Sunnyside, also known as the Duke House, is a historic home located at

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city (United States), independent city in Virginia, United States. It is the county seat, seat of government of Albemarle County, Virginia, Albemarle County, which surrounds the ...

. The original section was built about 1800, as a -story, two room log dwelling. It was expanded and remodeled in 1858, as a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...

style dwelling after

Washington Irving Washington Irving (April 3, 1783 – November 28, 1859) was an American short-story writer, essayist, biographer, historian, and diplomat of the early 19th century. He wrote the short stories "Rip Van Winkle" (1819) and "The Legend of Sleepy ...

's Gothic Revival home, also called Sunnyside. The house features scroll-sawn

bargeboard A bargeboard or rake fascia is a board fastened to each projecting gable of a roof to give it strength and protection, and to conceal the otherwise exposed end grain of the horizontal timbers or purlins of the roof. The word ''bargeboard'' is pr ...

s, arched windows and doors, and a

fieldstone Fieldstone is a naturally occurring type of stone, which lies at or near the surface of the Earth. Fieldstone is a nuisance for farmers seeking to expand their land under cultivation, but at some point it began to be used as a construction mate ...

chimney with stepped weatherings and capped corbelled stacks topped with two octagonal chimney pots. The house was built by John Altphin around 1800 in the rural outskirts of Charlottesville, which was only incorporated as a town of less than 300 people in 1801. The house passed through multiple owners before its major transformation in the 1850s. The longest-tenured owners of the property were the Duke family, after

Confederate A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...

officer Richard Thomas Walker Duke purchased the property in 1863. Duke's descendants continued to live at Sunnyside until the University of Virginia acquired the property in 1963. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 2003.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Carpenter Gothic houses in Virginia Houses completed in 1858 Houses in Charlottesville, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Charlottesville, Virginia {{CharlottesvilleVA-NRHP-stub