Third historic Edenton house goes on auction block Saturday

By Connie Sage, The Virginian-Pilot

EDENTON, N.C.

The landmark Lords Proprietors' Inn goes on the auction block Saturday. It will be the third multimillion property to be sold or put up for auction in the town's historic district in the past seven months.

The inn, three other buildings, a restaurant and parking lot are on a 2-acre lot and were appraised for $2.2 million in 2007. They will be sold together or separately, said auctioneer Russell Seneff of Woltz cq & Associates in Roanoke, Va.

The owners need a minimum of $850,000 for the entire property, Seneff said.

Owners Arch and Jane Edwards, who have run the bed-and-breakfast for 27 years, are retiring.

"There's a time for everything," Arch Edwards said Tuesday. He and his wife were still packing items they want to take with them. Everything else - from linens to lamps - goes.

Potential buyers from North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee and New York have contacted the auction house, Seneff said.

"You've got historic Edenton, it's walking distance to everything downtown and it's blocks from the water," Seneff said. "The question is whether it will remain as an inn, or is it going to be individual houses?" The property also can be rezoned for offices.

An open house will be from 1-5 p.m. Friday and from 8-10 a.m. Saturday. The auction is 10 a.m. Saturday at nearby St. Paul's Episcopal Church parish hall.

The eight-bedroom Queen Anne-style inn, at 300 N. Broad St., was built in 1902 and is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Other structures to be sold are the Satterfield House, built in 1801 and used as two luxury suites at the inn; the Whedbee House, built by the couple in the late 1980s as the inn's dining room and kitchen; a tobacco packing and storage barn from 1785; and the Tillie Bond House, built in the 1890s.

The properties will be sold first, followed by their furnishings.

The Edwards will move to Mount Auburn, an 1810 house on the Yeopim River they bought in 1980.

The 1850 Wessington House on West King Street was sold last November for $1.6 million. Owners of 1850 Pembroke Hall, also on West King Street, unsuccessfully tried to sell the house through an Internet auction earlier this year. It is listed at $1.4 million.