These two plantation homes are almost neighbors and share some family links as well.

Airlie, built circa 1912, was the home of Samuel T. Thorne. Interestingly it shows up in searches as a plantation home – long after plantations, per se, were built in the south. Thorne was the original owner and in addition to being a farmer, and running a cotton gin, a grist mill, and a general merchandise store, Thorne also served as the local postmaster.

Notice the carved triangular upper front part of the home, called a pediment, a form of triangular gable in classical architecture. (According to Britannica, “Pediment, in architecture, triangular gable forming the end of the roof slope over a portico (the area, with a roof supported by columns, leading to the entrance of a building)…An example of this would be the Parthenon”)

There is an interesting story behind these columns and the carved triangular upper front part of the home, or pediment. It seems that the Halifax County Courthouse, which was adorned with this pediment, was scheduled to be torn down, so Thorne purchased them for his home.

The Oakland plantation was built around 1823 so it would historically be referred to as a plantation. According to the local historical society "Oakland" was built for Henry Hill Thorne (a relative of Samuel Thorne) for his marriage to Elizabeth Alston Williams in 1823. Thorne passed away shortly after the marriage so naturally his wife inherited the property. When she remarried in 1828 "Oakland" became the residence of the new couple and stayed in the family for some time.

According to the National Register of Historic Places “Oakland has elaborate door and window entablatures, reeding and gougework in imaginative classically-derived patterns, and late Federal three-part mantels, but it is by far the simplest and most restrained of the Halifax group.”

“In the early nineteenth century, a remarkable group of ambitious, richly ornamented late Federal plantation houses was built near the present crossroads of Airlie--part of the larger architectural flowering of the period that sprang from the wealthy, polished, and rather sophisticated planter society of Warren and Halifax counties.”