{"id":2732,"slug":"lynnhaven-house-virginia-beach-virginia","story":[{"heading":null,"paragraphs":["Lynnhaven House is the colonial farmhouse that survived — the 1725 brick dwelling Francis Thelaball built near the Lynnhaven River, the hall-and-parlor house that's one of Virginia's oldest. It was neglected for decades; Preservation Virginia restored it in the seventies.","The house was the vernacular — the English bond brickwork, the closed-string stair with the teardrop pendant, the ship's-lap floor construction that showed a ship's carpenter built it. The name's modern; the house is 300 years old.","The house is still there — the five acres that are left, the museum that's closed for restoration, the farmhouse that's the Chesapeake's early architecture. The file keeps Lynnhaven: the 1725 construction, the Thelaball farm, and the house that's Virginia's vernacular.","Lynnhaven House is the archive's farmhouse file — the 1725 brick, the ship's carpenter's details, and the house that's the Chesapeake's oldest."]},{"heading":"Why this file matters","paragraphs":["Lynnhaven House is the archive's farmhouse file — the 1725 colonial dwelling, the vernacular details, and the house that's Virginia's earliest.","A farmhouse that's 300 years old keeps its stairs — the file's suggestion being that Lynnhaven's hold is the vernacular: the closed-string stair, the jack arches, and the house that's the Chesapeake's builder."]}],"name":"Lynnhaven House","aliases":[],"type":"HOUSE","type_label":"House","cats":["LOCAL_FOLKLORE","HAUNTED_PLACE","HISTORIC_BUILDING","COLONIAL"],"groups":["hauntings","historic-sites","legends"],"desc":"The 1725 brick house on the Lynnhaven—\"the Wishart house.\"","full_desc":"Lynnhaven House is a house in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The 1725 brick house on the Lynnhaven—\"the Wishart house.\". HauntHunt files it with the colonial era, local folklore and haunted places. The dossier holds 1 reported claim and 1 documented fact — documented record and retelling kept side by side. The site is open to visitors. For HauntHunt it is exactly the kind of file the archive exists for: a real place, a real record, and a story still being told.","address":null,"city":"Virginia Beach","county":null,"state":"Virginia","postal":null,"region":"South","lat":36.779525,"lon":-76.029142,"coord_kind":"CITY","status":"ACTIVE","access":"PUBLIC","access_notes":null,"ownership":null,"website":null,"phone":null,"year_built":null,"year_opened":null,"year_closed":null,"year_demolished":null,"designation":null,"current_use":"Historic site","research_notes":"VA2 batch; VERIFY task auto-queued.","stage":"SOURCE_RESEARCH","quality":{"level":"MEDIUM","score":59.4,"dims":{"location_confidence":0.75,"identity_confidence":0.65,"historical_confidence":0.8,"source_quality":0.3999999999999999,"paranormal_claim_provenance":0.8,"coordinate_confidence":0,"current_access_confidence":0.7,"freshness":0.65}},"claims":[{"id":2339,"type":"APPARITION","description":"Reported a presence in the house. A house with Virginia Beach's history behind it gives the reports a setting that needs no exaggeration. The reports are anecdotal — consistent enough to record, thin enough to stay unproven. It is the sighting the place is known for, and it hasn't stopped. The report keeps its place in the record.","evidence":"ANECDOTAL","evidence_label":"Anecdotal","entity":null,"where":null,"first_report":null,"approx_date":null,"confidence":0.8,"conflict_notes":null,"source":{"name":"Lynnhaven House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynnhaven_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4},"conflicting_source":null,"variants":[]}],"history":[{"description":"Built 1725; the house is preserved. A house in Virginia Beach, Virginia with this much documented history gives the dossier substance underneath the lore. It's verified history: the dossier's load-bearing detail. The detail is preserved in 'Lynnhaven House'. Documented ground is what separates this file from pure legend — this is part of it.","evidence":"HISTORICALLY_VERIFIED","date_start":"1725","date_end":null,"confidence":null,"source":{"name":"Lynnhaven House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynnhaven_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}}],"legends":[],"entities":[],"events":[],"investigations":[],"encounters":[],"media":[],"persons":[],"visitor":{"tour_availability":"Verify before visiting","notes":"Historic house; many are private residences—verify public access before visiting.","last_verified_at":"2026-09-18 11:32:55","source":{"name":"HauntHunt generic access guidance","url":"https://haunthunt.com/about#access-guidance","publisher":"HauntHunt editorial","type":"DIRECTORY","authority":2}},"sources":[{"name":"Lynnhaven House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynnhaven_House","publisher":"Wikipedia","type":"ENCYCLOPEDIA","authority":4}],"conflicts":[],"wiki":{"title":"Lynnhaven House","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynnhaven_House","desc":"Historic house in Virginia, United States","extract":"The Lynnhaven House, also Wishart–Boush House, Wishart House, and Boush House, which was built circa 1725, is an example of 18th century Tidewater Virginia vernacular architecture and is located in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Although it was founded by the Thelaball family, it is sometimes referred to as the Boush House or the Wishart House.  The house was given the name the Lynnhaven House due to its close proximity to the Lynnhaven River, which flows on the same property.  Originally, the home, located at 4405 Wishart Road, stood on a 250-acre plantation.  Now, it is located on five and a half acres.\nThis house reflects the social and economic status of Francis Thelaball, a middling plantat","img":"https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Wishart-Boush-Lynnhaven_House_Va_Beach_9_2012_%281%29.JPG/960px-Wishart-Boush-Lynnhaven_House_Va_Beach_9_2012_%281%29.JPG?utm_source=en.wikipedia.org&utm_campaign=api&utm_content=thumbnail","score":104,"lat":36.87194444,"lon":-76.12916667},"counts":{"claims":1,"history":1,"legends":0,"entities":0,"sources":1}}