The imposing silhouette of this house, with its monumental semicircular portico, makes it unique among the eclectic architectural forms of Millionaires Row.  It began more simply as one of about a half-dozen lavish brick Italianate mansions built for local tobacconists and textile industrialists in the 1880s by the contractor, T.B. Fitzgerald. 

This home for R.W. Lawson was completed in 1881.  After he died three years later, it was purchased by a descendant of one of Danville’s early families, Sallie E. Shepherd, who lived here until 1904. Thereafter, William Daniel Overbey, one of her grandsons who had spent much of his boyhood here, acquired the property.  It was Mr. Overbey and his wife, the former Mae Hutchinson of Mississippi, who in 1911 gave the house a Georgian Revival face-lift, restyling the cornice and roofline, and adding the semicircular Ionic porch.  The Overbeys made this their home for more than 50 years. 

In 1972, a permit to raze the massive dwelling was obtained just hours before passage of the Historic District ordinance drafted to protect the neighborhood.  One month later the demolition permit had not been exercised.  Instead, the heirs sold the house to Mr. and Mrs. John DeAlba. 

No strangers to old houses, the DeAlbas began a loving five-year stewardship of the property, continued from 1977 and for many years, by Mr. and Mrs. William T. Fowlkes, Jr.

Since their purchase of the house, Cynthia Castle and Danny Liles – transplants to Danville from North Carolina – have refurbished the house not only as their home, but also as a bed-and-breakfast inn with a deserved reputation for hospitality and excellence among area accommodations.  It is also proving a popular venue for receptions and luncheons.   Please see their web site at http://www.lawsonoverbeyinn.com/.