Sponsor: The Blue Ridge Garden Club

Tickets: $20; ages 6-12, half-price

Info: (540) 463-3777; www.VAGardenweek.org

Lexington is located in the Shenandoah Valley and is home to Virginia Military Institute and Washington & Lee University.

The city also is connected to Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.

Tour highlights:

The clapboard, mid-19th century town house at 302 S. Jefferson St. (Mr. and Mrs. Ronald Patrick, owners) is now home to a couple who moved to Virginia from upstate New York in 2006. The Patricks brought with them antique and family furnishings, American primitive and folk art items.

Japanese Imari porcelains are displayed against deep Chinese-red walls in the dining room. Mr. Patrick brought a collection of pottery from various clay works of Lyons, New York. The in-town garden has hydrangea, viburnum, small-leafed "Elizabeth" magnolia and French mulberry.

The original portion of 110 W. McDowell St. (Ms. Katie Letcher Lyle, owner) dates to 1867 when the two-story, one-room-wide and one-room-deep home was a schoolhouse.

The owner has preserved the personality of the original structure by retaining the exterior brick wall in the dining room and furnishing the rooms with antiques and period memorabilia. A series of garden rooms and fountains enhance the spacious grounds.

93 Riverbend Drive (Mr. and Mrs. Rex M. Lamb III, owners) offers panoramic views and a 360-degree sweep of the surrounding mountains. This contemporary house of wood and glass-windowed walls was built in 1991 and purchased by the owners in 2006.

An 18th-century English grandfather clock, Sheraton desk and other antiques seem at home in this setting. Collections include Mr. Lamb's wooden decoys and Mrs. Lamb's demitasse collection.

Built in 1992, this contemporary cabin-style house at 287 Riverbend Drive (Ms. Kate Buford, owner) overlooks the cliffs along the Maury River. Among the owner's treasures are bentwood chairs, old maps and prints, antique farm implements, framed movie star posters and an unusual framed quilt made from pieces of century-old wedding dresses from India.

Ms. Buford is the author of several books, including biographies of film actor Burt Lancaster and Indian athlete Jim Thorpe. ? Step back in time for a horse-drawn carriage tour of Lexington.