Myrtle Lawn
Why it's listed
Myrtle Lawn is a plantation complex on twelve acres near Enfield in Halifax County, North Carolina. Its main building is a two-story weatherboarded frame house, five bays wide and two rooms deep, begun about 1816 by Absalom Benton Whitaker and enlarged by two bays in the 1840s or 1850s. The expansion deliberately kept the Federal character of the older section, so the two phases are hard to distinguish from outside, apart from the ornate sawnwork porch. Around the house stand a carriage house, a temple-form plantation office, a dairy, a log vegetable storage house set directly on the ground, storage buildings and the ruin of a slave house. Several use wooden foundation blocks or earthfast methods that persisted well into the nineteenth century. Members of the Whitaker family owned the property for nearly 150 years. The complex is notable for its completeness, its range of building types and its record of plantation life before and after the Civil War.
Significance in brief: The complex is an unusually complete example of an antebellum plantation center in Halifax County, with a variety of building types and construction methods, including earthfast and log construction. The house joins conservative Federal detailing with later Greek Revival and Italianate elements. It was also owned by the locally prominent Whitaker family from the eighteenth century into the mid-twentieth.
Machine-generated summary. This summary was generated by a language model from the official nomination document and has not been reviewed line by line by an editor. It may contain errors. Check the source document before relying on any detail. Source: nomination document (PDF) · National Archives catalog entry. NRHP reference 85001341, listed June 20, 1985. Summary generated October 2026 (model claude-sonnet-5-5, prompt v1.0-2026-10-29, confidence high).
Key facts
| Address | SR 1003, Enfield |
|---|---|
| County | Halifax County |
| Listed | June 20, 1985 |
| Reference number | 85001341 |
| Resource type | District |
| Period of significance | 1800-1899 |
| Architectural style | Federal, with Greek Revival and Italianate motifs |
| Criteria |
|
| Areas of significance | Architecture, Agriculture |
| Level of significance | Local |
| Status (as stated in the nomination) | Occupied and in excellent condition overall; the owners have stabilized the structures, except for the ruinous slave house. |
| Acreage | 12 |
| Coordinates | 36.14138, -77.59387 (NPS GIS) |
What listing means for this property
This is a historic district. Buildings within its boundary are either contributing (they add to the district's significance) or non-contributing. Owners of contributing income-producing buildings can claim the 20% federal rehabilitation tax credit; homeowners should look at state credits. National Register districts impose no design review by themselves; a local historic district ordinance, if one exists, does (the difference explained).
General information, not legal or tax advice. Rules change; confirm with your State Historic Preservation Office or a qualified adviser.
Sources and further reading
- National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places database (snapshot May 2026), reference 85001341.
- Nomination form (PDF, National Archives) — catalog entry
- Wikipedia article (used for cross-checking only; text not reproduced here)
- Wikidata Q18711622
- This listing as JSON
Last updated October 2026. Found an error? See the editorial policy for how to report it.