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47 <br /> United States Department of the Interior <br /> National Park Service/National Register of Historic Places Registration Form <br /> NPS Form 10-900 OMB Control No.1024-0018 <br /> Moorefields (Additional Documentation) Orange County, N.C. <br /> Name of Property County and State <br /> finished with late Georgian and early Federal woodwork typical of the late eighteenth and early <br /> nineteenth century;" furthermore, "in its form, plan, and finish, the house reflects the tastes and <br /> wealth of a well-traveled and relatively sophisticated client"that would have "stood in contrast to <br /> the predominantly simple, traditional architecture that dominated most of the rural county.""' <br /> Moorefields house underwent several renovations in the two centuries following its completion. <br /> Bishir and Southern surmised that Moorefields may have been updated by Alfred Moore, Jr. after <br /> he inherited the property in 1810.139 It was heavily"restored"by Edward T. Draper-Savage in the <br /> 1950s and 1960s, but the 1968 Historic American Building Survey asserted that, <br /> Moorefields stands almost exactly as it was built—a high central block with two flanking <br /> right-angle wings. ...Moorefields has been altered surprisingly little. It is still exactly the <br /> same elegant small rural manor house that it was originally. It has its original floor plan, <br /> flooring of wide pine boards,moldings,weatherboarding, chimneys,mantels, shutters, and <br /> much of its hardware. Its most spectacular feature is its fine Chinese Chippendale <br /> staircase...The Parlor has unexpectedly fine proportions, a beautiful chair rail, and a fine <br /> overmantel.140 <br /> Although the house remains intact, Draper-Savage removed several outbuildings, including a <br /> detached kitchen and purported quarters for enslaved workers, because he believed the derelict <br /> structures detracted from the idyllic and pastoral setting he was shaping. <br /> CRITERION C: SIGNIFICANCE IN RELATION TO LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE <br /> In addition to the house,Moorefields includes a mid-20th-century cultural landscape that is eligible <br /> for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under <br /> Criterion C in the area Landscape Architecture. <br /> After purchasing the property in 1949, Draper-Savage spent the next two decades altering the <br /> landscape. He demolished several historic outbuildings near the house, eradicating the vestiges of <br /> Moorefield's history as a working farm. But his alterations were not limited to only detractions. <br /> Draper-Savage conceived of Moorefields as a gentleman's country estate, and he added "formal <br /> gardens in the French style [that included] a quarter-mile of privet hedges interspersed with <br /> junipers and flower beds."141 As an amateur landscape designer and gardener, he designed two <br /> parterre gardens and a cedar all6e as showpieces, opening the grounds to annual garden tours.142 <br /> Draper-Savage's choice of the Beaux-Arts style would not only have been influenced by his <br /> knowledge of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, having spent 15 years living and studying the fine arts in <br /> Paris, but on precedents closer to home. <br /> Beaux-Arts garden design, popular in the United States from the 1890s through the 1930s, <br /> emulated Renaissance- and Baroque-period gardens typically found in Italy, France, and Great <br /> Britain. The foundational principle underpinning Beaux-Arts garden design was the use of axiality <br /> and geometry to create an overarching landscape that was divided into rooms, or discrete spaces, <br /> by walls, clipped hedges, or all6es. Classical sculpture or fountains served as focal points either at <br /> Section 8 page 45 <br />