Janet K. Seapker

Architectural Historian

307 North Fifteenth Street

Wilmington, NC 28401-3813

910-762-6301  jseapker@ec.rr.com

 

 

To:  Residents of Old Wilmington

Subject:  Request for help solving the dating problem with the house at 214 N 7^th. 

 

I am having a problem dating 214 N 7^th.  The architecture does not gee with the history.  I am hoping you might offer suggestions of other houses that share similar features. 

A lot of the architectural features are later (1870s and 1880s) and the history wants the house to have been built just before the Civil War.  It had two porches, one on the front and one on the south (right) side.  I suspect they had canopy roofs before they were combined.  It has two sets of double doors, full-length windows on the first floor and two-over-two windows throughout most of the rest of the house, features common in post-bellum houses. 

 

The features that are later are not the sorts of things one would go in a change to modernize the place— the brackets with a kind of Eastlake incised pattern on the sides; the interior door and window trim have superficially inscribed roundels and molding strips.

 

 

 

 

and the interior hardware are stamped with Eastlake designs. 

    

 

The newel and balusters are twisted and unique, so far as I know. 

 

 

The mantels in the front and rear rooms of the main block are standard ogee mid-19^th century forms, but beautifully marbleized.  The second floor mantels are simple wooden Greek Revival forms.

 

  

 

The doors are standard mid-19^th century four panel models. 

 

Please, if you know of houses, especially well dated ones, that share these characteristics, call, write [email] or visit.  Thanks.  Janet