Since no evidence of a dirt or brick floor was encountered, it is assumed that the floors were of wood. Beyond establishing, from foundation widths, that the building was of frame construction, it must be noted that no archeological evidence of the above-grade appearance of the building was forthcoming. Mr. E. M. Frank, director of architecture for Colonial Williamsburg, whose conjectural elevation provides the frontispiece to this paper, points out that the roof may have been made from lapping oak strips some four feet in length, as were found at the Brush-Everard House in Williamsburg. He further suggests that the weatherboards could also have taken the form of similar split-oak strips, precedent for which survives in the west wall of the John Blair House, also in Williamsburg.
A house of the above proportions and character was a little better than many a yeoman's home in England, although it owed its origins to those same homes. It was larger than the smaller houses of Jamestown, but only just as large as the smaller houses of Williamsburg, whose sizes were regulated by an Act of Assembly in 1705. The Tutter's Neck residence differed from most of the Williamsburg houses in that it had no cellar. While it was a perfectly adequate house for a Williamsburg citizen of average means and status, one might be tempted to assume that it would not long have sufficed as the home of Col. Frederick Jones who, in North Carolina, aspired to 6 children and 42 slaves.[110]
On the other hand, it may be noted that the Carters of "Corotoman" on the Rappahannock, one of the wealthiest families in Virginia at the beginning of the 18th century, had lived in a rather similar house prior to the building of an imposing and larger brick mansion. The latter burned in 1729, whereupon Robert "King" Carter moved back into the old 17th-century house. Carter's inventory made at the time of his death in 1732, and now in the possession of the Virginia Historical Society, identifies the rooms in the "Old House" as comprising a dining room, chamber over the dining room, lower chamber, chamber over the lower chamber, and a porch chamber. This last strongly suggests that the "Old House" was of 17th-century date. As other buildings named in the inventory are noted as being of brick (probably advance buildings for the burnt mansion), it may be assumed that the "Old House" was of frame construction and so might well have been of the same class as the Tutter's Neck residence. A further similarity is to be found in the fact that the Carter inventory lists no cellars beneath the "Old House."