John Nicholas and Elizabeth Moyer House

The story

Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com

The John Nicholas and Elizabeth Moyer House is a stone dwelling near New Shaefferstown, in Jefferson Township, Berks County, built c. 1817 to 1820 in a mix of Georgian, Federal and Pennsylvania German vernacular styles. It was listed in the National Register in 2001.

Why it's listed

It was listed under criterion C, with local-level significance in architecture. The nomination gives its period of significance as c. 1817 to 1820, matching the house's construction in that span.

Physical character

The two-and-a-half-story stone house has a limestone foundation and walls, a cedar shake gambrel roof, and a corbeled brick interior chimney. Its paneled wood door, with wrought iron hardware, sits beneath a glazed fanlight and wooden keystone crowns, flanked by reeded pilasters and dentils. Four-over-four and multiple-light windows, round-arched dormers, and a wheel window appear on the exterior, above a round-arched basement entrance with a bulkhead entry. A stone summer kitchen stands attached; in 1998 two frame additions were built onto it, on its west and south gables, and in 2000 walkways, plantings and wooden fencing were added.

Historical context

John Nicholas Moyer died in 1828. The house stood vacant from 1959 to 1973, and Vivian Palmer found buyers for it in 1996.