Murray Ballance will be the featured speaker at The Octagon House members’ annual meeting May 19.

The meeting, which begins at 4 p.m. and is open to the public, will be conducted at the Olde Store, 3075 Nebraska Road, Engelhard. After the business meeting, an update of the first and second phases of the effort to restore the Octagon House will be presented.

The first phase was the putting a new roof on the house. The second phase concerns raising the house. The State Historic Preservation Office is assisting Octagon House Restoration with phases two and three of the project. The third phase concerns the exterior of the house

Octagon House Restoration Inc. received a $20,000 challenge grant from the Marion S. Covington Foundation in Greensboro. The grant application was submitted in 2017, seeking money to help cover the costs of phase II of the current restoration/repairs planned for the Octagon House. The match was raised in less than three months because of contributions from restoration supporters.

Ballance’s presentation is titled Ledgers of the Olde Store, according to Octagon House Restoration Inc. The meeting is being conducted at the Olde Store because of work related to the raising of the Octagon House. Octagon House Restoration Inc. is dedicated to preserving Hyde County’s historic eight-sided house, one of two such surviving antebellum homes in North Carolina. The home was built by Dr. William T. Sparrow (ca. 1857) using a design found in Orson S. Fowler’s book, “The Octagon House: A Home for All,” which was published in 1848. Following a grassroots effort to preserve the house for future generations, it was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

For more information about the Octagon House, email octagonhouse.nc@gmail.com. To follow the restoration, visit www.facebook.com/octagonhouse.nc. Donations are still encouraged and may be mailed to the OHRI, PO Box 35, Engelhard, NC 27824 or made safely and securing online on the Facebook page. OHRI is an IRS-recognized 501(c)(3) organization and donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.