Thomas Hughes's slaves quarried and handcut the sandstone used to build this house. Hughes was one of fifty Virginia and Maryland settlers who emigrated to what they considered to be western Virginia in 1767. The datestone on the south gable end bears the initials of Thomas and his wife, Elizabeth. Three bays wide, the house is built into a hillside overlooking a tributary of the South Fork of Tenmile Creek. It is two stories on the east facade and drops to three stories on the creek side. The two-bay dependency on the north has porches front and back sheltered under eaves. There are interior end chimneys at both ends of the ridgepole. Note the incised marks in the facade's stonework and the carefully cut quoins on front and rear. Side walls are of irregularly coursed stone.
Across the creek, the Jefferson Presbyterian Church (1845; 208 Pine Street) was the Hughes' family church, and its eighteenth-century cemetery holds their graves. It is a classic rural brick church with two doors on the south facade and three double-sash windows along each side. An octagonal cupola is perched on a square base above the entrances.