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HIGH POINT — The white frame farmhouse has lost its context, like so many farms across the rural landscape. The land around it, once dotted with barns and surrounded by green fields cut into neat furrows, is now parsed into commercial lots. The only crop in evidence is a satellite dish farm behind it. Across the road is an abandoned industrial building, and heavy trucks rumble past on their way to a recycling center.

The house itself, though a little grander in scale, looks like many farmhouses you see dotting the North Carolina landscape — and that’s part of the point.

This is the one that came first, the one that some architectural historians believe inspired scores of other triple-A (or triple-gable) farmhouses across the state. It’s what remains of the Model Farm, built in 1867 by the Quakers to demonstrate modern architecture and modern farming to a South left in ruins after the Civil War.

In private hands since 1891, the National Register Historic Site was donated to Preservation Greensboro on Dec. 27 with covenants and restrictions that ensure it will be preserved and never destroyed.

“We’re catching it at just the right time,” said Benjamin Briggs, executive director of Preservation Greensboro. “A couple more years like this, it wouldn’t last.”

Despite its age and series of owners, the house has retained its historic character. Some modern touches have been added — a new front door, porch columns and one small bathroom — but the structure is remarkably unchanged.

Briggs runs his hands over the curved handrails of the staircase, points out the workmanship of the cast-iron window latches and marvels at the arched windows in the third-floor rooms.

“It’s beautiful,” he said. “It’s insane. Even those trucks look good through that window.”

The house has quite a story to tell — a story rooted in the despair of the post-war South.

“You have to remember that the South was devastated,” Briggs said. “People were drinking acorn coffee.”

With homes burned and fields destroyed, many people decided to leave instead of rebuild. That included many Quakers, who began leaving the South even before the war because of their opposition to slavery. To stem this western migration, Quakers in Baltimore raised money to build a model farm in what was then the epicenter of the state’s Quaker population.

“It was meant to raise the quality and standard of living.” Briggs said. “At that time, most middle-class people were living in two-room log cabins.”

The Model Farm house had 10-foot ceilings, a bay window similar to those in the Blandwood mansion and huge windows that nearly span floor to ceiling.

Its design reflected changing social and cultural attitudes. All the bedrooms are on the upper floor, reflecting a shift toward defining public and private spaces. Instead of communal spaces, rooms were built for specific uses, including an entrance hall, front parlor, sitting room, dining room and kitchen.

A true three-story home was unusual for the era. The third floor was generally more like attic space. But the third floor of the Model Farm has high ceilings and spacious rooms.

“There are very few houses, even in Fisher Park and Aycock, that have ceilings this high on a third floor,” Briggs said.

The house and barn also had running water, unusual at the time.

The farm showcased modern equipment and methods. Local farmers were taught how to store food, rat-proof their corncribs, breed livestock and enrich the soil by cultivating such cover crops as clover. It was also a major distribution point for seeds, equipment and fertilizer.

According to its National Register of Historic Places nomination, Model Farm was selling 19,000 pounds of clover seed by 1869. More than 1,000 people from around the state came to visit and learn farming techniques.

The site quickly became a point of pride as well as a resource for the community. Even its wagons, with brightly painted box beds and iron axles, were eye-catching as they bumped down the plank road that led to the High Point Depot.

“It was a validation that the South would rise again,” Briggs said.

The farm operated for 25 years, until the Quakers felt their mission was complete. It was sold in 1891, with proceeds donated to Guilford College. It passed through several hands before becoming a model farm again — this time a model dairy farm run by the Clodfelter family.

Its 191 acres began to shrink as parcels were sold for housing developments after World War II. By the 1970s, when Sidney Gayle purchased the property, it consisted of the house and 1.99 acres.

The house then became a model showplace. Its rooms were painted and decorated for furniture and design photography shoots. It was selected to be the Sherwin Williams paint showhouse in 1973 and was featured in a national ad campaign.

For those who can’t see past the peeling wallpaper and flaking paint of today, there are magazine pages from some of those old photo shoots posted on the walls of each room.

To a historian like Briggs, it’s magical just the way it is.

“You see the orange tint in the plaster? That’s because it was made with North Carolina river clay. You can feel the original pegs in the window sashes.”

Ruth Whitten of California could see its inner beauty, too. She became interested in High Point through her work as a designer and wanted to open a bed-and-breakfast inn here.

Whitten fell in love with the Model Farm at first sight in 2006. She could picture the guest suites and parlor areas transformed into a showcase. But just after buying the house, she went to California for a visit and fell in love with Bruce Whitten. He loved the house as much as she did and proposed to her there in the living room. Soon after, they discovered he had chronic kidney disease.

Their medical coverage in California was far superior to what they could get here. So she reluctantly put the property back on the market in 2008, just as the bottom dropped out of the real estate market. Nobody wanted an historic fixer-upper.

As 2011 drew to a close, Ruth Whitten gave two invaluable gifts. She donated a kidney to her husband, and she donated the model farm to Preservation Greensboro.

“It’s a heartbreaker, but it’s all for the best,” she said in a phone interview from her home in California. “He (Briggs) will find somebody who will not only love the house, but bring it back to life.”

That is exactly his goal. He knows government entities — city, state and county — can’t afford to take on a historic property.

“It’s not a museum,” Briggs said. “It needs to be lived in and people need to love it.”

The house was last listed for sale at $79,000, so that will be the starting point. Briggs is primarily looking for someone with a plan and the ability to execute it.

The house could become a private home, offices, an event venue. As long as its historic details are preserved and protected, PGI is open to a variety of uses for the property. Briggs is already getting calls.

His fantasy would be convincing the owner of the empty industrial site across the road to donate the property, so the Model Farm could reclaim some of its  country setting. The collection of WGHP satellites behind the house could be screened with a line of trees.

In February, PGI will host a private reception there honoring the Whittens. They’ll serve old-fashioned Quaker food and punch, and pause once again to appreciate this unique agricultural and architectural landmark.

“There is nothing like it in North Carolina, or even in the South,” Briggs says.

Contact Susan Ladd at 373-7006 or susan.ladd@news-record.com