It includes two mansions, the Senator Stephen Benton Elkins House (Halliehurst) and Graceland, that are separately listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

These four structures are associated with the families of Henry Gassaway Davis (1823-1916) and Stephen Benton Elkins (1841-1911), who were dominating figures in the politics and economy of West Virginia in the late 19th century.

Davis was a self-made businessman who made his fortune mainly in the railroad business, and then embarked on a series of highly successful coal ventures with Elkins, his son-in-law.

[3] Graceland, completed in 1893 for Davis, is a large and sophisticated expression of Queen Anne Victorian architecture, designed by Baldwin and Pennington of Baltimore, Maryland.

It is a mainly stone structure, with architectural variety typical of the Queen Anne, and a more Colonial Revival porch across the front.