Pear Valley represents a rare survival of what was once a common building type in rural Virginia. This yeoman planter's cottage has been dated by dendrochronology to 1740. In 1994, with the generous support of the Summerfield Baldwin Foundation, APVA Preservation Virginia commissioned an Historic Structures Report (pdf) to assess the known history and the existing condition of the structure. The Report also laid out immediate conservation needs and a long-term preservation plan for the structure. Over the next decade, APVA-Preservation Virginia has addressed most of those needs.
In the spring and summer of 2004 the entire roof was replaced. A metal roof was placed on the building by APVA in the 1960's as a stopgap measure to keep rain and other parts of the environment out of the building. While this measure achieved the preservation goal, it was unmistakably modern in design and functional in approach. APVA Preservation Virginia's restoration team carefully removed that covering and replaced it with oak shingles as called for in the Historic Structures report. The shingles were split from white oak from Germany and shipped across the Atlantic in December. They were transported to our Restoration Workshop at Bacon's Castle where our crew rounded the exposed edge of each shingle.
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