History comes to life through guided tours that interpret 19th-century life in Southwest Virginia. The home's original owners enjoyed status in the emerging middle class: the Fields in the years on the eve of the Civil War, and the Penns in the gilded 1890s.

As a brick mason and building contractor, James Fields built his home in 1860, for wife, Susan, and their eight children, in the latest American style. The family of George and Estelle Penn moved into the house in the 1890s and made it their home for 75 years.

The home's historic and formal architecture is reflected in balanced Georgian proportions, an Italianate roofline with bracketed cornice and Greek Revival details at the doors and windows.