342 S Main St

From the National Register nomination

Victorian two-story frame house with weatherboard siding and a metal-sheathed front/side-gable roof. In the gables are chamfered stanchions that lack pendants and finials. The one-story wraparound porch has paired classical columns, square balusters, and a small gable aligned with the front entry. The front entry has a round-arch leaded glass fanlight and a door with five horizontal panels. The 1/1 windows have lintels with diminutive brackets and dentils and fake shutters. There are several decorative windows including a three-part window in the front gable and a cantilevered rectangular-plan bay window with reeded window surrounds on the first-story front. To the rear extends an original or early two-story ell with a modern two-story extension and a one-story rear addition with side porches. Other features include interior brick chimneys and a wheelchair ramp to the porch. Large elms shade the front lawn; to the rear is a gravel parking lot. In 1871 Andrew Henenberger sold this lot to four unmarried sisters, Anne, Eliza, Adelaide and Clara Strayer, who had previously lived at the Higgins-Hardesty House (212 S. Main). The builder wrote his name in pencil and the date 1872 on a weatherboard on the north side. The now illegible name may have been B. Miller; if so, it may be B. F. Miller (b. ca. 1819), a Harrisonburg carpenter enumerated in the 1860 federal census. In 1878 the Strayers sold the house to Jennie Conrad who made alterations in the early 20th century. Later Laird and Peggy Conrad lived here. Laird was an attorney and Peggy was active in the Harrisonburg garden club. Lawrence Hoover purchased the property in 1979 and made the rear additions. Gary Harpine of Drafting Services designed the additions, which were built by Ben Charles Charko. Now Hoover Penrod PLC attorneys. (David Penrod; Hering and Wilson Sanborn map index)