The Modern Story of Mountain Home
How we came to be here
Back in 2012, when Scott was doing a SoBo hike of the Appalachian Trail (A.T.) with our son Tracy, he got to thinking, “Wouldn’t it be cool to have a place on the trail where we could welcome hikers and other guests?” We were in our early 50s, living in McLean, VA, and enjoying our professional careers. We were just starting to think about what we might do during our retirement years, and this seemed appealing. We looked at places while Scott was still on trail, and we discovered Mountain Home. At the time, it was a run down, overgrown property that had been neglected for decades, but as we checked it out, talked with experts, considered the options, we decided Mountain Home would be a perfect place to fix up and run as a B&B and Hostel. We still had a few years before retirement, and this was close enough to our home at the time that we could get started right away. We purchased Mountain Home just a six weeks after Scott completed his “thru-hike”. And so, the adventure began.
Within 1 year, working with a local contractor, we had rehabilitated the “Cabbin” and had our business license to operate, so we started hosting guests in 2014. Initially, we advertised to and operated only for backpackers on the A.T. Since hikers need support on weekdays as well as weekends, we ended up operating 7 days a week, taking turns being on site for our guests. The type of work that both of us did in telecom and the federal government, was mostly via teleconference and computer, so working remotely a few days a week was encouraged by our employers. Eventually, we worked out a schedule where Scott worked from Mountain Home Tuesday through Thursday, and Lisa worked from Mountain Home Monday and Friday. We were both on-site here on the weekends. We did all the laundry back in McLean, and based on our schedule, Scott ended up doing most of it. We used one of the futons in the Cabbin, unless the Cabbin was full, and then we pitched a tent on the front porch or, when it got too cold, inside the Main House. We cooked in the Cabbin kitchen and served everyone at the Cabbin table. It was cozy, but we also got to know our guests very well, which made it fun.
We next turned our attention to rehabilitating the Main House. This was a far bigger project. We hired a wonderful architect from Berryville, Allen Kitselman of Main Street Architecture, who not only helped us by preparing the architecture, but helped us through reviews by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (VDHR), and through the contracting process to bring on a great general contractor, Pete Rhoads of Rhoads Restoration. We also brought in masons, plasterers, landscapers, and a fantastic carpentry team, headed by Mike Watkinson of Shenandoah Restorations. By January of 2017, we were able to sell our house in McLean (in 3 days, thanks to Karen and Andy Briscoe and team at HBC Group - Keller Williams), and move into our living quarters in the Main House. We also moved boxes and furniture into the rest of the house, but it was still a dusty rehab project and not ready for guests. We had targeted completion for summer of 2018, and by fall of 2018, we were finally able to open the Main House to our B&B guests. It’s not bad to be just a few weeks late on a 5 year project.
By 2020, we had expanded our guest offerings from the initial Cabbin and 3 private rooms to also include an informal Game Room and Rainbow Room. We have decided that will be the full scope of our guest rooms at Mountain Home. We had also completed rehabilitation of the red brick garage, the “Chicken Coop”, and the “Meat House”. We have also completed rehabilitation on the Meat House for storage, and the Chicken Coop which we plan to use as a small museum. Over the next few years, we hope to rehabilitate the remaining Sheep Shed and lower garage. We haven’t yet decided whether we’ll bring in sheep, goats or chickens. We still have a lot of the U.S. to explore!
We love our guests who come from all over the world, and many different backgrounds. We are engaged in our local community and the A.T. Community. Occasionally, we even find time to go hiking!
With listings on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places, Mountain Home has a fascinating history. We are constantly learning more about this grand old home and the people who have lived here over the past 180+ years. If you are interested in learning about the history of Mountain Home, please check out that story below.
History of Mountain Home
The story of Mountain Home is certainly bigger than us.
People often ask us how old the Main House is, and we have to answer that it depends which part. The oldest part is the original homestead, part of which is contained in the foundation of the Main House. We understand this part dates back to the 1780s. Next came the front of the Main House which was built in 1847. The additional ell was added officially in 1869, although we have found newspapers tacked to the underside of the steps in that section that are dated 1867. Maybe it took 2 years to build the addition? Maybe it didn’t make it into the tax records until 1869? At that time, the el included 2 stories of open porch, which have since been closed in, perhaps around the 1920s, and perhaps that was when electricity and plumbing were also introduced. When we purchased Mountain Home, the Main House had only 2 bathrooms, now it has 6. We added bathrooms for all the private rooms.
We’re not sure of the age of the Cabbin, but it is mentioned in Annie Gardner’s diary which was written during the summer of 1862. In that document, she also mentions the corn house (the center portion of the chicken coop) and the smoke house which she would have been able to see from her room in the Main House before the ell was added.
Mr. Gardner had 3 daughters and 2 sons by his first wife Sarah. Annie was the oldest, then Mary, then Rebecca. One of the sons died in infancy, the other at age 9. Annie attended Hollins College, near Roanoke, but caught Typhoid fever and passed away, never to return home. Rebecca married Nelson Waller, from Spotsylvania County. Although her older sister Mary inherited the house from her father, she deeded it to Rebecca who raised her family here. Rebecca had a son and a daughter. The son, General Samuel Gardner Waller of the Virginia National Guard, became the new owner of Mountain Home, and he visited his sister Mary who lived here full-time. When Mary moved out in the mid-1960s, the home was rented for a time before it was purchased by a couple named the Gutlands who lived here and rented half the house to tenents. When Mr. Gutland died, he left behind his wife and girlfriend, and since it was unclear who should receive ownership, Mr. Nevill Turner offered to buy it from them, and they could split the proceeds. Nevill had hoped to turn Mountain Home into a B&B with a pub in the basement, but his Virginia Chutney business took off, and he decided to sell Mountain Home as is. Lisa and Scott Jenkins purchased the home, as it was, from Nevill in November, 2012. Lisa and Scott tell their story above in “The Modern Story of Mountain Home”.
Much of the history of Mountain Home can be found in the document that was put together to put it on the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register. Section 7 of the National Register document covers the architectural significance of the Main House and outbuildings. Section 8 of that document discusses the Gardner family that originally lived in the 1847 Mountain Home. Although there is a reference in the register document to “32 slaves…”, we wanted to do more to lift up the names and the stories of the people who were enslaved by the Gardner family, and lived and worked on the Mountain Home property prior to the Civil War. Because we are so busy running the B&B, we hired 2 interns in the summer of 2023 to do further research for us. One of the interns, Rilie Bass, prepared this Prezi presentation with information she pulled from a variety of sources (newspaper articles and advertisements, court and census records, etc.) some of which was found in the Laura Virginia Hale collection at the Warren Heritage Society:
this link (https://prezi.com/view/VVFQqaunAcV2xLu1fy9l/)
You can click the graphics and/or use the arrows at the bottom of each page. For enhanced viewing, consider downloading the "Prezi Viewer" from your app store. We plan to continue to add information on this site as it becomes available to us. We welcome contributions of information about anyone who lived at Mountain Home prior to our ownership of the property, and thank you in advance.
If you have questions about the history of Mountain Home, please don’t hesitate to ask us. We didn’t buy Mountain Home because it was historic, but it is an interesting, added bonus, and we have appreciated learning more about the history of Mountain Home from several people who have stopped by to share their information about this historical house.