The Grove, The John Preston House, is the second house built on the Walnut Grove Plantation in western Washington County, Virginia. It is a brick masonry structure that has four thousand five hundred square feet of finished space and is located on an acre and a half of land. It sits along the Lee Highway directly outside of the current city limits of Bristol, Virginia. The style of the building is a transition between Greek Revival and Italianate. The building has never been remodeled or altered from its original form; however, it has endured an extensive amount of vandalism in the past ten years.
The house is a two-story, two room deep, brick load-bearing masonry structure. The brick walls are constructed in an American Bond masonry course pattern. It has a three bay façade with a two story porch that is supported by double four-by-four posts which are connected to each with “X” bracing lattice work. Railings on both the first floor and second floor also incorporate the “X” crossing latticework motif. The house has a story and half wing on the east side of the main structure; this wing was originally built as a kitchen and servant wing and is connected to the house with a lattice-enclosed porch. The house and its wing both have shallow gable roofs that are covered with standing seam-roofing material.
The front door is centered on three bay façade. The flanking bays have full triple hung sash windows on the first door that begin at the finish floor elevation. The front door has a four-panel configuration with a three lite transom above it and two flanking flour lite sidelights. The front door and sidelights have carved rails and pilasters that incorporate Italianate details and accents. The door leading onto the second floor porch is similar in design and construction. All of the windows are all sash windows with a lite configuration of six over six. The west elevation has windows placed in the center of the wall while the east elevation has windows flanking the kitchen wing.
The roof of the house has deep overhangs, simple fascia and bargeboards and frieze boards with shallow six-inch cove mouldings below the soffit. The porch is gable ended with an elaborate tympanum, which is accented by a raised wooden panel. The house has five chimneys; the front chimneys and one rear chimney are located at the gable ends while the fourth chimney is located at the rear of the house. The fifth chimney is located on the west gable of the kitchen wing.
The interior layout is comprised of a grand center hall with two large parlors with fireplaces on the west side of the hall and a large library with built-in bookcases and a fireplace on the east side of the hall. The center hall has a grand winding staircase that leads up to the second floor. There is a smaller hallway in the east section of the house that leads into the kitchen wing; it has a small secondary staircase that also goes up to the second floor and the attic. The rear section of the house of the house is comprised of small parlors and a dining room on the first floor, while the second floor is similar in layout as the first floor, with bedrooms surrounding the center hall. The kitchen wing is simple, with a large cooking fireplace and a small stairway, which leads into a small sleeping area above.
All of the walls are nine-inch thick masonry walls, and are covered with finish plaster. Door and window casings are simple in form—they are comprised of beveled _ inch boards and 1 _ inch square back bands. The baseboards in the downstairs parlors are 2x12 boards that are beveled at the top. The fireplace mantles are all simple; they are comprised of 1x10 and 1x8 boards, beveled plinths and two-inch cove mouldings that are located beneath the mantle shelf. The doors are all simple four recessed panel doors, 1 1/8 inch thick. Despite the fact that the house has endured extensive vandalism, all of the architectural elements remained on site in various pieces and fragments, and were scattered throughout the interior of the building. These elements were carefully put together and documented for rehabilitation and give a complete picture of the existing building prior to its abandonment.