NORTH CAROLINA GENERAL ASSEMBLY

1981 SESSION

CHAPTER 1080

HOUSE BILL 646

AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE FUNDS TO MOVE AND REHABILITATE HISTORIC RICHMOND HILL HOUSE IN BUNCOMBE COUNTY.

Whereas, Richmond Pearson, son of North Carolina State Supreme Court Chief Justice Richmond Pearson of Yadkin County, served in the North Carolina Legislature and the United States Congress, and held numerous diplomatic posts during the administration of Theodore Roosevelt; and

Whereas, upon retiring from public service Richmond Pearson settled in Asheville and developed on a hilltop overlooking the French Broad River an estate named Richmond Hill after his father's home in Yadkin County; and

Whereas, Richmond Hill House was designed by Architect James G. Hill, former supervising architect for the U.S. Treasury, and since its construction in 1889 has been a Buncombe County landmark; and

Whereas, Richmond Hill House is a large and impressive Queen Anne style structure, the sole grandiose frame mansion surviving from Asheville's ebullient late 19th-century boom period; and

Whereas, the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County has obtained ownership of Richmond Hill House but has to move the structure off its present site in order to save it; Now, therefore,

The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:

Section 1. There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Division of Archives and History, Department of Cultural Resources the sum of five thousand dollars ($5,000) for fiscal year 1981-82 to purchase a new site, and moving and rehabilitating Richmond Hill House, provided a like amount of five thousand dollars ($5,000) is raised by the Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County to match the grant-in-aid on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Application may be made to the division from time to time, for the funds appropriated under this act as the matching funds are raised.

Sec. 2. Funds appropriated in this act shall be expended only in accordance with G.S. 121-11 and G.S. 143-31.2.

Sec. 3. This act is effective upon ratification.

In the General Assembly read three times and ratified, this the 10th day of October, 1981.