GREENVILLE - Six generations of Steve McLawhorn's family have lived in his 158-year-old farmhouse in rural Pitt County, and he expected generations more until state highway planners mapped out a bypass around Greenville.

The white two-story house with a red tin roof is one of dozens in the way of the proposed Southwest Bypass, which will one day connect N.C. 11 and U.S. 264. McLawhorn's community of winding two-lane highways, crossroads and open farmland will give way to a freeway and interstate-style interchanges.

"It looks like something in Charlotte," said McLawhorn, who is fighting the bypass.

Losing land and homes to highways is nothing new. But this project has spurred a classic debate in the growing region around Greenville: whether a highway should sacrifice farms for suburbs. It has also drawn opposition from critics who say it is unnecessarily destructive and expensive because it could harm a rural district listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Not only will the highway split the district, critics say, but it would consume scarce state funds for most or all of the $180 million cost. They contend federal money can't be used because of possible harm to the Renston Historic District, about 1,400 acres of farms, homes, churches and cemeteries along a 2 1/2-mile stretch of N.C. 903. Otherwise, as much as 80 percent of the cost for the new highway would be eligible for federal funding.

State transportation officials said they chose not to seek federal funding because the review process is long and the outcome uncertain when a historic district is involved. The state will use money the state General Assembly designated for building urban loops, officials said.

Marvin K. Blount III of Greenville, a member of the state Board of Transportation, said the department tried to avoid the Renston district entirely with an alternate route, but that route was not selected by a review team that included representatives of state and federal agencies.

He said the bypass was a top priority for municipalities and it is needed to accommodate growth.

Between 1990 and 2000, the population in the project area grew by about 49 percent to nearly 36,000. Greenville, once a small college town and tobacco market, is now a major education and medical center for Eastern North Carolina, with more than 65,000 people.

Planners say the bypass is needed to alleviate congestion and improve traffic on U.S. 264 and N.C. 11, both major routes to East Carolina University and Pitt County Memorial Hospital.

It will still be years before anyone will be driving the 13-mile freeway. Right-of-way acquisition is to start in 2009, and construction would start four years later.

Since planning began several years ago, numerous subdivisions have sprouted near Greenville and the nearby towns of Winterville and Ayden. That did not bode well for Renston, where family homes and farms had been passed down through generations.

Greenville and other towns previously endorsed a corridor that would avoid the historic district. But when it came time to select a route, many people in the newer subdivisions mobilized with petitions and e-mail and packed public meetings to argue that their new homes were communities as well.

They persuaded Pitt County and the area towns to support the corridor that splices through 120 acres of the Renston district.

A transportation department study released in June said the route closer to Greenville would require about 100 houses and businesses to be relocated, compared with about 45 in Renston.

The community, which was listed on the national register in 2003, received its name in 1896 when newly appointed postmaster Lorenzo McLawhorn took three letters from his name and added a derivative of "town."

The historic designation recognizes Renston's concentration of family farms, many of which have 19th-century farmhouses.

The description in the national register documents evokes the community's rural setting. It is bounded by Horsepen Swamp Creek, Callie Stokes Road, Sandy Run and Hencoop Swamp. Frog Level Road forms a "T" with N.C. 903 at the northeast end.

Renston residents think they are being penalized for holding on to their land and the region's farming heritage.

McLawhorn said other parts of the country are trying to retain farmers and farmland, but many people see farms as a great place to build houses. He bought the home his mother grew up in and restored it over the years with beams from a tobacco barn and siding from an older house.

"It's extremely hard to explain that you're not a country bumpkin, that you're 54 and have lived in two houses all your life," he said.

His cousin, Andy McLawhorn, lives in a former Renston schoolhouse that he renovated. Andy McLawhorn said his family could have settled anywhere but chose to maintain family and regional ties. He said a bypass miles beyond local cities will only encourage more sprawl.

"It's foolish to go through a national historic district when there are other options," he said. "It's foolish to build a highway when it will serve no purpose."