Landmarks Executive Director Brent Runyon examines antebellum wood trim around a covered transom window at the Love house.

Things are not always as they seem, particularly when it comes to old houses.

What was believed to be an 1850s-era Thomasville house has been revealed to be much older. Parts of the house at 131 S. Love St. coincide with Thomas County’s earliest history.

“Those with a trained eye can date the age of a house’s construction by the technology used to build it,” said Brent Runyon, Thomasville Landmarks executive director. “In this case, a very early home is revealed to have been developed over three or four entirely separate technological periods.”

Landmarks purchased the house in 2012, as part of its Neighborhood Revitalization program. The house was a source of crime within a neighborhood that received accolades in the early 2000s as an historic preservation success story.

Today, the house is being deconstructed to determine its age and construction details.

For many years, the original residence was thought to have been constructed circa 1853 by Judge Peter Early Love and moved to its current location before the War Between the States. Recent interior deconstruction shows the house has origins that predate the 1850s.

The front portion is made up of two rooms and a central hall, which could have been an open dogtrot. Foundation beams and joists are hand-hewn and fitted together with mortise and tenon joinery.

“It appears to have been constructed in the 1830s,” Runyon said.

See Thursday’s edition for more details.