House of the Week: D.A. Barnes House
WILLIAM E. WATSON
THE YEAR 1904 JANUARY
ROBERT E. WATSON
These words are etched into a wood panel in the antique red barn of our House of the Week. I have no idea who the Watsons were, but I imagine the answers lay in the thousands of historical household documents in boxes also stored in the barn…a folk historian’s wet dream. This 5 bedroom victorian farmhouse is set on 8.34 fenced in acres in Murfreesboro, a Meherrin rivertown in North Carolina’s Inner Banks region where cotton is king. The home was originally built by architect Jacob Holt in 1875 for David A. Barnes, a Murfreesboro judge who clearly had a taste for grandeur, what with the home having eight fireplaces, up and down staircases, porches on both sides, and a four-hole outhouse close to the back door…so you and your bestie can have thumb wars while you shit! A big red barn with a matching stable, two guest cabins and a smokehouse help the large expanse of green grass not seem too empty.
Last sold for $475,000, the home has had quite a bit of updating. But the tastefully restored original pine floors, ornate ceramic ceiling moldings, plaster and lath walls, and fabulous carved-wood fleur-de-lis that hang down from the outer edges of one porch roof make this home feel as full of history as it surely is. This home has earned The Taste Maven Stamp of Approval.
$475,000 | 5 Bedrooms | 2 .5 Baths | 8.34 Acres
One Comment
ann
A beauty! I agree the kitchen, though pretty, would be tough to use. But it’s all so pretty, light and airy, and the guest houses are SWEET! I think that garden feature might be a grape arbor.