Beechwood (Jericho; DensonPretlow-Darden House)

Jordan Denson, a planter who owned about 200 acres in rural eighteenth-century Southampton County, erected the first sections of Beechwood, a two-story frame house that evolved from a one-room, one-story dwelling constructed in the late eighteenth century. The house is typical of the spacious but unpretentious type favored by southeastern Virginia planters in the early nineteenth century. Today it consists of a twostory, three-bay main block (the earliest section) with a small, one-bay wing at the east end and a two-bay, one-cell wing at the west. To the south of the west wing is a two-story, two-room ell. The main block of the house has a side-hall, doublepile room arrangement that began as a single, square, one-story cell. Numerous additions took place during the last part of the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century. Two rooms were added to the rear of the original room as well as a side passage, a full second story on the main block, a two-story, one-cell addition to the southwest corner and a two-room rear wing. The main block of the house is clad with beaded weatherboards with a modillion cornice, which gives it a unified appearance.