Our History

Built in 1776 and still standing strong, the Log House is one of Southwest Virginia's most distinctive landmarks. The original hand-hewn logs, stacked two stories high and weathered by more than two centuries of history, give the building a character that simply cannot be replicated. At our restaurant every room tells a story.

In 1776, a young man known only as Will was granted the right to build a modest two-room tenant house on this site, working in service of a local landowner. He never finished it. Before the walls were complete, he set down his tools and picked up a musket — walking away from his half-built home to fight for American independence in the Revolutionary War. We don't know his last name. We don't know if he ever came back. What we know is that the house he started is the one you're sitting in right now, and that it has been standing witness to American history ever since.

Will's original two-room structure was annexed in 1804, when Main Street was laid and Wytheville was formally established as a town. A final addition followed in 1898. Three building campaigns across three centuries — and every log, every beam, every wide-plank floor carries the weight of that accumulation. When you dine here, you are quite literally surrounded by the story of this country. Not behind glass in a museum, but at a table, with a warm meal in front of you and two and a half centuries of American life in the walls around you.

Where our parking lot now stands, a man named Robertson once operated a furniture business that would eventually pass to the Rich brothers and quietly shape the craft traditions of an entire region. Apprentices lived in this very log house while learning their trade, and after mastering their craft within these walls, they went on to found furniture factories across Virginia and Tennessee. The Rich brothers' workshop also produced what became one of the most celebrated artifacts of Appalachian heritage — the Wythe County pie safe, distinguished by its signature "urn and tulip" tin panels, often further embellished with grape clusters, stars, candlesticks, and hearts. You'll find them celebrated throughout our gift shop.

During the Civil War, this house was owned by Joseph Chadwell. He and Benjamin Steptoe — a freed Black man who lived in a small log cabin nearby — made the unlikely decision to go to war together. Joseph Chadwell did not come home. His widow, Abby, and Benjamin's wife — known throughout the community simply as Nanny Steptoe — drove a wagon together to bring Joseph's body back to Wytheville, so that he could be buried among his people. The descendants of Benjamin Steptoe live in Wytheville to this day.

The garden behind the restaurant exists in their memory. We are told that Nanny brought the children here every morning at seven o'clock for thirty minutes of silence — to look at the flowers and listen to the birds. She and Abby wanted those children to love the natural world, and to find in it something worth protecting. That quiet tradition lives on in the gardens surrounding our gazebo, where guests still come to slow down, to notice the rabbits and the birdsong and to remember that some of the most important things have always been free. Stroll the grounds and you'll find something increasingly rare — a place designed not to impress, but to restore. Friendly rabbits wander the paths. Birds settle into the old growth.

Everything you've just read happened here. Not nearby. Not in the general area. Here — on this ground, in this building, behind these walls. The Log House 1776 is not designed to feel historic. It just is. We simply kept the lights on.