File:Martha Washington Inn (Martha Washington College), Main Street, Abingdon, VA - 53422109821.jpg

English: Built in 1832 and expanded and renovated multiple times in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century, this building started out as a Federal-style mansion owned by General Francis Preston, and his wife, Sarah Buchanan Preston. The building served as the residence of the Preston family until 1858, when it was sold and converted into a college for young women, known as Martha Washington College. The building served as a Civil War Hospital, as well as a training facility and barracks for the local Confederate Army unit. The building features an older central wing, which is clad in red brick, and has eight-over-eight-over-eight triple-hung windows on the first floor of the front facade, one-over-one double-hung windows with Queen Anne-style transoms on the second floor, and a mansard roof on the third floor with barrel vaulted dormers with two-over-two double-hung windows, a cornice with modillions, doors at the central bays of the first and second floors of the front facade with fanlight transoms and sidelights, and a large front porch with a rooftop balustrade, ionic columns, an open brick pier foundation, and wooden balustrades. The central wing, originally a simpler Federal-style house, was renovated with the addition of many victorian elements in the late 19th Century, and the present porch around the turn of the 20th Century. To the east and west of the original structure are two red brick wings with front-gable roofs, double-hung windows, Palladian attic windows, three-story front porticoes with fluted doric columns, and cornices with dentils, which were built to accommodate the growing needs of the college around the turn of the 20th Century. The building is a contributing structure in the Abingdon Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. After Martha Washington College succumbed to the Great Depression, the building was renovated to serve as a hotel, and reopened in 1935 as the Martha Washington Inn, which remains in operation today.