Cambria Historic District
Where all the past is future...
 
 

596 Cambria Street NE, Christiansburg Virginia
540.381.0949

Hours: 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Monday-Saturday
1 p.m. - 5 p.m., Sunday

The Cambria Emporium:
A Distinctive Shop in a Distinctive Place
 

What makes the Cambria Emporium different from the other antique malls? Quite frankly, the dealers. While other malls have a single owner, the Cambria Emporium is essentially owned and operated by the members of the Cambria Emporium Dealers Association. This means, when you stop in to explore the two floors of furniture, household accessories, vintage clothing, glassware, artwork, and other treasures, experts are there to answer your questions. The dealers make the Emporium someplace special. Explore the dealers' pages to find out more about their specialites and their interests.

 


The Surface-Lee Block (c. 1908)
  The Cambria Emporium is located in the Surface-Lee Building, the remaining building left from the Surface Block, built in 1908. According to Gibson Worsham, a noted architectural historian and author of the Montgomery County Survey of Historic Sites (1986)," the Surface Lee Block (which was built as a wholesale grocery business dependant upon the railroad and good roads to bring produce to Cambria) and the Dew Drop Inn (which originally housed the county's first hospital and drug store, located across Depot Street) are among the most architecturally significant and substantial commercial buildings in the county." In addition, the Cambria Emporium, situated at the intersection of Depot and Cambria Streets, is located across the street from the Cambria (Christiansburg) Depot, one of the few remaining wooden Railroad Italianate depots left in the United States, and according to Gibson, "one of the region's finest railroad depots and one of the oldest depots in the State of Virginia." Interestingly enough, the freight elevator in the Cambria Emporium, was purchased second hand from a company in Roanoke when the Surface-Lee Building was constructed in 1908, and is actually 30 years older than the building. According to Southern Elevator, it is the oldest elevator, still in operation, in the State of Virginia.  
Copyright: Cambria Development Corporation and the Cambria Emporium Dealers Assocaiation, 2008
Page maintained by M.H. Dorsett & Dana Meconi
Page last updated on: 14 August, 2008