• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

SC Picture Project

The purpose of the South Carolina Picture Project is to celebrate the beauty of the Palmetto State while preserving some of its vanishing landscapes.

  • FIND A LANDMARK
    • BY CITY
    • BY COUNTY
    • BY CATEGORY
    • BYGONE LANDMARKS
  • ADD IMAGES
  • VOLUNTEERS
  • SPONSORS
  • DONATE
  • Subscribe!

Stevens-Dorn Farmstead

SC PICTURE PROJECT Leave a Comment

SC Picture Project / Saluda County / Stevens-Dorn Farmstead

This hand-hewn farmhouse in rural Saluda may have already been built when the 201-acre tract of land on which it sits was deeded to Peter Dorn in 1880 by his mother-in-law, Sarah Stevens. Dorn and his wife, Pinnie, had two children at the time he acquired the land owned by Dorn’s father-in-law, Elisha Stevens, in 1864. However, the home would not accommodate the growing Dorn family, which eventually numbered 11 children. Thus, Peter Dorn built two additions to the one-story home, both likely added before the twentieth century.

Stevens-Dorn Farmstead Saluda

Bill Fitzpatrick of Taylors, 2012 © Do Not Use Without Written Consent

The original home consisted of two rooms, a pantry, and a porch. Dorn soon built a four-room addition after settling into the home with his family and later added two more rooms and extended the porch. The Dorns also developed the property into a homestead by adding several outbuildings, including a barn, a smokehouse, a well, a cellar, and a buggy house, to name a few. Four original outbuildings remain: the livestock barn, a corn crib, the smokehouse, and the buggy house, which also served as a woodshed. Three brooder houses, or poultry sheds, were added to the property in 1945. The Dorns primarily farmed cotton, corn, and wheat along with subsistence farming. While the home was modified throughout the twentieth century, including replacing the wooden shingled-roof with tin in 1933, it remains an intact example of a late eighteenth-century Upstate farmhouse.

Dorn divided his land into three tracts in 1928 and conveyed 64 acres, including the homestead, to his youngest son, Charlie Dorn. The two other tracts were given to two other sons. In 1961 Charlie acquired an additional seven acres from the estate of his brother, bringing the total acreage to 71. As of the late 1990s, the property was still in the ownership of the Stevens-Dorn family.

The Stevens-Dorn Farmstead is listed in the National Register:

The Stevens-Dorn Farmstead is representative of the simplistic construction methods and lifestyle of rural families in upstate South Carolina in the late nineteenth through the mid-twentieth centuries. The 71.5 acre tract of land is a part of an original 201 acre tract held and used by four generations of the same family for at least 131 years and offers an intact collection of vernacular farm buildings forming the core of an early rural agricultural complex. The house is a one-story rectangular form, one-and-one-half room style building with three major front doors and one minor front door. The roof is a gable extended roof of tin, ca. 1933, originally wooden shingles. The walls are weatherboard and the foundation is of stone, wood and brick piers. Three chimneys serve the house; one interior end, one central, and one exterior end. Construction of the house was accomplished in three different, yet date unrecorded, phases. All three phases likely occurred between ca. 1880 and ca. 1900. Contributing outbuildings include a woodshed/buggy house, smokehouse, corn crib, barn, all ca. 1880, and three brooder houses ca. 1945.

Plan Your Trip: Stevens-Dorn Farmstead

Where is Stevens-Dorn Farmstead located?
Address: Palmetto Forge Road, Saluda, SC 29138
GPS Coordinates: 34.019762,-81.894478
What else should I see?
Saluda Filling Station 3.8 miles
Old Berry Store 7.3 miles
Mount Pleasant Lutheran Church 11.2 miles
Saluda Town Clock 11.5 miles
Show me more like this!
  • See other South Carolina Barns & Farms
  • See other South Carolina Historic Houses
  • See other South Carolina National Register
  • Saluda Historic Sites
    Stevens-Dorn Farmstead Map

    Please Donate

    We’d like thank everyone who generously supports the South Carolina Picture Project. You provide us with the inspiration and financial support we need to keep doing what we do. Every reader contribution, big or small, is so valuable. If you have enjoyed this page or found it helpful, please pitch in. Even donation helps – and it only takes a minute. Thank you!

    Support the SC Picture Project!

    $ 15.00
    Select Payment Method
    Personal Info

    Donation Total: $15.00

    Related posts:

    Bonham HouseBonham House Marsh Johnson House seen form the sideMarsh-Johnson House Default ThumbnailMcLaurin Roper McColl Farmstead Gregg-Wallace Tenant HouseGregg-Wallace Tenant House Default ThumbnailZahara Plantation

    Reader Interactions

    Leave a Reply Cancel reply

    Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

    Primary Sidebar

    FIND A LANDMARK

    Your Email Here

    Help Keep This Site Online

    We depend on the support of today’s readers to document South Carolina’s historic landmarks for future generations. Please help us continue this important work by making a donation below.

    $ 15.00
    Select Payment Method
    Personal Info

    Donation Total: $15.00

    Recent Posts

    • Strand Theater
    • Camden Depot
    • Charleston City Marina
    • Secession Hill
    • Faris Store

    Our Sponsor

    Footer

    ABOUT US

    We are a federally-recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit that works to preserve the history of South Carolina’s historic, natural, and cultural landmarks before they are lost to time. This website serves as a permanent digital archive of over 2,300 South Carolina landmarks – and counting. Learn more about our work.

    CONTACT US

    We’d love to hear from you! Send us a quick email at share@scpictureproject.org.

    If you are looking for permission to use a photo, please reach out directly to the photographer listed in the image’s credit. If there is no link, contact us and we will do our best to help.

    SIGN UP

    Subscribe here to receive the “SC Photo of the Week” in your inbox! Each Tuesday, we highlight a different South Carolina landmark. Emails include the landmark’s history, its location and a map, and of course, incredible photos!

    South Carolina Picture Project © 2021 · All Rights Reserved