George Nicholas, Albemarle County’s Virginia General Assembly delegate in 1783, built a stone house here in 1784. James Monroe occupied it in 1789-1790 while improving the dwelling at his nearby farm, later the site of the University of Virginia. On 15 Dec. 1806, while the house was operating as the Stone Tavern, a dinner celebrated Meriwether Lewis’s return from his expedition to the Pacific with William Clark. Thomas Jefferson hosted a reception there on 12 Nov. 1824 for the Marquis de Lafayette after the tavern was renamed the Central Hotel. While serving as a hospital during the Civil War, the building burned with no fatalities in 1862.