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Traditional and Popular Forms (2.1.1.1.1)

Double-pile houses (2.1.1.1.1.2)

Double-pile, or two-room-deep, houses were erected in Elizabeth City between the 1830s and the 1930s and comprise the largest number of historic dwellings in the city. These houses were built for occupants of a wide range of social strata, from the wealthy slave-owning antebellum planter and merchant, to the mill hand and laborer at the turn of the century. Like the smaller single-pile version, the double-pile house was usually covered by a gable roof, with hip roofs generally limited to the most imposing center-hall-plan residences. A large majority of this type are two or two-and-a-half stories in height. A notable exception is the one-and-a-half-story Shirley-Armstrong House (1011 West Main Street, ca. 1793, moved and remodeled ca. 1920). One of the oldest houses in town, it was built as a farmhouse. Like other dwellings, the double-pile houses were erected with porches that complemented the structure's style and scale.

Double-pile houses in Elizabeth City follow either the center-hall or side-hall plan. The center-hall plan was generally employed only for the larger houses, such as the Richardson-Pool-Glover House (301 Culpepper Street, 1850s) and the Charles O. Robinson House (201 East Main Street, 1914). Other large examples, such as the Cooke-Willey House (505 West Main Street, ca. 1891), employ bay windows or projecting rooms to relieve the rectangular shape. Almost all double-pile center-hall-plan houses are sheltered beneath hip roofs (sometimes truncated) that are pierced by interior chimneys.

Side-hall-plan double-pile houses were the most numerous house form in Elizabeth City from the 1840s until the early twentieth century and were erected in a variety of sizes. They were, with regularity, sheltered beneath gable roofs, and, with one exception, have interior end chimneys. Among antebellum houses, the larger dwellings, such as the Pool-Lumsden-Peters House (204 South Road Street, 1840), were erected in the established central core of the town by the well-to-do. Modestly scaled antebellum examples were built in newly-developed areas or predominantiy rural sections still outside the town limits. One such house is the Scott-Culpepper House (503 North Road Street, ca. 1845). A variation of this form is the transverse-hall plan of the John S. Burgess House (510 North Road Street, ca. 1847), the plan being basically a side-hall, double-pile plan turned on its side. The house at 307 Culpepper Street (ca. 1880s) is a rare one-and-a-half-story example with a locally unusual interior chimney.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the double-pile gable-front, side-hall-plan house became the city's most prevalent house form and was erected throughout the city in all sizes and styles. Because most of the neighborhoods platted during this period were laid out with lots only twenty-five or fifty feet wide, this house type was the most efficient utilization of such a narrow lot. This house type was especially associated with worker housing and is prevalent in those areas near the various saw mills and the Elizabeth City Cotton Mill. The orientation of the gable towards the street not only allows the house to make better use of the lot, but enables it to assume a street presence that belies its usually modest size and scale. All of these houses, with the exception of a quartet of simply finished one-and-a-half story rental houses at 707, 709, 711, and 717 Dawson Street (ca. 1910), are two stories tall.

These houses vary in size from large, stylish houses, such as the Percy S. Vaughan House (111 West Burgess Street, ca. 1899) and the Kramer-LeRoy-Morris House (407 West Main Street, ca. 1903), both of which were erected as rental houses for the middle class and are invigorated by a break in the rectangular form, to small two-bay dwellings, such as the rental houses near the mills on which decoration was restricted to the porch and limited in quantity. In between is a wide spectrum of two- or three-bay rectangular houses with sawn and turned decoration focusing on the porch and the gable. Examples include 319 West Fearing Street (ca. 1892) and the row of seven similar Ward Rental Houses in the 700 block of North Road Street (early 1900s).