181-191 S Main St

From the National Register nomination

The dominant element of this one-story building is its 1950 Moderne front, which is of stretcher-bond brick with banded headers at the curved southeast corner. The front has a flat roof, display windows, and a recessed double entry. To the rear is the first story of the two-story 1826 house onto which the front section was grafted. The 1826 section is of painted Flemish-bond brick on a limestone foundation with 9/6 windows with molded trim and projecting turned bosses at the ends of the plain lintels. At the end of the rear ell is a story-and-a-half brick addition with a gable roof and a 9/6 window with a gauged jack arch. The addition connects to the Thomas Harrison House (80 W. Bruce). On the side of the ell is a bricked-up ca. 1950 entry with a projecting brick surround. Two 9/6 windows and original lintels were recycled onto the north end of the 1950 section. The back part of this building is the first story of the 1826 James Hall House, which incorporated the 18th century Thomas Harrison House as a rear wing. General John E. Roller occupied the house at the turn of the twentieth century. The Moderne front was added in 1950. In 1955 the building was occupied by the insurance firm of Yancey, Weaver, Grattan (181) and Service Stationers and Price Business Machines (191). In 1962 a fire gutted the second story of the back part, which was subsequently removed. In 1982 the building contained The Printing Express (181) and the Chamber of Commerce (191). Now Classique Designs (181) and Victoria Floral (191). (Suter and Lyon, Images of America: Harrisonburg, 70; Hering and Wilson Sanborn map index)