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House and Grounds
Lightwood House is a fine example of a medium-sized eighteenth-century tobacco plantation house, replete with a variety of decorative styles.
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| The earliest section of the house, built circa 1760, displays a large cooking fireplace, paneled end wall, and original exposed beamed ceiling. An enclosed corner staircase--the "secret staircase" to children-- leads to a small upstairs bedroom. In feel and form this earliest section of the house harkens back to the traditional yeoman's cottage of Elizabethan England. In 1789 a lean-to addition was added, and in about 1795 another addition was built next to the original house. This new, larger, gambrel-roofed house was connected to the earlier structure via a twelve-foot-long walkway. The new rooms were of a much more formal design and featured federal-style paneling and woodwork. |
| The final addition was constructed in the early nineteenth century when the walkway was replaced by a full two-story section, comprising the entrance hall and an upstairs bedroom. The hall features the most elaborate interior in the house, complete with Corinthian columns and marbleized, grained, and gilded woodwork. |
| Other fine features include more exposed beamed ceilings, early mantelpieces, period hardware, original floors, wainscot paneling and much original detail, both interior and exterior. Several period outbuildings complete the scene, including a smokehouse used to smoke hams for the coronation feast of King Edward VII. A traditional herb and flower garden, for the use and pleasure of our guests, is on a terrace behind the house. |
| Today Lightwood House stands within eighty-five acres of fields, old-growth forest, streams, and ravines. Two miles of hiking trails (for the exclusive use of our guests) wind through the woods. While walking the trails you may also see the remnants of old roads, dams, paths, and early agricultural activity still evident throughout the estate. Wildlife abounds at Lightwood and many native species call the property home including, deer, wild turkey, hawks, woodpeckers, foxes, possums, turtles, and bald eagles. Owls are particularly numerous at Lightwood and, in the early evening, if you are quiet and listen carefully, you may hear them calling to one another across the dark expanse of the woods. This in itself is a magical experience not to be missed and never to be forgotten.
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