In Smithfield, Being Old Doesn't Make a House Historic. Being Inside the Line Does.

At an October 2025 meeting of Smithfield's Historic Preservation Commission, a commissioner named Elizabeth Ann Temple raised a house on Buffalo Road that nobody in the room could initially name. Commissioner Micah Woodard had researched it and come up empty. It looked to be at least a hundred years old. A developer called Village on the Neuse, LLC had just bought the surrounding land and already had final approval to build a subdivision of 117 single-family lots. Temple eventually placed it: the Holland House. She wanted the town to buy it and move it somewhere safe. Woodard had to explain the problem: the house sits outside every historic district boundary in town, so the commission has no authority over it at all. Someone would first have to nominate it for individual designation, a process that hadn't started and had no identified funding.

The Holland House is probably going to come down. Not because it isn't old enough, and not because nobody cares. It comes down because in Smithfield, "historic" isn't a description of a house. It's a line on a map, and that house sits on the wrong side of it.

If you're shopping for a place with real character in Smithfield, or you already own one and are wondering what changes if you renovate, that distinction is the whole ballgame. Here's what actually sits inside the line, what changes the day you're inside it, and what it means that a hundred-year-old house across town has none of those protections at all.

The line only covers three places

Smithfield has three locally designated historic districts, and all three are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places: Downtown Smithfield Historic District, added in 1993, and the Brooklyn and North Smithfield residential districts, both added in 2000. Downtown Smithfield covers the commercial core around Market and Third streets, home to buildings like the Austin Building from 1921, the 1913 First Citizens Bank building, and the Art Deco Howell Theater. Brooklyn sits two blocks south of downtown, a compact pocket of homes dating from around 1870 to 1950 built largely by the Woodall brothers, who developed much of Smithfield's early residential land. North Smithfield sits a few blocks north of Market Street, a similarly aged residential neighborhood that grew up alongside the same railroad and tobacco boom.

That's it. Three districts, mapped and recorded with the town's planning office. A house can be exactly as old, exactly as architecturally distinctive, and exactly as worth preserving as anything inside those boundaries and still have none of the standing that comes with being inside them.

What actually changes once you're inside it

Cross into one of the three districts and the first thing that changes is who signs off on exterior work. The town's Historic Preservation Commission meets quarterly to review proposed alterations, and certain renovation or expansion projects affecting a property's exterior require a Certificate of Appropriateness before work starts. That's not a suggestion. It's a review the commission actually holds, on a real calendar, for real projects.

You can see the process working right now. Noviomagus, LLC is converting the old Gabriel Johnston Hotel, a downtown building from 1937, into nine two-bedroom apartments. The rezoning cleared in May 2025, and in the same meeting where that project was discussed, planning staff noted the Historic Preservation Commission still needed to review a Certificate of Appropriateness covering the building's windows, doors, and awnings. A hotel that closed decades ago is being brought back to life, and part of that process runs through the same commission that debated the Holland House.

The town's own design guidelines describe the reasoning behind this review in plain terms: a historic district is protected from unmanaged change through a process based on adopted design standards, and rehabilitation of a qualifying historic property can come with real tax benefits. That second half is the part most buyers miss.

The tax credit follows the same line, not the age of the house

North Carolina offers a state historic tax credit worth 15 percent of qualified rehabilitation costs for owner-occupied residential properties, administered through the State Historic Preservation Office. To qualify, the rehabilitation has to exceed $10,000 within a 24-month period, and any credit you don't use in year one can be carried forward for up to nine more years.

Here's the nuance that trips people up. That credit is available to buildings individually listed on the National Register, and to buildings that count as contributing structures within a National Register historic district. It is a separate, narrower benefit for buildings inside one of the state's three specifically certified local historic districts, a status that currently belongs to Raleigh, Goldsboro, and Madison, not Smithfield. Smithfield's three districts still qualify homeowners for the state credit, but they get there through the National Register pathway, since all three were added to the Register in 1993 and 2000. If you're comparing a contributing house in Brooklyn to a similarly priced house a few blocks outside the line, that's real money on the table for one and not the other. Spend $30,000 on a qualifying rehab inside the district and the math works out to roughly $4,500 back, spread across whatever tax years you need to use it.

Outside the line, the same age buys you nothing

The Holland House makes the point better than any policy document could. Commissioners in that October meeting guessed it was at least a hundred years old, roughly the same vintage as houses standing inside Brooklyn and North Smithfield right now. But because it was never brought into a district and never individually nominated, the commission has no jurisdiction over it, no Certificate of Appropriateness applies, and the state tax credit was never on the table. The developer who bought the surrounding land already has final subdivision approval. Wanting to save the house and having the standing to do anything about it turned out to be two completely different things.

If you're evaluating an older Smithfield property that sits outside Downtown, Brooklyn, or North Smithfield, treat its age as a description, not a designation. It might be a wonderful house. It just isn't protected, and it isn't eligible for the credit, purely because of where it sits on the map.

What's changing around the districts right now

The area around the historic core isn't standing still either. The town created a Downtown Overlay District that extends certain economic development flexibility, things like zero lot line commercial development and relaxed parking minimums, out from the historic core along East Market Street toward Brightleaf Boulevard. It's a separate tool from historic district zoning, aimed at growth rather than preservation, and it changes what you can expect to see built just outside the protected core.

Closer in, Smithfield's Town Council voted 6 to 1 in April 2026 to allow bars and private clubs in the downtown B-1 zoning district, with conditions limiting any bar to 2,500 square feet, requiring it sit within the town's Social District, and keeping at least 200 feet of separation from churches, childcare facilities, and residential properties. Because of those restrictions, the 100 block of South Third Street is the only stretch likely to see a new bar under the ordinance. The Little Brown Jug, Smithfield's existing downtown bar at 101 West Market Street, sits in a B-2 zone and isn't affected by the change either way. If you're buying inside the historic core expecting a quiet, purely residential experience, it's worth knowing the commercial mix around you is one recent council vote away from shifting.

Questions buyers actually ask about this

Does a house have to look historic to be in one of the districts? No. The boundary is a matter of record with the town's planning office, not a matter of appearance. Some contributing homes are modest, and some houses that look old sit entirely outside the lines.

Can I still renovate a house inside a historic district? Yes. Renovation happens all the time, including the current conversion of the Gabriel Johnston Hotel. The difference is that exterior changes typically go through the Historic Preservation Commission first, which meets quarterly.

What if I want to check whether a specific address is inside a district? Smithfield's planning office keeps the maps and can tell you directly. That's a five-minute phone call worth making before you write an offer, not after.

If you're weighing a property in downtown Smithfield, Brooklyn, or North Smithfield, or comparing one against a similar-looking house just outside those lines, the difference in what you're actually buying is bigger than it looks from the street. Judy Johnson has spent years working properties across Johnston County and knows which side of these lines a given address falls on. Let's Connect and figure out what your next Smithfield property actually comes with.