Two additional Delaware properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places

The Division of Historical and Cultural Affairs has recently received notification from the National Park Service that two additional Delaware properties—the Adams Home Farm in Greenwood and the Evans-West House in Ocean View—have been officially listed in the National Register of Historic Places, the United States government’s official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation.

Some of the historical structures at the Adams Home Farm.
Some of the historical structures at the Adams Home Farm.

Located at 15293 Adams Road in Greenwood, the 211-acre Adams Home Farm possesses a unique concentration of agricultural resources which together symbolize the variety of farming practices associated with Northwest Fork Hundred and Sussex County from the 1850s to the 1950s. These cultural resources represent the evolution of agriculture from the planting of com and grain, to the production of vegetables and fruits, to truck farming, to the poultry industry and to the development of a feed and fertilizer business.

According to Ed Kee, Delaware’s current secretary of agriculture and an agricultural-history expert, the Adams Home Farm contains the best preserved collection of agricultural resources in the state including 13 buildings and structures that contribute to the historical significance of the property. Five of the structures have been in use since circa 1850 while several of the structures erected between 1900 and 1953 include rare 20th-century building types in Sussex County such as the clerestory-roofed chicken brooder-house, the one-story migrant-farm-workers’ housing and the metal water-tower with adjacent chemical shed.

Located at 40 West Ave. in Ocean View, the Evans-West House is a significant vernacular-interpretation of the Gothic Revival style of architecture. Minimally altered since its construction in 1901, the house and associated barn, storage shed and star-shaped daffodil garden, represent an early-20th-century domestic complex which is not duplicated in Ocean View or the surrounding area.

Evans-West House
Evans-West House

The interior of the home retains a high percentage of its original historic fabric including room configurations as well as an ornate front door with etched-glass, genre-scene panel; kitchen wainscoting; an early porcelain-kitchen-sink; random-width floor boards throughout the house; original two-over-two double-hung windows; reeded door and window surrounds with bulls-eye corner blocks; original hardware including porcelain and electroplated doorknobs; and turned front-porch columns.

The current owners of the Evans-West House, strong advocates of historic preservation, have given legal ownership of the property to the Ocean View Historical Society which plans to restore the barn, maintain and preserve the house and grounds, and utilize the property as a museum and exhibit facility in conjunction with the society’s historical complex which includes the nearby Tunnell-West House.

 

 

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