Vandergrift-Biddle House, Junction of US Route 13 & County Road 2, Saint Georges Hundred, Biddles Corner, New Castle County, DE

Significance: Begun by the Vandergrift family in the mid-eighteenth century as a one-story, hall-plan dwelling and repeatedly enlarged through the nineteenth century by the Biddle family and others, the Vandergrift-Biddle House is significant for the changes in house form and timber-building technology in its long and complicated history. With its seven major building periods, using a variety of construction techniques including joined plank, braced frame (mortise and tenoned post and beam), and balloon frame, the Vandergrift-Biddle House has achieved both architectural significance and integrity by the process of historic accretion. For instance, the sequence of alterations in the hall hearth clearly demonstrates changing social attitudes toward cleanliness and comfort; the firebox was closed down repeatedly to provide ever more heat, while at the same time, further containing dirt and smoke. Successive generations of the Vandergrift and Biddle families also incorporated modern concepts in the plan, but never strayed from traditional patterns of architectural logic. In each period of its growth the house was rebuilt as a new and larger structure; increasingly unified on the exterior, but retaining much of its earlier fabric. The Vandergrift-Biddle House was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in December, 1978.
Unprocessed Field note material exists for this structure: FN-45
Survey number: HABS DE-224
Building/structure dates: ca. 1750 Initial Construction
Building/structure dates: ca. 1800 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1830 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1840 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1870 Subsequent Work
Building/structure dates: ca. 1890 Subsequent Work
National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 78000908