212 S Main St

From the National Register nomination

Colonial Revival (remodeling) two-story house with a gable roof and limestone foundation. The west (front) elevation is Flemish-bond brick and the north (side) elevation is American-bond brick. The 12/12 front windows have plain Greek Revival surrounds. Some window shutters are secured with decorative wrought iron shutter dogs. The front entry has a transom and sidelights that may be original and a ca. 1930 Colonial Revival surround. Other features include interior gable-end chimneys, an original or early two-story brick ell, and a brick ell extension (both with 6/6 windows). Prior to rehabilitation in 2004 the house had an enclosed two-tier porch on the south side of the ell and extension and a ca. 1950 cinder block wing that formerly connected this house to another two-story house at 234 S. Main St. (now gone). Before 1848 a log dwelling stood on this lot. That year Philip Ligget sold the lot to Dr. Henry Randolph Higgins with the condition that a permanent house be erected. Dr. Higgins, a graduate of the Botanico-Medical College of Cincinnati, was a medical doctor and pharmacist. He married Ann V. Samuels in 1844. When Higgins left Harrisonburg in 1849 he sold the unfinished house to John Higgins, apparently his uncle. John Higgins left town also, and in 1853 the still uncompleted residence was sold to Isaac Hardesty, a wealthy businessman who was elected Harrisonburg's first mayor under a new town charter. Hardesty finished the house, and he presumably lived there with his wife Ann. According to the 1850 federal census he was the town's mayor that year. In 1862 Hardesty sold the house to four unmarried sisters, Annie, Eliza, Adelaide and Clara Strayer, who sold out in 1871 and decamped en masse in 1872 to a new house they had completed at 342 S. Main St. (the Strayer-Conrad House). In 1896 the house was purchased by John P. Burke, whose relations Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Pollock ran an inn here. Burke was a founder of Virginia Craftsmen Reproductions in 1927, and he opened a shop in the residence known as the Craft House to sell the company's reproduction furniture. (This use probably explains features such as the Colonial Revival entry and wrought iron shutter dogs.) In 1936 a WPA writer noted the house was "an attraction for tourists and visitors." The Craft House operated into the late 20th century (another name for it was "The Craftsmen"). A rehabilitation commenced in 2004. (Caldwell, Terrell, and Zapton, "Higgins House;" Coakley, "Higgins- Hardesty-Strayer House;" Jolly, "Man searches during summer")