Southern Style | Diane Lea | Tarboro’s Blount-Bridgers House Centerpiece Of Historic Renaissance

Tarboro’s Blount-Bridgers House Centerpiece Of Historic Renaissance

By Diane Lea

Eastern North Carolina is full of wonderful surprises — and rich in history. The first settlers ensconced themselves in the coastal areas and their descendants worked their way inland. The region retains its beautiful, agrarian topography where livelihoods and living remain tied to small towns, farms, waterways, sounds and coastal waters. A leisurely drive from the Triangle down NC Highway 64 East to the colonial town of Tarboro in central Edgecombe County is a trip back in time.
Incorporated in 1760, Tarboro is situated in the bend of the Tar River in what is now called North Carolina’s Inner Banks. It has one of the country’s last largely intact Town Common, set aside as public green space when the town was chartered. It was on the Town Common that children played, livestock grazed, farriers plied their trade and thrifty housewives perused a tinker’s wares. The Tarboro Town Common features a rare historic 1840 cotton press, indicating the importance of King Cotton.
In his book Edgecombe County: Twelve North Carolina Counties in 1810-1811, Jeremiah Battle, a descendant of Revolutionary War soldier Elisha Battle, describes the town around the common as having “about 50 private houses, generally from 15 to 20 private stores, a church, a jail, two warehouses and a large courthouse.” However, Battle’s most eloquent words are lavished upon the home I am seeking.
“Adjacent to the town,” he continues, “is the county seat of Gen. Thomas Blount, where he has lately built a very good house, the best that is in the county. This is a beautiful eminence overlooking the town. An extensive green surrounds the house, back of which is a tract of 20 or 30 acres of rich swamp land, well ditched and drained, and is in a high state of cultivation.”
It is most gratifying to see upon arriving at the Blount-Bridgers House, a significant site in Tarboro’s 45-block Historic District formerly known as The Grove that the home and its setting are still in a high state of cultivation. Today, however, its bounty features historic architecture, fine art, and the cultural and natural heritage of a distinguished family home and an historic region.

Edgecombe Arts

Approaching the house that Revolutionary War hero Thomas Blount built on this blue-skied late fall weekend, we blend with a stream of visitors ascending its wide, welcoming steps to participate in the 200th anniversary of the Blount-Bridgers House, and to enjoy the Great Tarboro Art Bazaar — an annual event organized by the Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council, Inc. The Blount-Bridgers House is headquarters of the Council, known informally as Edgecombe Arts. With its companion structure the Silas Everette House, it also serves as a history museum, arts gallery, community center and site of gardens displaying the plants indigenous to the Tar-Roanoke River Basin.
Entering the ca.1808 house, a Federal-style, two-story dwelling with attic and raised basement, the visitor is struck by the meticulously detailed and imposing residence — characterized by pairs of gable-end chimneys and lovely porches. The Italianate porch facing the Tarboro Common, added in the 1850s, is distinguished by posts entwined with a graceful lattice work pattern unique to Edgecombe County. The home’s irregular central hall passage floor plan conveniently accommodates two smaller rooms used for offices and similar functions, and opens to access two elegantly appointed rooms on the 1850s elevation. A formal parlor and a dining room display period furnishings and portraits of the notable members of North Carolina’s planter aristocracy who once owned the home.

The Blount Family

Buddy Hooks, executive director of the Edgecombe County Cultural Arts Council, and his friend and colleague Hiram Perkinson, are on hand to greet the steady stream of locals and out-of-town guests and to guide us through the house and interpret its significance. Though architecturally the Blount-Bridgers House is a testament to the wealthy and politically active planter aristocracy, it is perhaps most appreciated today as the home of an internationally recognized collection of art by Edgecombe County native and nationally known American Impressionist Hobson Pittman.
Perkinson, a docent volunteer who knows the Blount-Bridgers House story thoroughly, recounts that: “Thomas Blount, who built this house in 1808, was part of the extensive Blount family, headed by John Gray Blount of Washington, just down the Tar River. The Blount family was engaged in naval stores and shipping via the Tar River, which provided access to the Pamlico Sound. Thomas served in the American Revolutionary War and was imprisoned by the British and sent to England. After the war, he was able to return to Tarboro and take up the family mercantile business and was elected to the State House of Commons in 1788. Thomas’ brother, William Blount, was more adventurous and led his family to Tennessee where he became governor.”
There are two marvelous portraits of Thomas and his well-connected wife, Mary Jacqueline Sumner Blount — or “Jackie,” daughter of Gen. Jethro Sumner of Warren County, and through the Sumner family connected to the Mordecai family of Raleigh. Her portrait is on loan from the Mordecai House. Thomas’ portrait is on loan from the North Carolina Museum of History.
Hooks adds: “The Blount-Bridgers House has been owned by the Town of Tarboro since 1932. It has served as the town library, administrative offices and community meeting room, and the town’s first swimming pool was constructed on its grounds.”
The historic residence was saved from neglect by Meade Bridgers, whose family owned the house after the Blounts, and subsequent owner Col. Louis Wilson. Bridgers cooperated with the town to make the residence the Arts Council headquarters in 1982. Hooks points out that the spacious grounds of the Blount-Bridgers House extend a full city block.
“When the town removed the community pool, we reclaimed the grounds for our teaching gardens, and as you see, we have plenty of room left for outdoor festivities like the dinner and silent auction we hosted last night under the tent.”

Art Collection
But how did the Blount-Bridgers House become the repository of one of America’s most notable American Impressionist collections? Watson Brown, an Edgecombe County native and former Tarboro planning director, recalls that the transformation of the Blount-Bridgers House began when Alice Weeks Gordon, Hobson Pittman’s niece, wanted to contribute a large part of the Hobson Pittman Collection to the Town of Tarboro, provided it could be housed in a gallery able to display and preserve the works. In a generous move, Larry Wheeler, executive director of the North Carolina Museum of Art, agreed to the de-accession of a number of Hobson Pittman paintings and transfer them to the newly emerging Blount-Bridgers House/Hobson Pittman Memorial Gallery.
“It took a lot of fundraising and grant-writing,” Brown continues, “spearheaded by many people, including Tarboro native Motsie Brooks, the late Bob Burns, a Presbyterian minister, and Barbara Boney, who is now with the State Capitol Foundation, and of course, the indefatigable Minnie Lou Parker Creech who died recently. They helped to raise $400,000 for the project, which was part of an ongoing series of town projects to celebrate the 1976 US Bicentennial.”
Brown looks to the Blount-Bridgers House as an example of how heritage and cultural tourism can play a large part in Eastern North Carolina’s economic revitalization. Tarboro is one of the stops on the Historic Albemarle Tour, a self-guided heritage driving tour of the historic locations in Eastern and Northeastern North Carolina. In addition, the town’s comfortable drive time, an hour and a half from Raleigh, makes it an easy day trip from the Triangle and from most of the eastern part of the state. And as Greenville continues to rise as a hub for business, medical care and education, the 30-minute drive is attracting newcomers to settle in this historic and charming community.

Szostak-Designed Gallery Space Complements Durham Arts Revival
Architect Phil Szostak was invited to view the new space for Joe Rowand’s Somerhill Gallery in The Venable Center in Durham’s Downtown Arts District. Szostak took in the concrete block exterior, part of the old historic tobacco warehouse and walked inside to view the rough concrete floors, steel support beams and tall ceilings. His response: “Great, let’s go to work.”
The choice of the Venable Center space at 303 S. Roxboro St., came after Rowand and Szostak had visited several New York galleries to stoke their creative fires. Szostak points out that what impressed them most were the galleries that demanded exploration. “It is enticing not to see everything at once,” says Szostak. “We proceeded to unfold Somerhill’s spaces by using good geometry.” Upon entering the gallery, lit by 40 skylights, the visitor is aware of a slightly angled wall running the length of the sparkling fine art glass and jewelry gallery immediately to the left of the entrance foyer. That quirky angle, which is idiosyncratic to the old building, adds visual interest and showcases the tall custom cabinetry and white oak floors that run throughout the gallery.
Straight ahead as you enter is a patinated steel and marble reception desk. A slight jog to the right places the visitor on the axis that runs into the deep hidden recesses of the 9600-square-foot gallery displaying contemporary photography, a huge private viewing room, art storage space and Rowand’s glass-walled office, overlooking a tropical open-air atrium. To the right of the internal corridor is the gallery’s L-shaped salon/living room, with a fireplace, white leather Le Corbusier sofas and 16-foot walls swathed in fabric. The L-shape allows the separation of the salon into two distinct gallery spaces. “We often use this space for formal dinners, and we can accommodate up to 100 people comfortably at round tables for eight or 10,” says Szostak, who recently hosted a reception and dinner for the AIA Triangle Forum in the space.