12244 Old Stage Rd
Willow Spring, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Turner and Amelia Smith House

Statement of Significance:

The Turner and Amelia Smith House is eligible for the National Register for its local architectural significance under Criterion C as a largely intact example of a vernacular Italianate dwelling in Wake County. Turner and Amelia Smith built the house in the late 1880s on land given to them by Amelia's parents in 1886 and lived on the property until the mid-1920s. As originally built, the house was a single story, gable-roofed and two rooms deep in a center hall plan. Building fabric suggests that the enlargement of the house with a second story above the front two rooms occurred within a few years of the original construction. With the addition, the house became an I-house with a triple-A roof and tall rear shed across the rear. The vernacular Italianate finishes throughout the Smith House, particularly at the porch and second-story roofline, distinguish it from more typical examples of the county's I-houses. The historical context for this property is outlined in Context 2, "Civil War, Reconstruction, and a Shift to Commercial Agriculture, 1861-1885," in "Historic and Architectural Resources of Wake County, North Carolina, ca. 1770-1941." The Smith House falls under Property Type 3B, "Houses Built Between the Civil War and World War I, 1865-1918," for which additional architectural context is provided in this nomination. The house meets the registration requirements as outlined on pages F141-142. The period of significance for the Turner and Amelia Smith House is the late 1880s, when the house was built and then enlarged to its current form.