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 Known locally as Yellow
Tavern, the Thomas Day
House is architecturally
one of the finest of the
few known taverns still in
existence in North Carolina
today.
The acclaimed structure is
best known for its association
with Thomas Day, the
free black cabinet maker
born in Virginia in 1801. The
structure was literally gutted
by fire years ago and
was in very poor shape
when Union Tavern Restoration,
Inc. retained the services
of Preservation Trades Company to
partially restore the structure.
Unfortunately, many of
the original Thomas Day features
were lost when the
building was gutted by fire.
A tremendous amount of debris filled the gutted and burned interior of
the Thomas Day
House prior to restoration. Interior brick walls were restored and
new floors and stairs were
rebuilt of timbers.
Preservation Trades Company accepted this challenge in
spite of numerous problems. The building foundation
and brick sill were rotted.
Entire walls had collapsed
and brick, which had absorbed
water, had actually
turned to powder.
These photographs show the extensive interior brick work that was required after construction of the
original stone foundation. New brick was made to match the original
brick as well as those from
previous restoration attempts. The restoration was accomplished in
phases: During Phase I, a temporary
roof was installed; Phase II included more tedious work such as stabilizing
the brick walls, sills and
foundation; tie down of the roof and replacing floors; removing support
poles and removing 100 cubic
yards of charred lumber.
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