150 Royal Pines Drive
Arden, NC, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Blake House (Newington / Royal Pines / Joseph B. Pyatt House)

Statement of Significance:

The c. 1850 Blake House is located on a three-quarter-acre parcel of land in Arden, Buncombe County, North Carolina. The Blake House is a rare example of the Gothic Revival style not commonly seen in rural western North Carolina residences during the mid-nineteenth century. The cross gables, decorative bargeboards, and window drip moldings are stylistic elements of Gothic Revival. The two-story double-pile plan house reflects the influx of wealthy South Carolina summer tourists to the mountains of North Carolina who purchased land and constructed stylish summer homes. Local building materials, including limestone and walnut, were used in construction of the house. All exterior architectural elements are original to the resource. Although rear additions were constructed to accommodate contemporary life with kitchens and bathrooms, the Blake House today remains largely intact, retaining its fine exterior stone construction and interior woodwork of local walnut. There are few examples of mid-nineteenth-century Gothic Revival-style houses of this scale and material detail in western North Carolina. The Blake House is locally significant as a highly intact example of a mid-nineteenth-century Gothic Revival style residence in western North Carolina and meets National Register Criterion C for architecture. The period of significance is circa 1850. The exact date of construction is not known, but is thought to have occurred between 1847, when Daniel Blake sold 291 acres of land to Joseph Pyatt who built a house on the land, and 1852, when Pyatt sold the land and house back to Blake.