{"nrhp_refnum":"02000988","name":"Porter Houses and Armstrong Kitchen","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"821 Wells Rd.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Whitakers","county":"Edgecombe County","state":"NC","lat":36.06542724800005,"lon":-77.66664495899994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2002-09-14","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A rural property of three buildings at 821 Wells Road, about four miles southeast of Whitakers in Edgecombe County, North Carolina: two late eighteenth-century frame houses (one gambrel-roofed, one gable-roofed) and a ca. 1850 kitchen remodeled ca. 1900.","why_significant":"The two Porter Houses are among the oldest surviving dwellings in Edgecombe County and show Chesapeake-derived building traditions brought into North Carolina's coastal plain. Few eighteenth-century houses of this scale and finish built for the emerging planter class survive in the region. The Armstrong Kitchen is a representative example of a once-common but now rare outbuilding type in the county.","narrative":"Three historic buildings stand on a one-acre parcel along Wells Road, southeast of Whitakers in Edgecombe County. Two are one-and-a-half-story frame houses from the last quarter of the eighteenth century: one with a gambrel roof, hall-parlor plan, double-shouldered Flemish-bond chimneys and exposed heavy-timber framing, the other a one-room gable-roofed house that was moved to the site in the early twentieth century. The third building is a kitchen dating to about 1850, with interior finishes and roof structure from about 1900. The land was granted to Charles Porter, Sr. in 1749, and the Porter family likely built one or both houses. The houses are among the oldest dwellings in the county and reflect building traditions carried south from tidewater Maryland and Virginia. Few eighteenth-century houses of this size and finish for the early planter class survive in the coastal plain, and detached kitchens have mostly been demolished or absorbed into later additions. These qualities support listing for architecture.","period_of_significance":"Last quarter eighteenth century; ca. 1850, ca. 1900","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"One-and-a-half story gambrel-roofed house; one-room heavy-timber frame house; one-room frame outbuilding (Georgian-era traditional forms)","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Current function listed as vacant, not in use. The gambrel-roofed house was stabilized and restored in 1994; the gable-roofed house and kitchen are slated for careful restoration. The gable-roofed house was moved at least once.","vacant_flag":true,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:57:52.853364-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/16/7201/47720116/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/02000988.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47720116","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter_Houses_and_Armstrong_Kitchen","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q24436213"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/edgecombe-county/porter-houses-and-armstrong-kitchen-02000988/"}