Historic Oakwood is a neighborhood in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, on the National Register of Historic Places, and known for its Historic Oakwood Cemetery, its many Victorian houses, and its location close to the Mordecai Plantation Manor. Located near the State Capitol and St. Augustine’s Chapel, during the 19th century Historic Oakwood was home to prominent members of Raleigh’s society. It is North Carolina’s largest, intact 19th Century residential neighborhood and Raleigh’s earliest white middle-class suburb. Unlike later suburbs, it developed lot by lot over time, instead of by platted sections. Its Victorian-era architectural styles include Second Empire, Queen Anne, and Italianate. Later infill brought the bungalow, the American Foursquare, American Craftsman style, and the Minimal Traditional house to the area.
Oakwood is also known for its Christmas Candlelight Tour, which opens private historic residences to the public, and the Garden Tour, which allows the public to see the vast gardens worked on by the Oakwood Gardening Club. Oakwood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, with additions made in 1987, 1988, and 1989. It is also one of six local historic overlay districts (HOD). Several Oakwood residences are also individually recognized as Local Historic Landmarks. A1 Bed Bug Exterminator Raleigh
Oakwood, the only intact nineteenth-century neighborhood in Raleigh, was built in the dense woods of Northeast Raleigh known as “Mordecai Grove” and sold off in parcels after the Civil War to individuals and developers such as Col. J. M. Heck, Richard Stanhope Pullen, W. C. and A. B. Stronach, and Thomas H. Briggs. The variety of Victorian architectural styles represented in the neighborhood reflects the middle-class tastes of business and political leaders of Raleigh for whom the homes were built, as well as the skills of architects and builders. Following World War I, as the automobile came into general use and fashionable neighborhoods developed in Raleigh’s outskirts, second-generation Oakwood residents moved away. Many of the large residences became boarding or apartment houses. This depressed economic state preserved the houses from destructive modernization, but not from deterioration.
As you walk through Historic Oakwood, you will notice the trends in architecture reflecting individual tastes throughout the years, as well as features common to most houses built in this Southern climate.
Restaurants and Pubs
- Bad Daddy’s Burger Bar is located at 111 Seaboard Ave, Raleigh, NC
- Crawford and Son is located at 618 N Person St, Raleigh, NC
- Landmark Tavern is located at 117 E Hargett St, Raleigh, NC
- Isaac Hunter’s Tavern is located at 414 Fayetteville St, Raleigh, NC
Check out other neighborhoods like Lassiter Mill