EXPLORE Blandwood
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Our History
Blandwood’s story begins in 1795, when Charles Bland built a four-room Federal style farm house on a wooded hill in rural Guilford County. It predates the founding of the City of Greensboro in 1808.
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The house was expanded from four rooms to six rooms in 1822-23 by subsequent owners, Letty Lindsay and Henry Humphreys. The Humphreys were merchants who operated the first steam-powered textile mill in North Carolina, the Mt. Hecla Cotton Mill.
A.J. Davis
Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1893) was a prominent architect from New York, whose influence spread throughout the East Coast of the United States with his innovative designs for Gothic Revival and Italianate buildings. Inspired by the “picturesque cottages and villas” of Europe, and the dramatic nature of the Hudson River Valley of his native New York, Davis sought to design houses that harmonized with the surrounding landscape. His “country houses” inspired the trend toward organic and irregular facades in American houses.
Gardens
The landscaped setting of Blandwood was depicted in Andrew Jackson Downing’s 1844 edition of Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Landscape Gardening Adapted to North America. The depiction blends a casual landscape of feature trees and shrubs with carefully placed urns and sculpture. Though it is unlikely the gardens at Blandwood ever matched the woodblock print that was featured in Treatise, early photographs document the influence Downing had on the design of the urban estate, including a curvilinear drive, an arrangement of urns, and a free form placement of native (black walnut, black oak, and white oak) and exotic (crape myrtle, ginkgo, and magnolia) trees.
Portraits
Blandwood is home to ten portraits of the Morehead family members painted by William Garl Browne, a well-known nineteenth-century portraitist in North Carolina. Although the house does not have paintings of every family member, portraits of Gov. Morehead, his wife Ann Eliza, five of the children, and three of their children’s spouses hang throughout the home.
Photo by Madalyn Yates
Photo by Madalyn Yates
Photo by Madalyn Yates
Photo by Madalyn Yates