On a corner of Broad Street near the Edenton waterfront, looking out over Edenton Bay, surrounded by flowers bursting with color, stands the Cupola House. It has been there since 1758. For a stretch of its history, it came close to being lost, piece by piece, before the town stepped in. So I want to tell that story.
Built in 1758
Frances Corbin, a land agent for the Earl of Granville, built the Cupola House in 1758. It has long been considered one of the most significant early dwellings in North Carolina, for its age, its connection to a prominent Edenton family, and the period furniture and Georgian woodwork inside.
Corbin died in 1777, and the house remained a private residence for generations after his death.
The woodwork goes to Brooklyn
By the early 1900s, the family living in the Cupola House had fallen on hard times. Tillie Bond, the last family member to call it home, was in financial trouble, and she began selling the house’s Georgian woodwork to representatives of the Brooklyn Museum.
Edentonians watched the woodwork get carried out the door, and they didn’t like it. Most of the surrounding land was sold off as well, and the house fell into disrepair.
In response, a group of residents formed the Cupola House Association and raised funds to purchase and preserve what remained of the property.
From house to landmark
That 1918 decision is the reason the house is still standing.
The Association converted the Cupola House into Edenton’s public library, and it served that role for 45 years, until the library moved next door. In the 1960s, the Association began reproducing the Georgian woodwork that had been sold decades earlier, woodwork that still belongs to the Brooklyn Museum today. In the following decade, they repurchased the surrounding land that had been sold away.
In 1971, the Cupola House was named a National Historic Landmark.
The gardens
Today the Cupola House gardens are one of North Carolina’s featured Heritage Gardens. Volunteers tend the grounds regularly, caring for plantings that would have grown there when the house was built, and the gardens stay busy through the year.
In March, they become an Irish Beer Garden for St. Patrick’s Day. In May, they’re the backdrop for Easels in the Gardens, a biennial event for plein-air artists that closes with a Garden Party. In October, a Colonial Market fills the grounds with colonial-era wares and food. And in December, the gardens are set up for Edenton’s Community Christmas Tree Project, with wassail, cookies, and carolers during the town’s Christmas Candlelight Tour.
The gardens are open daily, free of charge. Tours of the house itself are available through the Historic Edenton State Historic Site.
Come see it for yourself
More than a century after Tillie Bond’s woodwork left the house, the Cupola House is still on Broad Street, still cared for by the Association a handful of Edentonians started in 1918, and still open to anyone who walks up.
So the next time you’re in Edenton, come by, wander the gardens, and have a look at what we held onto.
