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Description (2.3.1)

Educational Buildings (2.3.1.1)

The educational buildings in Elizabeth City built before 1942 include two former private schools, a private college to train ministers, a state university, and two public schools. These buildings reflect the architectural styles in fashion at the time of their construction.

The earliest educational buildings in Elizabeth City are associated with private schools. The former Tillett School (410 West Church Street, ca. 1877) is the city's sole surviving private school for whites. The traditional one-and-a-half-story double-pile frame structure was remodeled in the Colonial Revival style during the early twentieth century at which time it was re-sided with wood shingles. The other private school, probably erected sometime during the 1880s as a school for black children, also became the first permanent home for the State Colored Normal School (708 Herrington Road, ca. 1880s). The building's original section was a two-story gable-roof, L-plan structure of simple vernacular origins. During the 1930s, after the building had become a black fraternal lodge, the structure was enlarged into a rectangular plan, covered by a hip roof, and the present double-tier erected. Since the 1980s the building has been sadly altered. The Roanoke Institute Building (200 Roanoke Street, 1937) replaced the original ca. 1896 frame structure (which burned) and continues to house the minister-training school associated with black Baptist churches in North Carolina and Virginia. The building's broad nineteen-bay façade focuses on a tall central entrance pavilion; the brick and stucco building was modified with faux ashlar stone in 1958.

In 1912 the State Colored Normal School moved to a modern campus along what is now Parkview Drive, then just outside of the city's southwestern limits. The major structures erected before World War II were large brick buildings in the Colonial Revival style: Lane Hall (1910-1912, enlarged 1923-1931, remodeled 1948, 1955), Symera Hall (1911-1912, remodeled 1947-1951), Butler Hall (1920s), Moore Hall (1921-1923, enlarged 1939), Administration Building (formerly G. R. Little Library, 1937-1939, enlarged 1959), and Bias Hall (1937-1939). Butler and Bias halls are the most distinguished, the former featuring parapet gable ends and twelve attic dormers and the latter having a broad four-bay two-story portico covered by a flat roof. These six buildings, along with Williams Hall (1947), a large Colonial Revival brick structure with pedimented three-bay portico that was designed by Goldsboro architect J. Allen Maxwell, enclose a large quadrangle that serves as the center of the campus. Outside of the quadrangle to the south is Lucille McLendon Hall (1921-1922), a large frame bungalow structure with offset front gables that first served as the Practice School; it was erected with the assistance of the Rosenwald Fund.

The city's historic public schools consist of two neighboring buildings erected for white students; all of the historic black schools have been demolished, the last two within the past five years. The older surviving public school is the former Elizabeth City High School (306 North Road Street, 1924), designed by Milburn, Heister and Company, a prolific architectural firm with offices in Washington, D. C. and North Carolina. The impressively large two-story brick structure is executed in the Colonial Revival style with arched windows in the stairwells and a reserved classical cornice. At the rear, a large annex erected in 1951 (Stephens and Stephens, architects of New Bern) is the prime example of the International style in the Albemarle region. Across the street, the S. L. Sheep School (307 North Road Street, 1940), designed by Goldsboro architect J. Allen Maxwell and built as a project of the Works Projects Administration, is a two--story brick structure over a full basement. It is handsomely finished in the Art Deco style, featuring horizonal bands of windows defined by continuous cast concrete sills and lintels, impressive stairs, and an in antis portico that encloses stylish aluminum panels accented with chevrons. It is one of the style's outstanding examples in the Albemarle region.