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NPS Form 10 - 900 - a OMB No . 1024 - 0018 ( 8 - 86 ) United States Department of the Interior National Park Service . NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES CONTINUATION SHEET Section 8 Page 21 Woodville Historic District Bertie County, North Carolina The slave-based plantation economy supported a luxurious way of life . " Planter families enjoyed the pleasures of horse racing, frequent entertaining, travels to northern cities, and well- stocked larders and libraries . " 15 Rural neighborhoods such as Woodville were bound to others in the region and to markets in the United States and throughout the world through complex networks of kinship, politics and trade. 16 The replacement of the plantation economy by the tenant farming system and the lure of town life with its consolidated schools, railroad lines, and other conveniences caused the demise of plantation villages by the early twentieth century . While the plantation landscape of the Roanoke Valley is largely gone, the plantation village of Woodville retains its antebellum appearance because it has always been a compact cluster of small country estates rather than widely- dispersed plantations . Roanoke River Valley Architecture Context Woodville contains a distinguished group of six generally intact Federal and Greek Revival plantation houses, four of them two - story and two of them one- story, set well back from the road in spacious grounds. landscaped with large hardwood trees . The unique blending of vernacular building traditions and stylish patternbook design found throughout the Roanoke Valley region is represented in microcosm in Woodville . Most of the formal rural residences of the antebellum era were in the northern tier of eastern North Carolina counties where the plantation ife . Planter families of the region "built and furnished their homes with a economy supported a luxurious way of l fashion% -conscious blend of regional and urban elements . . . . Working with local or regional artisans . . . planters incorporated into their houses a dynamic blend of stylish models, imported items, customary forms, and various craftsmen ' s personal styles . " 17 A small group of tripartite plantation villas survive in the Roanoke Valley . The tripartite Whitmel Pugh House of 1801 , the only example in Bertie County, represents the delicate craftsmanship of local artisans . Its ornate front gable pediment is finished like that of The Hermitage, the home of Thomas Blount Hill and Rebecca Norfleet, built about 1800 in Halifax County . Most substantial Bertie County antebellum dwellings conform to two architectural forms : the coastal cottage (a one- story house with engaged front porch) , or the two - story side-gable house with a small front porch . Although single-pile, these two - story houses were generously proportioned , sometimes being five or even seven ide . The Bazemore House, a one=story coastal cottage, has ornate Federal interior finish similar to that of bays w is Bishir, North Carolina Architecture, 82 , 16lbid . 17 Bishir and Southern , A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina , 295 ; North Carolina Architecture , 82 ,