{"nrhp_refnum":"88002180","name":"Carter, John Waddey, House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"324 E. Church St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Martinsville","county":"Henry County","state":"VA","lat":36.68850798200003,"lon":-79.86568774499995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1988-11-03","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A two-story Queen Anne style frame house at 324 East Church Street in Martinsville, Henry County, Virginia, built in 1896 by lawyer John Waddey Carter as a wedding present for his bride.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the house is a high-style landmark example of Queen Anne architecture with Eastlake ornamentation under Criterion C. It is one of the few architecturally distinguished pre-1900 houses surviving in downtown Martinsville. It stayed in the same family for ninety-one years and retains a high degree of design integrity.","narrative":"Known locally as the \"Gray Lady,\" this two-story frame house at 324 East Church Street in Martinsville was built in 1896 by John Waddey Carter, a prominent lawyer, local politician and former mayor, as a wedding present for his second wife, Mary Kizziah Drewery. Its gray weatherboard exterior combines a two-story central gable, a curving wrap-around porch, a polygonal corner tower topped by an onion dome, and abundant Eastlake spindlework, fish-scale shingles and brackets. Inside, a central hall, a richly detailed staircase, high ceilings, brass hardware and decorative mantels survive. The house is significant as a high-style example of Queen Anne architecture, one of the few distinguished houses from before 1900 left in downtown Martinsville. It remained in the Carter family for ninety-one years until 1987, when a local real estate firm bought it for use as its headquarters and began modest renovations.","period_of_significance":"1896","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Queen Anne-Eastlake","criteria":["C"],"status_note":"Being preserved with minor renovations and to be used as the headquarters of a real estate company's Real Estate Division; earlier used as a single dwelling.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.78473-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/69/6812/41681269/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/88002180.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002180/e31ee285f1-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/88002180/e31ee285f1-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Waddey_Carter_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Waddey_Carter_House.jpg"},"district":{"nrhp_refnum":"06000805","name":"East Church Street-Starling Avenue Historic District","url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/districts/virginia/east-church-street-starling-avenue-historic-district-06000805/"},"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681269","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Waddey_Carter_House","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16825753"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/henry-county/carter-john-waddey-house-88002180/"}