The stone farmhouse of the Jacob M. Funk Farm faces south onto the north edge of Black Rock Road. It is a two-story, four-bay building, with a two-story, two-bay rear wing. Attached to the rear wing is a frame addition, a porch infill and extension dating from about 1900. A two-story porch was added across the back of the building in 1984. The stonework is irregular, and has been repointed recently with a raised V profile in the manner of the original. The three eastern bays of the front elevation are grouped toward the eastern half of the house and the western bay is slightly set apart. Brick chimneys extend from inside each gable end, and the roofing material is sheet metal. Windows in the front section have wide wooden lintels and 2/2 pane sash. The main entrance is in the third bay from the east end of the house. A transom and sidelights surround the front door. A one-story hipped roof porch with bracketed columns extends across the front elevation. The house is a vernacular building, with German influence in its four-bay, asymmetrical façade plan. The wide wood lintels and the transom and sidelights at the front door are indicative of the mid 19th century. The window sash and front porch appear to be later features, c. 1880. The interior first floor is divided into five rooms and an entrance and stair passageway. To the west of the passage is a large single room. To the east is a room to the southeast, and a smaller room to the northeast, used as a kitchen. The staircase has a large, naturally finished turned newel post appearing to date from the late 19th century. The main block contains four rooms, the southeast of which has woodwork representing several time periods, including a fireplace mantel on the east wall with Italianate characteristics (pilasters, ogee-curved panel, and wide shelf) and a cast iron arched insert added recently. The fireplace treatment appears to date from the late 19th century. Trim around the windows and doors has symmetrical molding with turned corner blocks and appears to date from the 1830s. Unfortunately, a 1970 fire damaged the trim in several other rooms and the central passageway. Extending to the north of the main block are two additional rooms. A two-story stone wing to the room, with one room on each level, attaches to the west side of the north wall of the main section. It appears to have originally been a kitchen, with a fireplace and winder stair in the north wall. It is floored at a lower level than the main part of the house with steps down from the west room to the rear wing. On what was once a porch along the east wall of the wing is an enclosed space, now containing a powder room and laundry room. The original exterior window with a pair of three-panel shutters remains in place in the laundry room. The porch was enclosed c. 1900. Extending behind the current kitchen is a room added c. 1900 by framing in the space between the bath/laundry addition and the main part of the house. The second floor follows a similar floor plan, except that there are two rooms west of the stair hall. A variety of woodwork trims appear in the second floor rooms of the main section, all evocative of the 1830s. The door leading to the attic is reused from an earlier period. It has six raised panels framed with ovolo molding, without a quirk, typical of the late 18th or early 19th century. The cellar reveals the apparent remnant of an earlier house, a part of which became incorporated into the present building. Under the east rooms of the main section and a portion of the stair passageway is a cellar room with a fireplace in its east wall. The fireplace is stone and retains two iron swivel cranes. In the north wall, now adjacent to the cellar area of the c. 1900 frame addition, is a formerly exterior window with a massive mortised-and-tenoned frame, pegged joints and ovolo trim with a quirk. Notches in the framing mark the location of shutter hardware. Opening from this room to the west section of the cellar is a wide door with six nearly equal-sized raised panels with quirked ovolo trim. This remnant appears to be the oldest surviving part of the house and is characteristic of the 1790-1810 period. The name and date, “John Adams, Smithsburg, Maryland, April 2, 1882” is inscribed in the attic. John Adams was a brother-in-law of Jacob M. Funk. Research reveals that the house was rebuilt in 1881. Architectural features remaining in the building suggest it was originally constructed earlier and extensively remodeled in the late 19th century. Southwest of the house is a stone-end Pennsylvania “Sweitzer” barn with full stone ends and vertical ventilation slits. The barn sits gable to the road with the forebay facing west. The frame forebay lengthens the width of the barn, creating the characteristic uneven gable line of Sweitzer barns. Also on the property are a small stone dairy, a stone springhouse, a frame loafing shed, a concrete stave silo, and what is presumed to be a cannery building.
The Jacob M. Funk Farm has local historical significance for its long occupation by a prominent family and its association with agricultural development in Frederick and Washington counties. The farmstead derives architectural significance as an excellent example of regionally prominent stone construction. The house, barn, dairy, and springhouse, all constructed of stone along Black Rock Road, date from the 1800-1840s period. The style illustrates the changing patterns of occupation and development of architectural styles and trends over an extended period of time, beginning with the surviving pieces of a late 18th through early 19th century habitation, followed by substantial rebuilding and alteration c. 1835, and again in the 1880s. The collection is part of a finite group of stone buildings, a prominent regional construction type from the late 18th through the mid 19th century in the Cumberland Valley section of Washington County. The buildings reflect German-vernacular patterns familiar with the mid Maryland region. An early-20th century frame canning shed also contributes to the integrity of the complex. Although there was a fire and rehabilitation in the 1970s, the architectural and historical character of the property remains intact. The property was sold out of the Funk family in 1951.
The house and barn appear to be well maintained and in very good condition. The farm continues as an operating farm.