Avenel, also known as the House, is a historic home located at Bedford, Virginia and now open to the public by appointment. Built about 1836, the two-story, brick dwelling displays a blend of Federal and Greek Revival styling. It is topped by a hipped roof and has a one-story wraparound porch. Also on the property are a contributing smokehouse, hen house, a frame 19th-century barn, and site of a kitchen building.It and the surrounding 250 acres were operated as a plantation using enslaved labor by William M. Burwell, who Bedford County voters ten times elected as one of their representatives to the Virginia House of Delegates, and whose father William A. Burwell had represented the area in the U.S. House of Representatives, as well as served as a private secretary for President Thomas Jef