Freshly decked out for the holidays, one of the oldest homes in Lenoir County and the oldest building in Kinston will be open to the public Sunday afternoon for an event that includes refreshments and a raffle for more than a dozen items.

Christmas Open House at the Historic Harmony Hall Museum, sponsored by the Lenoir County Historical Association, will be held from 2-4 p.m. on Sunday. Harmony Hall is at 109 King St.

Admission to the open house is free. Raffle tickets cost $1 each and can be purchased at the event until 3 p.m.

The raffle and cake sale serve as a fundraiser for the Historical Association. Items range from Wood Ducks tickets to jewelry to power tools to a slew of gift cards.

This week, members of Lenoir County Extension Master Gardener Volunteers and the local Dirt Daubers Garden Club draped the exterior and interior of the 18th Century house in greenery and period-appropriate decorations. 

The oldest section of Harmony Hall was built in 1772, and the house was enlarged over the years with the addition of wings and rooms. Among notable residents of Harmony Hall was Richard Caswell, Kinston’s most famous Revolutionary-era resident and the state’s first elected governor. For a time, the house served as the state’s de facto capitol during the Revolutionary War.

Harmony Hall was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. A restoration project that began that year, when the house was deeded to the Lenoir County Historical Association, was completed in 1985.