Avirett-Stephens Plantation

Built in 1851 for John Alfred Avirett, Sr., the two-story frame house in Onslow County stands on an 83-acre remnant of a plantation that once covered about 25,000 acres. Its vernacular Greek Revival form uses rough-sawn heart pine board and batten sheathing on brick piers, a center hall plan and a two-tiered porch. The plantation was a major producer of turpentine, a product of the longleaf pine forests that covered most of its land, and Avirett was among the wealthiest planters in the county before the Civil War. Avirett sold the house and 10,000 acres to Christopher Dudley Stephens in 1857, and Stephens farmed the property until his death in 1891, adding cotton and diversified crops. The interior is valued for its graining on doors, window moldings and sashes, and for marbleized fireplace surrounds, which are rare in the county. The surviving cemetery, cistern and cleared fields preserve the physical layout of the plantation seat.