Architectural style Other, Potato house Area 2,000 m² | NRHP Reference # 90001691 Added to NRHP 15 November 1990 | |
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Location Junction of Roads 465 and 465A, Laurel, Delaware Built by Chipman, Ernest; Chipman, Joseph MPS Sweet Potato Houses of Sussex County MPS | ||
The Chipman Potato House is located near Laurel, Delaware, one of the last surviving examples of its building type. The southern part of Delaware saw a sweet potato boom from 1900 until blight struck in the 1940s. In order to store the crops, potato houses were built. The Chipman House was built in 1913 by Joseph and Ernest Chipman on their property with the assistance of Alva Hudson. The 2½ story balloon-framed house is furnished with sparse, shuttered windows and slatted floors, allowing adjustment of air circulation. Two stoves provided heat during the winter, one of which survives.
The Chipman potato house has been modified for tractor access. Windows were once glazed beneath the shutters, a very unusual feature in a potato house. The internal structure uses samson posts, a kind of capped column that is normally employed in mill construction to bear heavy loads, leading to speculation that the feature echos construction in the adjacent, now destroyed Chipman's Mill. The Chipman house is also unusual in plan, divided into four quadrants with 2.5-foot (0.76 m) walkways between. Each quadrant was divided into at least three bins. The attic is divided in two with a center aisle, for a total of 50 bins, typically 9 feet (2.7 m) by 3 feet (0.91 m).
The Chipman Potato House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.