Burt-Stark Mansion, 400 North Main Street, Abbeville, Abbeville County, SC

2011 Charles E. Peterson Prize, Second Place
Significance: The Burt-Stark house was constructed around 1850 by David Lesly, a local lawyer and planter, and came in the midst of a building spree among Abbeville's planters. Benefitting from burgeoning cotton prices, large-scale farmers were building impressive town houses in Abbeville during the 1840s. The Abbeville Press & Banner noted in 1880 that "From 1850 to 1860 a majority of the fine houses of the town were erected…" A series of fires in the following decades demolished nearly all of these town houses. Their destruction left the Greek Revival Burt-Stark house as one of the few remaining antebellum residences in the town. The Burt-Stark house provides an example of an upper middle-class townhouse in rural antebellum Abbeville. Its four-square room configuration, high ceilings, and wide central hall are typical of southern Greek revival residential architecture. The house also exhibits vernacular details characteristic of later residential architecture in the region, such as geometric railing designs.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: N1669
Survey number: HABS SC-878
Building/structure dates: 1850 Initial Construction
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 70000559