Wright’s Chance

Photo of Wright's Chance exterior

Wright's Chance Sign, historic home located in Centreville, MD

Wright’s Chance was built circa 1744 and is an early plantation house.  It is listed as an “old building” in a 1744 resurvey of “Smith’s Forrest”, patented 1681.  This type of frame structure was common during the Colonial period.  The house is one room deep and two rooms wide, with a central passageway.  Living space in the upper story was expanded by the use of a gambrel roof.  The beautiful interior wood paneling and large fireplaces mark the house as belonging to a gentleman of means.  The house is furnished with Colonial and Federal style antiques.

Wright’s Chance is listed on the Maryland State Historic Sites List, designated as an Historic House Site within the Historic District of the Town of Centreville.  Centreville was carved out of the Chesterfield Plantation.

Wright’s Chance was donated to the Society by Mr. and Mrs. Frank Emala in 1963 and moved to its present location in 1964.  The property where the house now stands was part of the Goldsborough House property owned by one of the Nicholson family daughters who married a Goldsborough; a daughter down the line married a McKenney.  The 1963 property owners, John and his sister Maria McKenney, donated the front half of the Centreville property to the Society and Wright’s Chance was moved there.  The house was restored to its original condition and put onto a new basement foundation, and the chimneys were rebuilt with restoration brick.

The meat house in the rear yard of Wright’s Chance is original to the Goldsborough property and was moved to the Wright’s Chance property and restored.  There is also a rain garden in the rear yard planted by the Corsica River Conservancy in 2007.