“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” summons visions of racial brutality in another place and time. But Uncle Tom’s Cabin stands today in Rockville, shaded by a row of trees from the speedway that is Old Georgetown Road.”
[Its now for sale according to a story in Marc Fisher’s column [Washington Post].](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/12/AR2005121201387.html?nav=rss_realestate)He writes:
“Its owner, Hildegarde Mallet-Prevost, died in September at 100, and her family is selling the three-bedroom colonial (literally) with the attached log cabin that was once home to Josiah Henson — the slave whose 1849 autobiography was the model for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s classic novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“A century and a half later, an Uncle Tom has come to mean a black man who obsequiously seeks white approval or betrays his race. But the cabin in North Bethesda, just south of the city of Rockville, is also a symbol of the strength and savvy that enabled Henson to rise from slavery to build a pioneering life of learning and achievement.”
I was really surprised that a typical house has been adjoined to a property with historical significance. I imagine that the property would be difficult to establish a value for.
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I would think that the historical significance of the cabin was not as important at the time of the addition. Today the country is more concerned about protecting its history than in previous decades and landmark laws have been passed. As far as appraising this property it would be very difficult because it is a hybrid -property both conventional and historical. I think its highest and best use might be as an historical site with the addition removed. In its present state it is a typical property adjoining an historic home which is of no real functional use to a typical buyer. It would be a “capricious” sale and that is difficult to value using the traditional sales comparison approach.