> This idea that story-and-a-half houses were built that way to avoid a higher
> tax bill has been around for a long time. The truth is, houses were not taxed
> in the colonial period; there was a kind of land tax called a quitrent (2
> shillings for each 100 acres of land) that landowners in colonial Virginia
> paid annually to the crown in order to gain title to their land. If they
> failed to pay the quitrent for a period of time, the crown technically could
> take the land back or sell it to someone else, etc. After the Revolution
> beginning in 1782, independent Virginia imposed both a land and personal
> property taxes.
> 
> Linda Rowe
> Historical Research
> Colonial Williamsburg Foundation

And if I may add to Linda's correct answer: independent Virginia's personal
property taxes, starting in 1782, didn't include assessments on houses or
any other sort of building. The matter of buildings and their value were
left to the land tax assessors who just included their perceived quality of
the buildings on a particular tract or lot in their per-acre tax assessment.

After some new legislation in 1820, collectors began to break out from their
value-per-acre assessment an "amount added on account of building." But no
particular characteristics of a house--closets, second stories, window
glass, or number of hearths--had anything to do with assessed value.

Camille Wells
Architectural Historian

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