{"nrhp_refnum":"80002883","name":"Sunnybank","other_names":["The Inn at Hot Springs"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"NC 209 and Walnut St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Hot Springs","county":"Madison County","state":"NC","lat":35.89137299300006,"lon":-82.82967201099996,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1980-05-23","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Performing Arts"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Sunnybank is a rambling two-story frame house on a one-acre lawn above the town of Hot Springs, Madison County, North Carolina, built about 1875 for Charles D. Merritt as a summer residence and later used as an inn.","why_significant":"It is the last major surviving reminder of Hot Springs' nineteenth-century resort heyday and the only 1870s summer house there to survive essentially intact. It is associated with Jane Gentry and Maude Gentry Long, whose ballads were collected by Cecil Sharp and recorded by the Library of Congress. It also stands as a largely unaltered example of late Victorian mountain resort architecture.","narrative":"Sunnybank is a large, irregular frame house on a one-acre lawn overlooking Hot Springs, North Carolina. Built about 1875 for Charles D. Merritt, a wealthy northerner, it served as a summer residence during the town's peak as a fashionable mineral-springs resort. Its weatherboard walls, intersecting gables, sawn brackets, two-story porches and well-preserved interior millwork reflect Victorian tastes, and it is the only summer house from that decade in town to survive essentially intact. Later owners included Colonel J. H. Rumbough and the family of Frances Shaw. From 1912 it operated as a boardinghouse, and in 1919 it passed to the Gentry family. Jane Gentry sang sixty-four ballads that English folklorist Cecil Sharp collected in 1916, and her daughter Maude Gentry Long was recorded by the Library of Congress. German internees' wives boarded here during the First World War. It continues to take guests today, linking the town's resort past to its present.","period_of_significance":"1800-1899","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Italianate Revival-derived ornament on a rambling, irregular Victorian frame house","criteria":["A","B","C"],"status_note":"Occupied and in use as an inn offering rooms and meals; the owner was carrying out repairs and rehabilitation at the time of nomination.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:58:58.172046-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/65/7211/47721165/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/80002883.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002883/89174508e8-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/80002883/89174508e8-1600.webp","licence":"CC0","author":"Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunnybank_(The_Inn_at_Hot_Springs),_Hot_Springs,_NC_(31729996117).jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Warren LeMay from Cincinnati, OH, United States</a>, <a href=\"http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/deed.en\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sunnybank_(The_Inn_at_Hot_Springs),_Hot_Springs,_NC_(31729996117).jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47721165","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunnybank_(Hot_Springs,_North_Carolina)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25203150"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/madison-county/sunnybank-80002883/"}