Cobham Park, or Cobham Park Estate, is a historic estate located near Cobham, in

Albemarle County Albemarle County is a county located in the Piedmont region of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its county seat is Charlottesville, which is an independent city and enclave entirely surrounded by the county. Albemarle County is part of the Charl ...

and

Louisa County, Virginia Louisa County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,596. The county seat is Louisa. History Prior to colonial settlement, the area comprising Louisa County was occupied by severa ...

. The mansion was built in 1856, and is a rectangular -story, five-bay, double-pile structure covered by a hipped roof with three hipped roof dormers on each of the main slopes, and one dormer on each end. The house is an unusual example of ante-bellum period

Georgian Georgian may refer to: Common meanings * Anything related to, or originating from Georgia (country) ** Georgians, an indigenous Caucasian ethnic group ** Georgian language, a Kartvelian language spoken by Georgians **Georgian scripts, three scrip ...

style architecture. It features front and rear, simple

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

porches supported on square

Ionic order The Ionic order is one of the three canonic orders of classical architecture, the other two being the Doric and the Corinthian. There are two lesser orders: the Tuscan (a plainer Doric), and the rich variant of Corinthian called the composite or ...

columns. Also on the property are: two

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke Smoke is a suspension of airborne particulates and gases emitted when a material undergoes combustion or pyrolysis, together with t ...

s, one brick and one frame, a frame dependency, and a simple two-story frame dwelling. It was the summer home of William Cabell Rives, Jr., (1825-1890), second son of the noted United States senator and minister to France

William Cabell Rives William Cabell Rives (May 4, 1793April 25, 1868) was an American lawyer, planter, politician and diplomat from Virginia. Initially a Jackson Democrat as well as member of the First Families of Virginia, Rives served in the Virginia House of Delega ...

. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> It was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1974.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Georgian architecture in Virginia Houses completed in 1856 Houses in Albemarle County, Virginia Houses in Louisa County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Albemarle County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Louisa County, Virginia {{LouisaCountyVA-NRHP-stub