Even among the grandest mansions in Piedmont cities and towns, big properties tend to top out at a couple acres, maybe three. But right now, through a random quirk of timing, there are three homes listed for sale in the region with extraordinary acreage within their towns, in one case an astonishing 54 acres.
It’s not unusual for historic homes to be found on properties far smaller than when they were built. Many have had towns grow out around them. Usually, though, the land surrounding the homes has been almost entirely sold off. Here are three properties where, for whatever reasons, that never happened.
301 Carolina Avenue, Asheboro
What’s surprising about the the Garland and Hildred Pritchard House is that it was built so recently, 1941. Its 23.84 acres sit in northern Asheboro, well within today’s city limits. It was probably on the edge of town when it was built, but for 80 years its wooded acreage has been untouched by development as the city grew out around it.
The original owners were Garland Peter Pritchard (1891-1979) and Hildred Porter Pritchard (1906-1985), listed at this address in the 1941 city directory (which suggests that by then the property was either within the city limits or quite close). The property remained in their family until 2014.
Garland was the proprietor of the Pritchard Feed Seed & Wholesale Store and Garland Lake Dairy. He and Hildred were partners in G.P. Pritchard Real Estate & Mercantile. Hildred also served as organist for Central United Methodist Church.
Hildred passed ownership to their son, Garland Porter Pritchard (d. 2002, age 76) and two grandchildren in 1982. Granddaughter Cecelia Pritchard sold the property in 1990 to a cousin, Anna Lee Pritchard Johnson (1928-2017). She sold the property in 2014. The current for-sale listing is here.
An unrelated note: Although the name Hildred seems to gone out of favor in recent decades, the findagrave.com database lists hundreds of people with that first name, men and women alike.
290 Maple Avenue, Mocksville
Mocksville was certainly a smaller place in 1828 when the Jesse Clement House was built. The Clement family owned the house for 150 years, holding onto 12.75 acres, even as the house itself fell into ruin.
It was bought in 1978 and restored by Rev. Dr. William Fife Long (1926-2020) and Dr. Ann Phifer Hammond Long (1931-2023). They lived in the house until selling it in 2006. They, too, held onto all the acreage. They also got the house listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“Clement was a prosperous local businessman who owned a tannery, two plantations, and a brokerage firm dealing in plug tobacco, cotton, and wheat,” the National Register nomination says. He died at the age of 68 in 1876.
After Jesse’s death, his widow, Melinda A. Nail Clement (1810-1891), continued to live in the house. Their son Baxter had moved to Arkansas but returned to Mocksville with his wife, Lina Barber Clement (1860-1944). They all lived in the house for the rest of their lives. After Lina’s death, their heirs rented the house out before selling it to the Historic Preservation Fund of North Carolina in 1978, which sold it to the Longs. Click here for the current for-sale listing with pictures of the house before its restoration.
William Long was born in High Point and raised in Thomasville. He served in the Army during World War II, receiving the Bronze Star. After the war he graduated from Davidson College and the UNC law school. He earned a doctoral degree from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond and was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1958, serving as a pastor in Mocksville, Gastonia and Hamlet before returning to Mocksville.
Ann was a native of Charlotte and a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Duke University. She earned her masters in education from UNC Charlotte and a doctorate in psychology from Duke. She worked as a public-school teacher, guidance counselor and school psychologist until retiring in 1994. The N.C. School Psychology Association named her Practitioner of the Year in 1993.
One of the previous owners wrote a short history of the house for the Davie County Historical and Genealogical Society in 2014. The house is described in detail in The Historic Architecture of Davie County, North Carolina (p. 197).
53 Main Street West, Yanceyville
Photo 3 by Capital City Camera Club
Yanceyville isn’t the most intensely developed town in North Carolina, but, still, finding a house on 54.75 acres within town is remarkable. The house itself, Clarendon Hall, the Thomas D. Johnston House, is remarkable in its own right, an impressive antebellum mansion.
The Yanceyville Historic District’s National Register nomination calls the house an “imposing a boom era residence … built by Thomas D. Johnston, prominent merchant, president of the Bank of Yanceyville, and one of the wealthiest men in town.”
“The two-story brick house, built in 1842 according to the dated chimney, forms the grandest vista in Yanceyville, set at the end of a long axial driveway on the south side of Main Street near the public square.”
The house sits near Main Street with its 54 undeveloped acres rolling out behind it. The long chain of ownership is laid out meticulously in the invaluable Caswell County North Carolina blog. When Johnston sold the house in 1878, the property was 650 acres. An 1884 sale reduced it to 200. In 1907, a court-ordered sale recorded the size as 184 acres. Its fourth sale occurred in 1981, when the Historic Preservation Foundation bought the house and 54.75 acres for $10. The current for-sale listing is here.
The home’s name is a puzzle in itself. It’s unclear how the name Clarendon Hall became associated with it. The name isn’t mentioned in the National Register nomination for the historic district (1973). Nor is it used in An Inventory of Historic Architecture of Caswell County, North Carolina (1979). Both of those sources call it the Thomas D. Johnston House. But it does appear many times in the Caswell County blog and other sources. Although it seems unlikely, the name may come into use only since the 1980s on a house built in the 1840s.
Piedmont Historic Homes 