"The white frame farmhouse has lost its context, like so many farms across the rural landscape. The land around it, once dotted with barns and surrounded by green fields cut into neat furrows, is now parsed into commercial lots. The only crop in evidence is a satellite dish farm behind it. Across the road is an abandoned industrial building, and heavy trucks rumble past on their way to a recycling center.

The house itself, though a little grander in scale, looks like many farmhouses you see dotting the North Carolina landscape — and that’s part of the point.

This is the one that came first, the one that some architectural historians believe inspired scores of other triple-A (or triple-gable) farmhouses across the state. It’s what remains of the Model Farm, built in 1867 by the Quakers to demonstrate modern architecture and modern farming to a South left in ruins after the Civil War.

In private hands since 1891, the National Register Historic Site was donated to Preservation Greensboro on Dec. 27 with covenants and restrictions that ensure it will be preserved and never destroyed."

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News & Record (1/15/2012)