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12 1 - <br /> NPs Form 10-900-a - OMB Approval No.1024-0018 <br /> United States Department of the Interior <br /> National Park Service <br /> National Register of Historic P faces <br /> Continuation Sheet <br /> Section number 8 Page 3 <br /> Dr.Arch Jordan House <br /> Orange County,North Carolina <br /> with such decorative features as a tongue-and-groove wooden sheathing which adorns the center hallway <br /> and the upstairs walls and ceilings;heavily molded and distinct mantels surrounding the fireplaces in each <br /> of the main rooms,and an elaborately curved staircase. While other rural Orange County properties display <br /> Italianate features,the Dr.Arch Jordan house remains the most complete and most ornate rural model of <br /> this genre in the county. <br /> Significant as well in the area of Social History under Criteria A,the Dr.Arch Jordan house and <br /> property were closely associated with rural medical practice,the rural economy centered in the cross-roads <br /> general store,and the central social institution of the Presbyterian church. Dr.Jordan inhabited the house <br /> from the 1870s to 1905,using the house as the nucleus of his medical service to the Caldwell community. <br /> He was also quite involved as a teacher and trustee of the nearby Caldwell Institute,a local school, and <br /> established along with his brother a general store and pharmacy across the road from his house. In 1905 <br /> three nearby Presbyterian churches jointly purchased the property to use as a manse,and ministers living <br /> there from 1905 to 1929 served these local churches. In rural Orange County districts like Little River <br /> Township,dominated by scattered family farms,it was the church above all other institutions that that <br /> served to cohere local communities and provide a center for neighborhood social life. Cross-roads <br /> communities such as Caldwell developed around the key institutions of the church,the school,or the <br /> general store. The Dr.Arch Jordan house,associated with all of these vital rural institutions,provided a <br /> central hub to the social life of this rural Orange County community for over half a century. <br /> Architectural Context: <br /> The Dr.Arch Jordan House is historically significant primarily as a well-preserved example of Late <br /> Victorian Italianate architecture.Its highly ornate and detailed design provides a wonderful example of this <br /> architectural style. Originating in the"romanticism of the Picturesque movement,"this style was most <br /> popular in the years from 1850 to 1880,although rural North Carolina adaptations appeared into the early <br /> twentieth century.3 Italianate architecture was characterized by overhanging eaves with(sometimes <br /> elaborate)bracketed cornices,"elongated,round-headed and sometimes paired windows capped with <br /> projecting hooded or pedimented and bracketed moldings,"porches with columns and hip-roofed <br /> construction,and an overall projection of verticality--all features clearly present in the Dr.Arch Jordan <br /> House 4 Dr.Jordan was among those wealthy Orange County residents who"chose picturesque versions of <br /> a quote from Gabrielle M.Lanier and Bernard L.Herman,Everyday Architecture of the Mid-Atlantic:Looking at <br /> Buildings and Landscapes(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 147-48; Catherine W.Bishir,North <br /> Carolina Architecture(Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press, 1990),286-88. <br /> a Lanier and Herman,Everyday Architecture, 149;Sterling Boyd,"Introduction"in Marguerite Schumann,ed., <br /> Grand Old Ladies:North Carolina Architecture During the Victorian Era(Charlotte,NC:East Woods Press, 1984), <br /> 18-19. <br />