National Register of Historic Places
Flat Top Estate
Blowing Rock vicinity, Watauga County, North Carolina
The record
- Listed
- December 24, 2013
- Type
- Historic district
- Address
- Blue Ridge Pkwy., milepost 292.8 to 295.5, Blowing Rock vicinity
- County
- Watauga
- State
- North Carolina
- Contributing resources
- 4 buildings, 2 sites
- Coordinates
- 36.15399, -81.69127
- Reference number
- 13000978
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map CollectionDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesUSGS Historical Topographic Map Collection
The story
Written by AI from this property's National Register nomination and the record above; every sentence is checked against its sources before it appears here. Corrections: privacy@treealive.com
Flat Top Estate is a historic district near Blowing Rock in Watauga County, stretching along the Blue Ridge Parkway between mileposts 292.8 and 295.5. Its centerpiece, Flat Top Manor, was built in 1899-1900 in the Colonial Revival style, with a T-shaped plan and a gable roof with cornice returns.
Why it's listed
Flat Top Estate was listed in the National Register in 2013 under criteria A, B and C, with significance in architecture, industry, landscape architecture and social history at both the national and state levels. Its period of significance runs from 1899 to 1947, framed by Flat Top Manor's 1899-1900 construction and by Bertha Cone's death in 1947, which ended the Cone family's direct connection to the estate.
Physical character
The manor's walls are painted wood siding with a Dutch-lap profile, over a stucco-parged rubble-stone foundation, and it has a wrap-around porch, a widow's walk and a Palladian window. Its balustrade was rebuilt around 1988, and the nomination names Orio Epps as architect.
Historical context
Moses Herman Cone began acquiring the estate's roughly 3,500 acres in 1892, and his death in 1908 concluded its main period of development. Bertha had Heart Pond built in 1909 and kept the orchards until about 1940; her ashes were placed in the estate cemetery in 1948.