The Architecture of Historic Rockbridge

Book excerpt: This abundantly illustrated, wide-ranging volume captures the rich and diverse architectural history of Rockbridge County, Virginia, including the two cities of Lexington and Buena Vista. While recent books have documented the area's social history, this book fills a long-recognized void by tracing the area's architectural heritage, from the eighteenth century to the post-World War II period. Beginning with early log and stone structures on what was once Virginia's frontier, the discussion moves on to the brick construction of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries that produced some of the finest Federal homes in the Valley of Virginia. The book covers the many styles that would follow, often with their own vernacular interpretation. T he Architecture of Historic Rockbridge is an enormously useful companion to The Architecture of Historic Lexington, itself an invaluable resource now for forty years. Including discussions of towns, schools, churches, resorts, and industrial buildings, the new volume will satisfy the scholarly, while presenting architectural analysis in an engaging manner accessible to a general readership. The book is richly illustrated throughout, with over two hundred color and black-and-white photographs (including the work of internationally recognized photographer Sally Mann), line drawings, and historic maps. Distributed for the Historic Lexington Foundation