commenced in 1751 and was completed in 1757, undertaken by master mason William Copein (1730-1805). It is considered one of finest colonial-era buildings in the United States.
September 16, 2023, took us to Hopewell. Built in 1818 with a 1966 Chesapeake styled addition, Hopewell farm is among the most elaborate, innovative, and intact working farmsteads in the region. It represents a particularly robust example of the gable-and-hipped-roof house type particular to the region, manifesting an L-shaped configuration that joins the two gable roof sections with a hip. It also features a raised basement kitchen, furnishings that date back generations, a terraced landscape, and a full complement of outbuildings. Our hosts were Peter and Mary Pearre, the sixth generation of the family to reside here.
Pavilion IX at UVA, Photo courtesy of Jeff Klee.
2024
On May 5, 2024, we headed to Charlottsville, VA to visit Pavilion IX at the University of Virginia (UVA), designed by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Henry Latrobe to be a classroom and housing for one of the professors at the new university. It was built from 1819-1822 by masons Charles Carter and William Phillips and carpenters John Neilson and George Spooner.
That afternoon, the group visited three-part-plan house, Oak Lawn, completed in 1822 and thought to have been built by some of Jefferson’s builders at UVA. It was the house of Nimrod Braham, a merchant, magistrate, and militia officer. UVA recently purchased Oak Lawn and began a long-term research and planning project on the property. This visit represented an opportunity to examine a house that has been little studied. Our tour guide was Jeff Klee.
Oak Lawn, Photo courtesy of Jeff Klee.
2025
Fall tour: Mark your calendars for our next tour on September 13, 2025. We’ll be visiting a couple of sites in Howard County, Maryland, including Carrollton Hall, a refined neoclassical house designed by Baltimore architect William Small, who apprenticed under Benjamin Henry Latrobe. Charles Carroll of Carrollton commissioned the house for his granddaughter Emily MacTavish, siting it on the vast holdings of his estate, Doughoregan Manor. Constructed in 1831-1832, the granite ashlar building is classically proportioned with monumental, tetrastyle Greek Doric porticos on its front and rear facades. Notable interior details include a large central saloon with a coffered barrel vault ceiling and a second-floor room with a domed ceiling with an eight-light oculus in the center. Stay tuned for additional details on the day.
Papers Day:
In December 2024, we hosted our first papers day at the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, which included presentations from six VAFers. Topics ranged from early log buildings in the Mid-Atlantic to the vernacular residential and commercial buildings on Main Street in Ellicott City, MD (1830-1850) to the construction crews who built UVA. The Chesapeake Chapter will host an additional paper session in the near future.
Chapter Meetings:
Over the past several years, we’ve held informal meetings at the annual conference, following the papers sessions on Saturday. In Delaware, 45 VAFers attended our chapter meeting and heard updates regarding past activities and future plans. We also solicited ideas for future tours and other events like field days or emergency documentation.
Chapter Membership:
While our membership automatically draws on VAF members in Maryland, Virginia, DC, and Delaware, anyone who has a current national membership is eligible to also join the chapter. There are no additional chapter dues or fees beyond event costs. Currently VAFers outside our region need to reach out to request membership. We are exploring adding a checkbox to VAF online membership renewal similar to the New England Chapter and reestablishing a Chesapeake Chapter email, chesapeakechapter@vafweb.org.
Chesapeake Chapter members pose in front of a huge block of Aquia stone in the former quarries.
Contact information: