We all have driven past Little Jerusalem, and wondered who built this unique cement structure.
I’s located on Maryland Avenue (Rt. 602) between 10th & 11th Street, a short distance from the
former Letter Perfect building.
From the article in the book SHENANDOAH A History of Our Town And Its People we learned
that David Fenton Roudabush designed and built what we now refer to as "Little Jerusalem".
The larger structure that was torn down was to have been a stable and storage area with an
apartment in the second story.
If you have more information on the history of this structure, please let us know.
From Find a Grave website we found the following:
1891 - married Clara Virginia Strole, in Page County, Virginia.
June, 1898 - Secretary of St. Peter's Lutheran Church, Shenandoah, Va. when it filed, on the first Sunday in June, 1898, to sever connection with the Tennessee Synod.
July 29, 1900 - Elected superintendent of St. Paul Lutheran Church's newly established Sunday School.
Oct., 1905 - traveled to Philadelphia to purchase equipment for his wooden Shenandoah Milling Company. Originally built as a water-powered grist mill, it only produced 30 barrels per day. The mill burned in 1925.
Remembered also for his building of the place known as "Little Jerusalem", in Shenandoah, where he later resided.
"This imaginative architectural folly was a project of David F. "Fent" Roudabush, one of the Shenandoah area's more colorful figures in the early twentieth century. About 1910, Roudabush began construction of the county's most unusual architectural creation. Named Jerusalem by neighbors, the structure consists of a series of reinforced-concrete arches and aedicules forming a wall along Maryland Avenue. Jerusalem's influences are unidentifiable, perhaps Mayan, Moorish, or early Hollywood movie set. When not engaged in his construction projects, Roudabush operated a profitable nursery and strawberry truck farm on the property."
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/31538922/david-fenton-roudabush
Obituary found in Harrisonburg Daily News Record Apr 15, 1955.
