Grice-Fearing House Additions & Rehabilitation- Elizabeth City, NC

Rehabilitation and adaptation of the The Grice-Fearing House, Elizabeth City’s oldest (late eighteenth century) National Register-listed structure, for Bed and Breakfast occupancy. This project involved the removal of two additions, and the design of three new additions (all on the rear or non-primary facade), to the 2-1/2 story wood timber-framed structure (which itself was an aggregation of at least three other eighteenth and nineteenth-century additions*), reframing the existing Kitchen floor, and the introduction of new utilities including central air, and was approved for federal rehabilitation tax credits by the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources. The project received a Carraway Award of Merit from Preservation North Carolina in October, 2009.

Front (view from S. Road Street)

*Evolution: Main (central 2-story block), built-in two stages, beginning c. 1798 with front 2-story single pile, side hall entry section, then expanded c. 1840-45 to double-pile with rear 2-story addition with attic and double-tiered front porch. South, one-story wing (probably constructed earlier than the original front section of the house), was moved from adjoining lot and appended to central block probably a mid-nineteenth century, with one story mirror Italianate north wing added not long after, c. 1875. The kitchen wing added maybe the first quarter twentieth century. Rehabilitation included new Bath Addition to second floor rear chamber of the main section, new one-story Master Bath, Closet, and Laundry Room addition for the north wing, and new Sunroom addition for the south wing.

Original Sidehall Entry and Stairs