LEAFIE LILLY HARVEY HOMEPLACE

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Agent Contact:
David Sibray, Randy Burdette, 304-575-7390, 304-667-2897

This heirloom property near Winterplace Ski Resort has been restored by the renowned Workshops of David T. Smith. Filled with the workshop’s period-style cabinetry, it has been featured in some of the nation’s top American Country and home interior journals and compendiums.

OVERVIEW

Leafie Harvey’s homeplace is an heirloom property at Flat Top, West Virginia, restored by the renowned Workshops of David T. Smith. The home is filled with cabinetry and furniture for which the workshop is famous. The property is notably near Winterplace Ski Resort and the New River Gorge National Park, a drive of fewer than five and 30 minutes respectively.

The landmark homeplace was for many years owned by Virgil and Leafie Lilly Harvey, both local educators and two of the region’s notable residents. It was purchased in 2006 by David T. and Lora Smith, who have since restored it to its historic condition while adding concealed state-of-the-art amenities and appliances.

The home has been featured in some of the nation’s top compendiums of American Country and home interior styles, including American Country Furniture, Early American Country Homes, and Early American Country Interiors and in national magazines, including Old House Interiors’ Early Homes and A Primitive Place & Country Journal.

ATTRIBUTES AND HIGHLIGHTS

  • Restored historical property
  • Cabinetry by The Workshops of David T. Smith
  • Concealed utilities and appliances
  • Preserved heirloom landscape
  • Highland agricultural biome
  • Humid continental climate with four distinct seasons
  • Adjoining Winterplace Ski Resort
  • Adjoining Lilly Reunion Grounds
  • Fronting rural section of US-19
  • 2.6-mile drive from expressway I-77
  • Midway between Beckley (17 miles) and Princeton (18 miles)

LOCATION

Google Coordinates:  37.590943, -81.105807
Address: 21717 Beckley Rd., Flat Top, WV 25841
Elevation Range: 3,240 to 3,280 feet above sea level

RESIDENCE AND OUTBUILDINGS

The 2.8-acre property has been a landmark along rural US-19 since its construction more than a century ago. Surrounded by heirloom plantings of lilac, hydrangea, fruit trees, and other vintage species, and ornamented with a collection of birdhouses, firepits, and antique stone benches provided by the Smiths, “Leafie’s Cottage,” as it has most recently been known, continues to attract the attention of passersby.

About The Workshops of David T. Smith

The Workshops of David T. Smith employs potters, designers, finishers, cabinetmakers, and other skilled artisans in a village atmosphere in southern Ohio. In the late 1970s, David began restoring and rebuilding antiques for antique dealers, collectors, and museums, experimenting with “aged” painted finishes and developing a line of reproductions to market to the public.

In 1980, operating as David T. Smith Cabinetmakers & Grainers, he devoted himself to reproducing antique furniture in Shaker, New England, and Pennsylvania German styles. In the 1980s, he established a forge, carving shop, and Turtlecreek Potters to help provide hard-to-find quality accessories for his furniture line. After spending many hours in museums and archives researching early American redware, he developed an original lead glaze and a very authentic line of redware plates and thrown forms that antique and pottery collectors embraced.

The first kitchen David completed was in his home in 1971, and he has since supervised the design, construction, and installation of more than 500 handmade kitchens nationwide. In addition to developing kitchens that are super-functional and one-of-a-kind designs, the workshops can help transform homes with architectural furniture and accessories.

Residence

Built in 1900, the four-bedroom, two-bathroom, one-and-a-half story residence has been carefully restored and reconstructed by the Workshops of David T. Smith to embody the region’s rural heritage. Its period-style cabinetry and beadboard walls conceal state-of-the-art appliances and utilities, including central air and heat. A 2006-2009 remodel saw the restoration of much of the interior, including the kitchen, which was renovated to the high standards of the workshops.

Its exterior boasts all that a farmhouse of the 1900s could offer—flagstone walks, a wrap-around porch, a kitchen breezeway adjoining a cellar and wellhouse, and a metal roof that turns the patter of rain into gentle music. A screened porch with a view of the farmland behind the house has been added off the kitchen to the rear of the residence.

Residence Room Dimensions

First Floor

Living Room 13 x 19
Living Room 13 x 12
Dining Room 15 x 17
Kitchen 10 x 15
Mud Room 4 x 10
Screened Porch 10 x 11
Sleeping Porch 6 x 20
Office 6 x 15
Bath Room 5 x 15

Second Floor

Bedroom 8 x 9
Bedroom 9 x 12
Reading Room 7 x 8
Bath Room 8 x 8

Total Residential Living Area: 1,336 square feet

Summer Kitchen/Bunkhouse

A former granary, the two-room bunkhouse behind the residence has been renovated and used in recent years to provide private quarters for guests. Its larger main room and summer kitchen with a vaulted ceiling and paddle fans and a chimney for a cookstove is decorated with hand-painted signs that recall historic locales and well known businesses from years gone by, including Huff Knob, Odd Road, and Toad Level.  Dimensions: Bunk Room 9 x 13, Summer Kitchen 13 x 17

Root Cellar/Wellhouse

Adjoining the kitchen area, to which it is connected by a covered porch, a stone cellar and well house provide convenient, old-fashioned refrigeration for perishables. Though no longer used to provide potable water, the well is functional, and the well bucket and pulley are operational. Room Dimensions: Well House 8 x 10, Root Cellar 10 x 11

Workshop/Garage

At the front of the property, a one-bay garage opens onto the driveway entrance on US-19. The building has been outfitted for use as a workshop and includes 200 amp power. Dimensions: 13 x 20

Outhouse

Behind the bunkhouse at the rear of the property stands a functional outhouse in good historical condition, though no longer in use. The house includes a bench with two seats. Dimensions: 5 x 7

UTILITIES

Water:  Public and Well
Sewer: Septic
Electricity: Appalachian Power Co.
Natural Gas: Mountaineer Gas
Telephone: Frontier Communications
Internet: Multiple Providers
Cellphone Coverage: Multiple Carriers

ACCESS/FRONTAGE

The homeplace fronts on more than 250 feet of a rural, two-lane section of US-19 also known as the Beckley Road and Flat Top Mountain Road. A small corner of the property is located across the route adjoining Ellison Ridge Road.

ZONING

Zoning information may be sourced through the Mercer County Commission and the Mercer County Health Department.

PROPERTY TYPE/USE SUMMARY

The property has been used as a summer home but is suitable for a full-time residence, country inn, or hobby farm.

DEED and TAX INFORMATION

Deed Information: Book 930, Page 60
Acreage: 2.825

Real Estate Tax ID/Acreage/Taxes:
Mercer County, West Virginia; Jumping Branch District
Tax Map 3, Parcel 37

2020 Real Estate Taxes: $1,923.22

PUBLIC SCHOOLS

The property is located in Mercer County at its border with Raleigh County. Therefore, students may opt to be transported to schools in Raleigh County.

Public Elementary School:
Spanishburg Elementary School (or Ghent Elementary School)

Public Middle School:
Pikeview Middle School (or Shady Spring Middle School)

Public High School:
Pikeview High School (or Shady Spring High School)

Colleges:
Concord University, Athens: 18 miles
West Virginia University, Beckley: 18 miles
Bluefield State College, Bluefield: 33 miles
New River Community and Technical College, Beaver: 13 miles

SURROUNDING AREA

The Harvey Homeplace is located in southern West Virginia in a highland region known for its relatively cool temperatures. The area is renowned as a destination for outdoor recreation enthusiasts—skiers in winter and hikers, bikers, hunters, anglers, and kayakers in all other seasons.

The homeplace is located midway between the cities of Beckley (population 15,482) and Princeton (population 5,549) , located 17 and 18 miles to the north and south of Flat Top respectively. Both cities are accessible from the area by interstate expressway and by two-lane US-19. Both cities are served by several hospitals and medical clinics and function as regional governmental and retail centers.

Interstate 77 at the Ghent exit is a relatively high traffic area, especially during ski season. An average of more than 29,000 vehicles pass the exit daily on I-77.

In addition to its proximity to Winterplace ski resort, the homeplace is a drive of less than a half hour from the Bluestone National Scenic River and just more than a half hour from the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve. The entrance to Camp Creek State Park and Camp Creek State Forest are a drive of fewer than five minutes from the property.

Flat Top Mountain

Flat Top Mountain—also known as Great Flat Top Mountain—is the highest mountain in south-central West Virginia. Its long crest extends more than 40 miles northeast-to-southwest in a line of peaks that crosses the southern state, rising to more than 3,500 feet above sea level near the village of Flat Top.

Behind the homeplace on Huff’s Knob, the mountain’s highest point, a view of more than 30 miles extends in many directions. Winterplace ski resort is located on the the knob’s northwest face. The mountain is a part of Allegheny Front, a continental escarpment that extends along the eastern edge of the Allegheny Mountains from southern West Virginia to eastern Pennsylvania . Like other uplands along the windswept front, the mountain is renowned for its winters and bears the brunt of storms passing east out of the Mississippi Valley.

The mountain was a strategic military boundary between the North and South during the Civil War.  In 1863, the Union established Camp Jones at Flat Top to guard the pass over the mountain. Led by General J. D. Cox, its regiment included future presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and William McKinley.

Winterplace Ski Resort

Thousands of skiers and snow-tubers annually visit Winterplace, billed as the resort “where the South learns to ski.” Its 25 slopes decend the northeast flank of Huff’s Knob, and its nearest run approaches within fewer than 2,000 feet of the homeplace, though drive-time to the resort parking area is approximately five minutes. The resort keeps local hotels and country inns booked to capacity during the ski season.

Bluestone National Scenic River

Administered by the National Park Service, the Bluestone National Scenic River protects a 10.5-mile section of the canyon of the Bluestone River. A hiking trail, the Bluestone Turnpike Trail, follows the route of an old wagon road along the river from its mouth at Bluestone State Park to Pipestem Resort State Park. The Lilly family, whose influence in the region is memorialized at the Lilly Monument at Flat Top, first settled on the Bluestone River at the village a Lilly, remnants of which have been preserved by the park service.

Camp Creek State Park and Forest

Perhaps best known for its waterfalls, Camp Creek State Park and adjacent Camp Creek State Forest protect more than 5,000 acres of Appalachian woodland that descend toward the Bluestone River from the highest range of Great Flat Top Mountain. The park and its campgrounds attracts a panoply of outdoor recreation enthusiasts year round while the adjacent state forest attracts hunters in season. The park entrance is a drive of approximately five minutes from Flat Top.

New River Gorge National Park and Preserve

The newest park in the National Park System, the New River Gorge National Park and Preserve encompasses more than 72,808 acres in southern and south-central West Virginia. Established in 1978 as a national river, the park area was designated by Congress a national park in 2020. Two of the most popular tourist attractions in the park, Grandview and Sandstone Falls are a drive of 20 and 30 miles from Flat Top respectively. One of the park’s best known attractions, the New River Gorge Bridge is a drive of approximately 40 miles from Flat Top. Commercial whitewater rafting tours are popular on the New River near the bridge.

REGIONAL INFORMATION

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