807 S Center Street
ADDRESS: 807 S. Center Street
BUILT: 1870s
ARCHITECTURAL STYLE: Vernacular
Samuel Rice, a carpenter, worked for the RF&P in this area during the Civil War. By 1867, he had purchased seven acres that fronted on Railroad Avenue. With his eldest son Samuel B. Rice, also a carpenter, he began building this house described as a Vernacular Victorian. It’s a transition from Victorian fussiness to a simpler, more symmetrical layout. Still, there is a Queen Anne window in the center gable and spindlework on the turned porch posts. The roof is pressed tin. It is similar to the home across the tracks at 804 S. Center Street.
Rice moved his wife Louisa and their other five children from Darkesville, W.Va., to Ashland into this new home in 1871. Rice, like many, had invested in Confederate money, which was worthless after the war. He saw in Ashland the opportunity for jobs with the railroad and a college education for his sons. Rice worked for the RF&P until his death in 1880. All of his sons attended Randolph-Macon College and each worked for the RF&P at some point in their careers.
After Louisa moved next door with her daughter’s family, Samuel B. Rice and his wife Mattie lived here with their five children. About 1920, he moved into his daughter’s home by the college, and his niece Ruth Blakey Sydnor, her husband Walter and their young daughter moved into this house. Four generations of the Rice family lived in the house until it was sold in 1963.
Renovations over the years include opening up the back of the house and converting the downstairs parlor into a bedroom and adding a bathroom.