Suffolk Historic District

Suffolk Historic District covers about 62 acres of commercial and residential property in the City of Suffolk, Virginia, south of the railroad tracks and north of Washington Street. It is centered on North Main Street, an area added to the original town after 1785 when John Granberry surveyed building lots, and extends east into 'New Town', developed from about 1870 by John Franklin Pinner. The district holds 234 contributing buildings, most of them houses. Surviving early buildings include the Federal-style house at 227 North Main Street, begun around 1795. Later streets show a mix of modest vernacular homes and more elaborate designs. Bank Street has four Second Empire houses, including the Holland House, and Franklin Street has a row of Italianate residences built before 1885. The 1909 George W. Truitt house is described as the best American Renaissance residence, and the eight-story Suffolk Towers, built as the Elliott Hotel, anchors the downtown skyline. Together these buildings record Suffolk's rapid growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.