Monroe Law Office, Limestone Plantation, Virginia Route 250, Keswick, Albemarle County, Virginia

Significance: The Limestone Estate is part of the original Crawford and Lewis patents of 1731 and 1734. Subsequent owners include: James Monroe, his brother Andrew, Thomas Jefferson, and Dr. George Blaetterman in whose family the property remained until the twentieth century. The Monroe Law Office - the oldest residential structure - bears the date 1794 and is known to have been used by both James and Andrew Monroe. The Monroe Law Office is a small three bay, single pile, eighteenth century wood frame structure raised on a high brick basement with a steeply pitched roof. Although only one of the two original external ramped chimneys remain and numerous alterations have taken place, the Monroe Law Office remains an exemplary eighteenth century Tidewater form transplanted to Piedmont Virginia.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-280
Survey number: HABS VA-988
Building/structure dates: 1794 Initial Construction