Ben Dover, also known as Ben Dover Farm, is a historic home and plantation complex, recognized as a national
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains historic building, older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal p ...
, located near
Manakin-Sabot
Manakin Sabot, consisting of the villages of Manakin and Sabot, is an affluent Unincorporated area, unincorporated community in Goochland County, Virginia, Goochland County, Virginia, United States. It is located northwest of Richmond, Virginia, ...
in
Goochland County
Goochland County is a county located in the Piedmont of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Its southern border is formed by the James River. As of the 2020 census, the population was 24,727. Its county seat is Goochland.
Goochland County is inclu ...
,
Virginia
Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...
, United States. The district encompasses 13 contributing buildings, 8 contributing sites, and 10 contributing structures.
History
Site
The main dwelling was built in 1853 as a villa or the Big House of the plantation, in an
Italianate
The Italianate style was a distinct 19th-century phase in the history of Classical architecture. Like Palladianism and Neoclassicism, the Italianate style combined its inspiration from the models and architectural vocabulary of 16th-century It ...
style. When renovated in 1930, it was transformed when given a
Colonial Revival
The Colonial Revival architectural style seeks to revive elements of American colonial architecture.
The beginnings of the Colonial Revival style are often attributed to the Centennial Exhibition of 1876, which reawakened Americans to the arch ...
facade to mask decades of deterioration and poor patchwork.
Contributing buildings, many of later construction, include tenant houses, a converted servants quarters (former slave quarters), a garage, a number of barns and sheds, a bowling alley, a
smokehouse
A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is curing (food preservation), cured with Smoking (cooking), smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more. an ''Accompanying photo'' /ref>
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 ...