On a recent December 13, the Hillsboro Holiday Homes Tour sent visitors out to properties on Neer Lane, Woodgrove Road, Highwater Road and Stonypoint Road. This year the route stays closer to home. On Saturday, December 12, 2026, the Hillsboro Preservation Foundation opens four decorated homes on Gaver Mill Road and one classroom inside the Old Stone School. The foundation calls the theme "Holiday times in the Gap through the eyes of children from the past."
The theme suits the route. The building where every tour starts was a schoolhouse for nearly a century. The road the tour follows is named for a woolen mill that once dressed the town. A smaller tour still gives you plenty to see, because it tells the story of Hillsboro's own children and its own work. With three weeks to go, the tickets in shortest supply are for the hours after dark.
The December 13 Tour Went Out of Town
The Loudoun Times-Mirror's coverage of the December 13 tour listed six locations that had never been on the tour: One Trick Farm on Neer Lane, Silverbrook Farm on Woodgrove Road, The Cottage by the Creek and The Moore House on Highwater Road, and Stonypoint Business Center and Stoneypoint Farm on Stonypoint Road. The paper quoted organizer Emilie Moskal of the Hillsboro Preservation Foundation saying the event drew on "about 100 volunteers" and calling it "a big community effort." In the same article she described the stops as "Six homes, but all very different and special."
The 2026 plan is tighter. It has four homes instead of six, plus a decorated Old Stone School classroom, and the school's music room is a stop of its own. Volunteer teams are decorating again, and the foundation says the greens will be mostly picked locally. That earlier route showed how far the Gap reaches. This year's stops show the village itself.
A Schoolhouse Until 1966
The Old Stone School stands at the eastern entrance to town on Route 9, at 37098 Charles Town Pike. The Town of Hillsboro's history says it was first named Locust Grove Academy, and its oldest section, the east wing, went up in 1874. More rooms were added on the west side and finished in 1917, and a brick auditorium followed in 1929. Children in grades one through seven had classes there until the spring of 1966, when Hillsboro Elementary opened.
The same history describes the school as the hub of the community in the early 1900s. It hosted community plays, and a local orchestra played during intermission. That explains why the music room is on this year's route. A tour about children's holidays fits a building where children learned for more than ninety years.
The building now serves as Town Hall, community center and event venue. The tour has helped pay for that second life. Loudoun Now reported that proceeds from an earlier homes tour went toward the continued restoration of the Old Stone School.
The Road Named for a Woolen Mill
Gaver Mill Road takes its name from one of Hillsboro's working mills. The National Register nomination for the Hillsboro Historic District places the town's lower mill where Gaver Mill Road meets Ashbury Church Road today. Henry Gaver took over the mill in the 1840s and ran it as a woolen mill.
Historian Eugene Scheel's history of Hillsboro says Gaver's was one of only a handful of woolen mills in Loudoun. Its water-powered looms made yarn for carpets, clothes, blankets and counterpanes, and Scheel notes that some of those pieces were still owned by Loudoun families when he wrote. The mill had its heyday in 1859 and 1860, when it made wool for the uniforms of the Hillsborough Border Guards. The looms stopped in 1895, and the building was used for storage until it was torn down in 1936.
So the tour links a schoolroom where Hillsboro's children learned with a road named for the mill that made their blankets. The Hillsboro Historic District has been on the National Register of Historic Places since May 7, 1979.
Three Ways Through the Day
All three versions of the tour check in at the Old Stone School, inside the holiday market. The town's Annual Holiday Market runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. that day at the school. At the December 13 tour the Times-Mirror covered, the market had more than 30 vendors. The ticket options are:
| Tour | Hours | Price | What comes with it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-guided | 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. | $18 | A booklet made for the tour, with a map and notes on each home. An audio tour add-on costs $5 more. |
| Guided | Departures at 1:30, 2:00, 2:30, 3:00, 3:30 and 4:00 p.m. | $25 | A guide walks the group from home to home and covers the decorations and history of each house. Local musicians play along the route. |
| Candlelight | Departures at 5:00, 5:30, 6:00, 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. | $32 | The homes are lit by candlelight, with docents at each house and local musicians. |
The audio tour is new this year. You download it to your phone or tablet at check-in, and you need to bring your own headset. You need one add-on for each self-guided ticket that uses it. In the afternoon, guided groups also meet a docent at each stop for a closer look at the decorated houses. After 5 p.m., visitors walk the streets with lanterns provided by the town.
With the booklet in hand, morning visitors set their own pace. A guide's account of the town costs $7 more after lunch, and after five the lantern-lit walk turns the early dark into part of the tour.
The Evening Slots Are Going First
As of early November, the 5:00 and 5:30 p.m. candlelight tours were sold out on the foundation's ticket page. The 6:00 p.m. candlelight tour and the 1:30 p.m. guided tour were each down to one ticket. The 6:30 and 7:00 p.m. candlelight tours and the guided tours from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. were still listed for sale.
Availability has probably changed since then. Still, the earliest sellouts were in the evening, and that fits this year's route. Four homes and a schoolroom make a short walk, and the lantern-lit tour is where that size feels right. If you are bringing holiday guests, decide on an evening slot first. Then plan the market and the rest of the day around it.
A day that works:
- Arrive for the market after it opens at 10 a.m. and shop while it is still light.
- Check in at the Old Stone School before your slot.
- Start with the music room and the decorated classroom, where this year's theme begins.
- Walk the Gaver Mill Road homes by lantern light on a candlelight tour.
Coming From the Lovettsville Side
If you come to Hillsboro on Route 287, the junction with Route 9 is not the signalized intersection you may remember. Loudoun County switched it to a single-lane roundabout on September 17, 2026, while it builds a permanent roundabout. The signal is turned off, flaggers are on site, and the county says the temporary layout will stay until the project is done, which it currently expects in winter 2027. On December 12 you will drive through that construction zone on the way in. Give yourself extra time, especially if you are trying to make a 6:00 candlelight check-in.
Tickets for the 2026 Hillsboro Holiday Homes Tour are sold through the Hillsboro Preservation Foundation. Market vendors can register at oldstoneschool.org.
At Beckwith Bolle, we care about the houses on this tour for the same reason the foundation does. In Hillsboro, a home's history is part of its value. If you own an older home in the Gap and have wondered how its history affects what it is worth today, request a confidential home valuation and consultation, and we will talk it through with you privately.
