Sycamore Valley

Sycamore Valley is a plantation seat and farm of about 32 acres near Grassy Creek in Granville County, North Carolina. Its eight-bay, two-story central block with lower two-story wings was assembled in stages before the Civil War. The interior works as a catalog of early 19th-century taste: Georgian, transitional Georgian/Federal, Federal and Greek Revival mantels and doors, some wood-grained or marbleized by local craftsmen. The exact builders and dates of the early sections are unknown, though deed records show frequent ownership changes in the 1820s and a Greek Revival west wing probably added by Spencer C. Griffin after 1842. A front porch and rear ell were added in the late nineteenth century. Surviving outbuildings include an early smokehouse, log tobacco barn, stable, chicken house, corn crib, packhouse and dairy barn, with fields and a farm pond. Together they illustrate both the plantation era and the bright leaf tobacco era, and the period of significance runs from the 1820s to 1937.