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Piney Grove
Inventory No.:
K-242
Date Listed:
12/8/2020
Location:
7281 Wilkins Lane (MD 664), Chestertown, Kent County
Category:
District
Period/Date of Construction:
ca.1773-1955
Architect/Builder:
Unknown
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Description:
Oriented north toward the Chester River about a mile south of Chestertown proper, the 2 1/2-story, six-bay by two, gable-roofed, stuccoed brick dwelling with gabled dormers was built in two sections. The original portion is the easterly three-bay four-room plan with end chimneys built c. 1773. In 1864, a corresponding three-bay addition of equal size was added to its west side. The whole was tied together in the Italianate taste with a stuccoed and scored finish and a large two-story portico spanning the north façade on six chamfered square columns with brackets and a modillion cornice. Robust balustrades are composed of oversized vase-shaped balusters and chamfered handrails that continue down the steps in the center bay to enormous turned newels. The principal entrance is in the third bay from the east (left) end of the north façade with double leaf doors, sidelights, and transom. The entrance in the corresponding bay on the south façade is simpler, with a three-light transom. The central three bays are sheltered by a one-story flat-roofed Italianate porch with a plain balustrade. Windows on the north and south facades are 8/8 sash. Four gabled dormers with 6/6 sash light either side of the attic whose roof is covered with standing seam metal. The west gable end features a one-story partially enclosed breakfast room and porch addition dating to 1951, with a single 6/6 sash window centered on the second floor. The east table end holds a 6/6 window in each bay on the first and second floors. The attic on either end is lighted by 4/4 sash windows flanking the chimney. The interior of the original c. 1773 section of the house is divided into two halves, north and south, by a brick wall pierced by an arched doorway in the hall. Interior walls separate the hall from the chambers on this level. The main staircase is located in the northern of these hall sections, featuring the original open stringer, dog leg staircase with delicate square balusters, two per step, a slender turned newel and intermediate posts, and molded ramped handrail. Stairs to the basement are tucked in under the first flight of steps. They are enclosed by a raised panel door and paneled spandrel that is the only remaining 18th-century paneling in the house. The 1864 half of the house was added to the west of this section, and is also divided into two rooms, but with a passage between. Each of the four rooms is heated with fireplaces, as is the southern section of the stairhall, but those in the original east end are not on the outer east wall but on either side of the wall separating the north and south rooms, the southern room example being in the northeast corner of the room. Most of any 18th-century paneling and chimney pieces were removed when the interior was refreshed in the Italianate taste with plastered walls and simple mantels, but some 18th century fabric remains including the flooring, flat-paneled shutters in the northeast chamber, 4-panel doors, and a mantel in the second-floor northeast chamber.
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Significance:
Piney Grove is architecturally significant as the most complete of the several notable and unusual four-room floor plan houses built in Kent County in the 1770s. It is also notable for the quality of the 1864 Italianate “improvements” to the original c. 1773 brick house. The Italianate style was immensely popular in the 1850s and 1860s and is well represented throughout Kent County, but few examples are as distinctive as Piney Grove, where the scored stucco finish and only documented giant order portico in the county transformed the basic, Georgian-style, six-bay, 2 1/2-story pile into a fashionable and au courant Romantic suburban Italianate villa. It is also historically significant for its association with events that influenced the development and growth of commercial fruit production and its positive impact on the local and regional economy during the 60 years between the Civil War and World War I. The house and outbuildings are all remarkably complete with integrity of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, and association to its 1773-1995 period of significance due in large part to the ownership and management by the same family since 1860. The property documents a century and a half of one family’s ties to the land.
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