{"nrhp_refnum":"75001294","name":"Elmwood","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"16 N. Boylan Ave.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Raleigh","county":"Wake County","state":"NC","lat":35.781703959000026,"lon":-78.64869148199995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-10-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Politics/Government","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Elmwood is a Federal-style side-hall plan town house at 16 North Boylan Avenue in Raleigh, Wake County, North Carolina, built about 1810-1815 for John Louis Taylor and expanded with several later additions.","why_significant":"The nomination presents Elmwood as one of the few surviving antebellum dwellings in Raleigh, with fine Adamesque interiors. It was home to a series of prominent figures: John Louis Taylor, William Gaston, Romulus Saunders and Samuel A. Ashe. Several of them were state supreme court justices or otherwise prominent in state law, politics and letters.","narrative":"Elmwood is a Federal town house on North Boylan Avenue in Raleigh, begun around 1810-1815 on land John Louis Taylor bought in 1813. The original block is two and a half stories with a side-hall plan, two rooms deep, a gable roof with dormers, and a fieldstone basement. Inside are a mahogany stair, an elliptical hall arch and finely carved mantels. Later owners added wings, a porch and other rooms, giving the rear a complex massing. The house is notable for the men who lived there. Taylor became the first chief justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court. William Gaston, a justice and author of the state song, owned it next, and Thomas Ruffin rented it. Romulus Saunders, a judge and minister to Spain, bought it in 1837, and the name Elmwood first appears in his time. After the Civil War it was the home of newspaper editor Samuel A. Ashe, a principal editor of the Biographical History of North Carolina. Only part of the original five-acre estate remains.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Federal (Adamesque interiors)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Condition listed as excellent and altered; present use is a law office.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:57.809699-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/86/7225/47722586/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/75001294.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75001294/2fe1c1c934-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75001294/2fe1c1c934-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Nicholas Oren Rawlings","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elmwood_(Raleigh,_North_Carolina).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nicholas Oren Rawlings</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elmwood_(Raleigh,_North_Carolina).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47722586","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmwood_(Raleigh,_North_Carolina)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q20065116"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/wake-county/elmwood-75001294/"}