Copyright Notice: This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina.
Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina. (click to enlarge)
Coolmore is an antebellum mansion four miles west of Tarboro on Highway U.S. 64. A lantern cupola atop its roof distinguishes this Italianate villa, built between 1859 and 1861 for planter-physician Joseph J. W. Powell. Outbuildings, including a dairy, smokehouse, quarters for enslaved people, gas house, and stable, feature cupolas as well. Architect Edmund G. Lind of Baltimore built Coolmore, and Russian immigrant painter Ernst Dreyer decorated the interior plaster walls. Visitors to the mansion are drawn by these frescoes, the ornate plasterwork and marbling, and a hand-carved spiral stair leading to the cupola. Family and local lore maintains that the house was spared destruction by Union troops in April 1865 because one of the soldiers, an artisan from Maryland who had helped build it, saluted Coolmore.

 

Stair in the rotunda of Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina.
Stair in the rotunda of Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina.

 

Reference:

Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).

Additional Resources:

Bullock, J. Marshall and Bishir, Catherine W. "Lind, Edmund George (1829-1909)." North Carolina Architects and Builders: A Biographical Dictionary. North Carolina State University. 2009. http://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000050 (accessed October 8, 2012).

Sneed, Brandon. "Tarboro Tradition." Our State. March 2011 https://www.ourstate.com/coolmore-plantation/ (accessed October 8, 2012).

"Coolmore Plantation, Tarboro." Preservation North Carolina.  http://www.presnc.org/About-Us/Coolmore-Plantation-Tarboro (accessed October 8, 2012).

EdgecombPlanter. "Coolmore Plantation, Edgecombe County, NC." Flickr.com. https://www.flickr.com/photos/edgecombeplanter/sets/72157625729963181/ (accessed October 8, 2012).

Image Credits:

Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina.

Stair in the rotunda of Coolmore. Photograph by Tim Buchman. Courtesy of Preservation North Carolina.

Citation

Simpson, Bland. "Coolmore." NCpedia. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Accessed on January 11th, 2025. https://ncpedia.org/coolmore.