Tree Streets Historic District

660 Chestnut Ave

Virgil and Ruth Moyer House, 1902; late 1920s

FrameContributes to the historic character of the district

Did you know?The Tree Streets' cross streets used to be 1st through 6th

1902
18001850190019502000

From the National Register nomination

Two-story frame Victorian house with novelty vinyl siding and a metal-sheathed gable roof. The one-story front porch has turned posts and balusters and sawn brackets and fringe. Other features include a brick foundation and interior flue, a polygonal front entry vestibule, modern 1/1 windows, and a 'modern two-tier back porch. In 1902 Charles H. Lovegrove, a carpenter the living in Stuarts Draft, purchased several lots on Chestnut Ave. and erected this house next to his! own residence (see 668 Chestnut). Plumbing and heating contractor Virgil A. Moyer later acquired it. Moyer, who moved to Waynesboro from Luray in 1905, made several changes to the property in the 1920s, adding a two-story rear addition to the house, pouring a concrete kiddie pool which bec4me the foundation of a smokehouse about 1940, and constructing a large workshop on the alley behind the house in 1929 (see below). Moyer's wife Ruth served as her husband's office manager and accounjant in addition to raising the couple's eleven children. To help Ruth with her household duties Virgil installed an automatic dishwasher in the 1920s and a built-in vacuum system in the 1930s (both gone).

Information supplied by Joseph Moyer.

Also on the lot

  • Waynesboro Heating & Plumbing Co., 1929

    One-story stretcher-brick building with parapet shed roof (originally composition roofing; rubber membrane added in 2000) and a basement garage level at south end. Other features include a roof-top sign dating to 1929, steel-frame industrial-type windows, and matchboard garage doors. The interior has exposed wood ceiling joists and brick walls, concrete floors, wood shelves, a northeast corner office with plain matchboard waisjscot, a southeast corner "brass room" for brass fittings, and a pair of metal tracks used to wheel radiators into the building. Contractor Harry Brooks built the shop for Virgil Moyer,| who was Waynesboro's ptincipal plumbing and heating contractor until his death in 1955.

  • Smokehouse, Early 1920s; ca. 1940

    One-story frame with weatherboard siding and an asphalt-shingled hip roof with a louvered wooden ventilator at its peak. The square concrete foundation ee setved as a kiddie pool for Virgil and Ruth Moyer's children. About 1940 the Moyers added the frame smokehouse superstructure.

  • Grape arbor (metal frame), Ca. 1920

    (no description)

People

  • Virgil and Ruth Moyer owner in 1902 (Plumbing and heating contractor Virgil A. Moyer later acquired it.)
  • Charles H. Lovegrove owner in 1902 (In 1902 Charles H. Lovegrove, a carpenter theh living in Stuarts Draft, purchased several lots on Chestnut Ave. and erected this house next to his! own residence (see 668 Chestnut).)
  • Virgil A. Moyer owner in 1905 (Moyer, who moved to Waynesboro from Luray in 1905, made several changes to the property in the 1920s, adding a two-story rear addition to the house, pouring a concrete kiddie pool which bec4me the foundation of a smokehouse about 1940, and constructing a large workshop on the alley behirld the house in 1929 (see below).)
  • Ruth owner in 1905 (Moyer's wife Ruth served as her husband's office manager and accounjant in addition to raising the couple's eleven children.)
  • Virgil owner in 1920 (To help Ruth with her household duties Virgil installed an automatic dishwasher in the 1920s and a built-in vacuum system in the 1930s (both gone).)

Memories

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