A National Register mansion and the home of a renowned poet and novelist are among the most notable historic houses sold in the Triad in April. Others worth noting include the homes of a prominent 19th-century millwright, a Lexington orphan who became one of the town’s most successful businessmen, and a small-town theatre owner. In addition, a decrepit farmhouse was sold for the first time since it was built around 1800.
721 N.C. Highway 61, Whitsett, Guilford County
Holly Gate
The James Henry Joyner House
Blog post — Holly Gate: A 1908 National Register Mansion in Whitsett, $1.75 Million
- Sold for $925,000 on April 11, 2024 (originally $1.75 million)
- 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 3,530 square feet, 4.04 acres
- Price/square foot: $262
- Built in 1908
- Listed October 21, 2022
- Last sale: $50,000, June 1976
“Impressive, two-story, Queen Anne style, frame house built around 1910, one of the best surviving in the county. Well landscaped and maintained. Prof. Joyner, a brother-in-law of W.T. Whitsett … taught English, Mathematics and penmanship at the nearby Whitsett Institute.” (An Inventory of Historic Architecture: High Point, Jamestown, Gibsonville, Guilford County, McKelden Smith, 1979, p. 106)
305 Kensington Road, Greensboro
The Fred and Susan Chappell House
- Sold for $610,000 on April 12, 2024 (listed at $525,000)
- 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,418 square feet, 0.17 acre
- Price/square foot: $252
- Built in 1933
- Listed February 22, 2024
- Last sale: $36,000, 1973
- Neighborhood: Sunset Hills Historic District (NR)
The home of the late poet, novelist and critic Fred Davis Chappell (1936-2024) and Susan N. Chappell. Fred taught at UNC Greensboro, served as poet laureate of North Carolina and won the prestigious Bollingen Prize for poetry in 1985. “Not since James Agee and Robert Penn Warren has a Southern writer displayed such masterful versatility,” Frank Levering wrote in The Los Angeles Times in 1997. The New York Times wrote an excellent obituary.
305 Church Street, Gibsonville, Guilford County
The Berry and Emily Davidson House
Blog post — A Prominent Millwright’s 1880’s Home in Gibsonville, $400,000
- Sold for $380,000 on April 17, 2024 (originally $425,000)
- 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3,151 square feet, 1.22 acres
- Price/square foot: $121
- Built in 1881 (or possibly 1887; see note below)
- Listed December 9, 2023
- Last sale: $36,000, June 1975
The house has had only two owners. Descendants of Berry and Emily Davidson sold it in 1975 to the current owner. “Berry Davidson, a millwright in the central Piedmont of North Carolina, left an unusually complete narrative of a career that extended from the 1840s until after 1900, a key period in the industrial development of the region. Depicting a rural millwright’s mobility, versatility, and adaptability, his account illuminates the career of an important type of artisan for whom such detailed histories are seldom found. He built and equipped saw mills, grist mills, and cotton mills mainly in Alamance County and Guilford County, centers of Quaker settlement and early industrial development, but his work also extended into Chatham, Cumberland, Harnett, Moore, and Randolph counties.” (North Carolina Architects and Builders)
400 Country Club Road, Lexington, Davidson County
The Eddie and Sarah Smith House
- Sold for $650,000 on April 25, 2024 (originally $1.2 million)
- 5 bedrooms, 5 1/2 bathrooms, 7,392 square feet, 7 acres
- Price/square foot: $88
- Built in 1932
- Listed June 16, 2023
- Last sale: Apparently in 1962 or 1963, price unknown
The property was originally listed at $1.2 million, but sold, on a square-footage basis, for the price of a fixer-upper. It includes an outdoor kitchen, a patio and pool area, and a pool house with a sauna and two dressing rooms with showers. Eddie Smith was orphaned at age 10 and was raised at the Junior Order Orphanage in Lexington. He founded the National Wholesale Company in 1952 and became one of Lexington’s most prominent business owners. He served as mayor of Lexington, led the campaign to save Lexington’s historic Carolina Theater and also led the effort to establish Family Services of Davidson County.
738 S. Main Street, Mount Airy, Surry County
The Early and Hallie Benbow House
- Sold for $391,680 on April 29, 2024 (originally $399,000)
- 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,000 square feet, 0.29 acre
- Price/square foot: $131
- Built in 1931
- Listed October 25, 2023
- Last sale: $111,000, June 2003
- Neighborhood: Mount Airy Historic District (local and NR)
District NR nomination (1985): “A remarkably large number of unaltered, classic Bungalow style houses survive throughout the district. … [A] notable large brick bungalow is the c. 1928 Benbow House at 738 South Main Street {1168) which exhibits Tudor Revival influences in its stuccoed gable ends with applied wooden trim imitative of half-timbering.” Early Quincy Benbow (1895-1962) and Hallie Stanton Benbow (1900-1981) were the original owners. Early and his partners opened the Grand Theatre in 1928 and the Earle in 1935.
653 Vernon Road, Wentworth, Rockingham County
The King House
Blog post — ‘A Rare Survivor’: A Circa 1800 Log House In Rockingham County, $69,000
- Sold for $60,000 on April 12, 2024 (listed at $69,000)
- The buyer was the Historic Preservation Foundation of North Carolina.
- Bedrooms and bathrooms to be determined, 1,643 square feet, 10 acres
- Price/square foot: $37
- Built ca. 1800
- Last sale: 1785, price not available
Listing: “The farm has been continuously owned and operated by the King family and was designated a North Carolina Century Farm in 1986 and a Bicentennial Farm by the N.C. Dept. of Agriculture in 2017.”
Piedmont Historic Homes 