First up is the Jehu M. Reed House, which was significant on several accounts. For more than 200 years, from 1685 through 1912, the property was associated with the Reed family, a well-known Central Delaware family.

Constructed in 1771, the house expanded in 1868 to both accommodate and express the lifestyle of Jehu M. Reed, an agricultural pioneer and benefactor whose advances and techniques in farming helped foster Delaware's peach and apple industry.

Additionally, the house stood as an exemplary blend of rural Mid-Atlantic architecture that melded the original fabric of a Georgian structure with a mid-to-late-19th century Italianate/Victorian plantation.

Up next is the Wertmuller-Clyde house, located on the grounds of the Claymont Steel Company on Philadelphia Pike. 

Built in three periods between 1780 and 1850, the brick section was the oldest portion of the dwelling. Sarah Robinson and her husband, Richard Peters, built the house as a hall-parlor plan.

The period II stone section (c. 1803) of the dwelling was built by Swedish painter Adolph-Ulrich Wertmuller and his wife Elizabeth. The stone section was also built with a two-room plan on the first floor, adding more public and private space to the house, while reorienting the dwelling to face Philadelphia Pike. Both Adolph and Elizabeth died in 1811, and the property was used as a tenant farm until 1835.

Thomas and Rebecca Clyde purchased the property and began a major rebuilding campaign around 1850. These changes included the reworking of the interior configuration, stylistic updates, raising portions of the roof, and the addition of the attached one-story frame kitchen wing.

In 1918, the Worth family purchased the property as part of their plans to erect a major steel factory and adjacent workers' housing. The house sat in the center of the industrial complex and was used as a dwelling and later offices throughout the 20th century.

The industrial complex was sold many times over the course of the twentieth century; in 2013, the owner (Evraz Group) announced the site would be permanently closed.

We are throwing this one back to 1988 with a representative of a commonly found building type throughout Sussex County: the Chipman sweet potato house.

When the property was nominated to the National Register as part of the historic context, "Sweet Potato Houses of Sussex County," it was one of the last surviving sweet potato houses, with much of its interior still intact.

These buildings popped up all over Sussex County from the 1900s-1940s as the production of sweet potatoes boomed. Built in 1913 by the Chipman family, it was regarded as representing a high-style sweet potato house.

The house had several key architectural features that made it a sweet potato house: It was two-and-a-half stories in height, had an interior heat source (for keeping the sweet potatoes at a consistent temperature), double interior walls and storage bins on the first and second floors.

Smyrna's "Woodlawn," also known as the Thomas England House, was lost in 2017.

Woodlawn's National Register nomination declared it "the most literal and monumental expression of the Greek Revival style in Delaware" due to its grandiose 1853 temple front. Yet its history and architecture were deep and layered, and the rear portions of the house dated originally to at least 1741.

During demolition, the suspicions of earlier architectural historians were confirmed with the discovery that the rearmost section of the house was of 'plank' (log) construction. This element represents a very early and rarely surviving construction type in Delaware. Subsequent additions included brick and frame construction, with interesting adaptations to retain a cohesive interior floorplan.

During the 20th century, Woodlawn was used as a candy store and, later, as a well-known restaurant, the Thomas England House, adding another layer of nostalgia and significance for many Delawareans. Still, the building was destroyed in July 2017 and now sits vacant with a sign advertising the lot as a development opportunity.

The Cann family established several farms in the Glasgow area in the nineteenth century, and this was the last extant farm associated with them.

The farm had many outbuildings that reflected the typical agricultural production in this region in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Development plans in 2001 called for the demolition of most of the complex, including the cow barn, dairy barn, machine sheds, milk house, storage building, chicken house, privy, and carriage house.

At the time, the house and granary were to be retained. Fast-forward to 2015, when a demolition permit was requested for the house. The brick dwelling was built between 1820 and 1836 and featured at least four construction periods. The first floor featured a three-room plan, with two doors on the front facade. The property was owned by the Cann family until 1947.

At that time (2015), the granary was already demolished, and the house soon followed.

The core of Sunnybrook Cottage, also known as the Henry Clark House, is likely a stone house built circa 1800-1850 and expanded in several phases.

Scott Palmer at the Mill Creek History Blog has done some research on the house's 19th-century history. But what fascinated us the most was its early twentieth-century use as a "Tuberculous preventorium." Opened in October 1919, it was for children exposed to TB (but who had not contracted the disease) who were sent to Sunnybrook (see attached newspaper article about its opening). This is likely when the large Doric second-floor sleeping porch was added to the stone dwelling.

Sunnybrook continued to be used as an anti-TB site until it was turned over to the Delaware Commission for the Blind in 1950. For much of the 20th century, the building was a nursery school for blind children. Today, Blindsight Delaware owns the property.