2022 List

Newton Sutterfield Farmstead

Located at the community of Alco in western Stone County, the Newton Sutterfield Farmstead was built about 1850 by early settler J. Newton Sutterfield. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural significance as the best example of a 19^th century vernacular residence in the community and for its association with the settlement of Stone County. The Sutterfield farm was self-sufficient with an orchard and gardens, livestock and chickens, a blacksmith shop, smokehouse, barns, and springhouse. The family home is an important example of Arkansas’s vernacular architecture. It is a Double-Pen House or “Duple” as it was called by the late Cyrus Sutherland, University of Arkansas architecture professor and vernacular architecture enthusiast. This form consisted of two side-by-side rooms with no central hallway and doors on the front façade leading into each room.

The house began its existence ca. 1850 as a one- or two-room log building with a stone chimney on one end. About 1900, two frame rooms were added on to the rear of the original house, and the entire exterior was covered with board-and-batten siding. A full front porch was added to the house at an early date. Sometime around 1950, weatherboard siding was applied over the board-and-batten. Although covered on the exterior, the original hand-hewn log walls are visible from the interior. The Sutterfield Farmstead was last occupied in the 1970s. Although it is now in a decrepit state, the Sutterfield Farmstead illustrates the hardscrabble existence of farmers in the Arkansas Ozarks and stands as an important example of a vernacular Double-Pen House. The current owner would like to see the house restored and used to interpret the area’s early history.