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(Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
This huge stone and brick complex consists of several adjoining houses, all with gabled roofs and dormer windows. Although the several buildings are of various dates and materials, the amazingly unified group appears from a distance to be a single unit. Harper House, a three-bay stone structure with a two-tiered side porch, stands at the south end. The oldest building in Harpers Ferry, it was begun in 1775, but the Revolution delayed completion until late 1782. The builder, who died in October of 1782, never occupied it. The Wager family leased it as a tavern for several decades, and George Washington slept here in 1785. Because of the steep slope on which the group is built, the Harper House appears as a two-and-onehalf-story building on Marmion Way, but it rises a full three and one-half stories above High Street. The Harper House was restored in 1957–1961 and is now furnished as a museum exhibit.
The taller, later, and larger Marmion Hall, adjacent to the north, is built of brick. Constructed in 1832–1833, it has a three-tier porch overlooking the entire town above High Street. The stone and brick Marmion Tenant Houses (1848) are attached to its north end. The National Park Service restored the group in 1957–1961 when the porches were reconstructed.