{"nrhp_refnum":"79001688","name":"Poteat House","other_names":["Forest Home"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"N of Yanceyville on NC 62","address_restricted":false,"city":"Yanceyville","county":"Caswell County","state":"NC","lat":36.41987848750006,"lon":-79.31018366918985,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1979-10-24","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Education","Science","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story frame Greek Revival plantation house, also called Forest Home, near Yanceyville in Caswell County, North Carolina, built in 1855-56 for Captain James Poteat. It sits on 619.92 acres with outbuildings, farmland and woodland.","why_significant":"The nomination argues it is a well-preserved antebellum Greek Revival house that has stayed in one family since it was built. It is also the birthplace and family home of Dr. William Louis Poteat, president of Wake Forest College, who defended academic freedom and the teaching of evolution in the 1920s. The house was restored and expanded in 1928-29.","narrative":"Forest Home, also known as the Poteat House, is a boxy two-story Greek Revival frame house north of Yanceyville in Caswell County. Captain James Poteat, a local militia officer, built it in 1855-56 on a prosperous tobacco and grain plantation. The main block has a double-pedimented Doric portico, flanking one-story wings and richly molded interior woodwork. The family left in 1870 and the house stood empty until 1928, losing its portico and much of its interior trim. Helen Poteat Stallings and her husband, author Laurence Stallings, then restored and enlarged it, copying surviving woodwork so closely that old and new are hard to tell apart. A log slave cabin, tenant houses, tobacco barns and a family cemetery remain on the 619.92-acre estate. The property is also remembered as the birthplace of William Louis Poteat, Wake Forest College president, who resisted fundamentalist attacks on teaching evolution and helped defeat anti-evolution legislation in 1925.","period_of_significance":"1855-1856, 1928-1929","architect_builder":"James Poteat (builder/owner)","architectural_style":"Greek Revival","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Marked occupied and private on the form; the house was restored in 1928 after standing unoccupied from 1870 until then. Part of the land is in pasture and cropland and the rest is a tree farm.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:56.025397-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/48/7194/47719448/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/79001688.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001688/c20c32530e-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/79001688/c20c32530e-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Frances Benjamin Johnston","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poteat_House,_Yanceyville_(Caswell_County,_North_Carolina).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Frances Benjamin Johnston</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poteat_House,_Yanceyville_(Caswell_County,_North_Carolina).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47719448","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poteat_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18156943"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/caswell-county/poteat-house-79001688/"}