History and Design in Wilmington

By Linda Tancs

The Bellamy Mansion Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina, is one of the state’s most spectacular examples of antebellum architecture. Built by free and enslaved black artisans for physician and planter John Dillard Bellamy and his family before the outbreak of the Civil War, the 10,000-square-foot home now serves as a museum of history and the design arts. The home’s soaring main entrance and lushly recreated Victorian gardens are met with equally compelling slave quarters, one of very few preserved urban slave quarters in the country. Guided tours are given on the hour, and self-guided audio tours are available at other times.