This antebellum Greek Revival home in the Cherokee County region of Pacolet was built in 1834 for William Thompson Nuckolls, whose grandfather settled in the Thicketty Creek area in 1767. William Nuckolls eventually became a prominent South Carolinian, serving as a United States Congressman from 1827 through 1833.
Earlier in his life, Nuckolls graduated from South Carolina College – now the University of South Carolina – and worked as a successful lawyer in Spartanburg. Yet he built his stately home in the country on land given to him and his wife, Susan Bulloch Dawkins, by his wife’s father upon their marriage. Construction on the house began in 1841 but was delayed when it partially burned that same year. The damage was repaired, and the home was completed in 1843. Notable features of the manse originally included double piazzas on both the facade and rear of the house, the double exterior chimneys on either side, and a circular interior staircase.
Nuckolls and his wife had no children, and the home left the family after their deaths in the mid 1850s. It changed hands a few times before John D. Jefferies acquired the property in 1875. He noted that the home was in a “pitiable state” when he bought it, leaving him to make serious repairs and alterations, including the removal of the double piazzas. Many of the Neoclassical details seen on the house today are a result of the late nineteenth century restoration. The home was restored again in 1996.
The Nuckolls-Jefferies House is listed in the National Register:
The Nuckolls-Jefferies House is significant as an intact example of a rural mid-nineteenth century Greek Revival plantation house with late-nineteenth century Neo-Classical alterations that are themselves significant. The Nuckolls-Jefferies House was built in 1843 by William Thompson Nuckolls and significantly altered in the 1870s or 1880s by John D. Jefferies. The house is a two-and-one-half story, pedimented gable-front residence clad in weatherboard with a stone foundation. It features a two-tiered central, pedimented portico supported by two sets of full-height, slender, chamfered wooden posts and towering exterior brick chimneys on both side elevations. The portico’s entablature features a frieze with arched cutouts and its tympanum boasts a circular window with floral tracery.
All of the chimneys were reconstructed in 1996, when the house underwent restoration. The rear of the house contains a two-story ell, built onto the house in the 1996 restoration. The symmetry of design, still present on the exterior and prominent in the interior of the house, speaks to its Greek Revival architectural style and distinctiveness. In addition, the Neo-Classical elements of the paired Doric portico piers remaining on the façade give the Nuckolls-Jefferies House a unique appearance and design seen nowhere else in the region. Surrounding the Nuckolls-Jefferies House are three contributing outbuildings: a small, one-story log gable-front building that dates from the mid-to-late nineteenth century that served as the farm’s smokehouse, a one-and-one-half-story gable-front frame barn, and another frame gable-front barn with side shed lean-to extensions, both barns clad in vertical board and batten frame sheathing and V-crimp metal panels [tin] roofing.
Connita Nuckolls-Hill here! Having traced my ancestry, a newfound cousin told me about the place. It was fun to read the history behind it. Thanks for sharing.
I spent the night with Dorothy Becknell when she invited some of her nursing classmates to visit with her in the early 50s. It was a great experience to wander through the large home.
Fantastic news, Lynda Ramage! Very happy to hear that this very special house is back in the “Jefferies family”.
The house now is back in the “Jefferies family” as we (my husband and myself) purchased the home a few months ago (March, 2018). We are fixing the inside first and will do the outside in the spring of ’19. I’m so happy to be here and love the sunsets.
That is wonderful news, congratulations and good luck on all your endeavors in restoring the home! Hope y’all enjoy.
Ditto to Tim Gibson’s comments. I have very fond memories of the Nuckolls-Jefferies house. Climbing the spiral staircase all the way to the attic was always a great attraction for all of the Becknell kids. Eyes were always alert for ghosts lurking in the shadows. Visiting the house after Nancy and Gene Horn refurbished it was a little like going home.
My Great Uncle George Becknell and wife Aunt Bessie owned this home for years. My Granddaddy Boyd Becknell lived just around the bend and across the road was his brother. We celebrated the Becknell family reunions here every year. Uncle George would invite the entire Asbury Church community and others as well. I was just a kid then but ran through the big house and some of us slid down the spiral stairway. After the meal the men and women would gather in the house (ball room) and sing the old hymns of the faith. My mother Virginia Becknell Gibson would be there singing with her very unique high soprano voice. Today marks 2 years (July 1st) that she has been in heaven and I know she is still singing!!! Thanks for sharing the picture of this home.
I am the great-great granddaughter to John D. Jefferies. His grandson was my granddaddy, the third John Davis Jefferies. I have been inside the house many, many times and adore it! Have some pictures of JDJ, II and his children. My Mother was Catherine Jefferies Sanders.