Riverside Historic District

Elizabeth City neighborhood of mostly frame and some masonry houses on the south bank of the Pasquotank River, platted in stages from 1893 to 1926 and largely built out before 1942. Riverside Avenue runs east from the downtown commercial district, and its houses were built by professionals, merchants, and industrialists seeking a fashionable address. The houses include Queen Anne, Craftsman Bungalow, American Foursquare, Colonial Revival, and Tudor Revival examples, along with a few earlier Greek Revival survivals. The Miles L. Clark House, built about 1926, is the city's only Normanesque example, with a semicircular keep and conical roof. Local builder William S. Chesson, Jr. constructed several Tudor Revival houses in the former Fearing estate, including the Harold C. Foreman House. Sixty-nine resources contribute to the district, many with river views, rear porches, and garages. Listing rests on its architecture and on its planned development pattern, which shows how the city expanded during its railroad-era boom and early twentieth-century growth.