Piedmont Historic Homes

June’s most notable sales include an 1881 Italianate farmhouse, a couple of particularly sweet bungalows, a Mid-Century Modern house designed by one of the state’s first African American architects and a pair of intriguing restoration candidates.

Of particular note among the past owners is James Holt Green, owner of the Glencoe mill and village in the 1930s and one of the state’s great heroes of World War II. Although rejected by the Army, he was determined to join the war effort and finagled a posting with the Office of Strategic Services. He led units behind German lines in Yugoslavia and Slovakia, rescuing downed airmen and wreaking havoc. He didn’t make it back home.

Click on the links below for more information about the houses and their histories.

• Sold for $911,000 on June 26, 2024 (listed at $898,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 1,513 square feet, 18.21 acres
• Price/square foot: $602
• Built circa 1881
• Listed October 29, 2023
• Last sale: $57,500, December 2000
• Neighborhood: Located in the northwestern corner of Orange County near the Alamance and Caswell county lines.

The Historic Architecture of Orange County, North Carolina: “Although traditional house plans and types persisted following the Civil War, the use of stylish ornamentation increased with the availability of milled lumber. During the 1870s and 1880s, decorative motifs reflected the popular Italianate style. The Hester Farmhouse, ca. 1870s, in northern Orange County epitomizes this trend.”

The property has been designated an Orange County Landmark. The original 1850s kitchen was converted to covered outdoor dining. The property includes a wood-stove-heated hot tub, solar powered koi pond, a large equipment/party shed, a guest suite that was originally a tobacco barn, an artist studio with a kitchen and bathroom, and a workshop. There’s a Rumford fireplace in there somewhere.

2402 N.C. Highway 62 North, Burlington, Alamance County
The Robert Holt House, aka the Holt-Green House

• Sold for $625,000 on June 24, 2024 (listed at $625,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,569 square feet, 3.39 acres
• Price/square foot: $243
• Built in 1897
• Listed April 26, 2024
• Last sale: $27,000, June 1995
• Neighborhood: Glencoe, just outside the mill village

The home was built by Glencoe Mill owner Robert Lacy Holt (1866-1923). Robert bought the Glencoe mill and village in 1897; it had been started by his father, James Henry Holt, and an uncle, William Edwin Holt. They were sons of Edwin Michael Holt, founder of the textile industry in Alamance County.

The house and the mill were passed to Robert’s nephew James Holt Green (1909-1945) in the 1930s. He had attended Harvard Business School. Holt left to serve in World War II with the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the Central Intelligence Agency. He led teams behind Nazi lines, rescuing downed Allied airmen, gathering intelligence and staging attacks until he and his team were captured. They were sent to a concentration camp, tortured and executed.

• Sold for $285,000 on June 24, 2024 (listed at $299,999)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 1,580 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $180
• Built in 1910
• Listed May 9, 2024
• Last sale: $145,000, December 2020
• Neighborhood: Gwyn Avenue-Bridge Street Historic District (NR)

District NR nomination: “The dominant feature of the one-and-a-half-story, vinyl-sided, frame house is its ultra-steep, front-facing gable roof. The front gable has a distinctive arrangement of openings: a three-part window in the center flanked by small square windows, and a triangular ventilator in the gable peak.”

Building contractor Columbus Bernard Franklin (1885-1970) and Sallie Martin Franklin (1886-1969) may have bought the property as early as 1912. They sold it in 1930 to William Arthur Shores (1881-1931) and Florence America McMillan Shores (1887-1937). William “was one of Elkin’s most successful business men and was widely known and esteemed,” the Greensboro Daily News said upon his death from a brain tumor. The Winston-Salem Journal noted that “while his death was widely deplored, it was not unexpected, his condition having been pronounced hopeless by the family physician some weeks ago.” Apparently, he was sufficiently well known that neither paper bothered to say what business he had been in.

• Sold for $364,900 on June 25, 2024 (originally listed at $369,900)
  • Sold to an LLC in Blacksburg, Virginia
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,076 square feet, 0.31 acre
• Price/square foot: $176
• Built in 1927
• Listed May 2, 2024
• Last sale: $130,000, January 2017
• Neighborhood: Mount Airy Historic District (local and NR)

District NR nomination: “Fanciful one-and-one-half story frame bungalow with lavish granite detailing in the foundation, steps, chimney with incised date stone, and wrap-around porch with terrace and flower planters. The house also features shingled gable ends, overhanging eaves with triangular brackets and decoratively sawn fascia boards. …

“Constructed in 1927 for Raymond Sargent, son of J.D. Sargent, the financial wizard of the North Carolina Granite Corporation. Raymond’s house shares some similarities, particularly the porch and chimney, with that of his father’s outstanding granite bungalow on North Main Street.”

• Sold for $349,900 on June 26, 2024 (listed at $349,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,975 square feet, 0.32 acre
• Price/square foot: $177
• Built in 1967
• Listed May 10, 2024
• Last sale: 1967, price not recorded on deed.
• Neighborhood: Starmount Forest

Note: John Norman Curtis and Gerda Q. Curtis bought the undeveloped lot in 1967 and hired architect Clinton Gravely (b. 1935) to design their house. Gravely’s father and grandfather were contractors in Reidsville. He worked with his father growing up and studied architecture at Howard University. After serving in the military, he came home and worked again for his father’s company. He joined Edward Lowenstein’s architecture firm, the first white firm to hire African American architects in North Carolina. Gravely started his own firm in 1967, designing more than 800 projects, including 100 churches and the N.C. A&T State University Library. He was the original architect for Greensboro’s International Civil Rights Museum, which was completed by the Freelon Group.

Norman Curtis (1919-2005) was a cattleman and owner of Curtis Packing Company. He also owned the Greensboro Generals hockey team for a while in the 1970s and was a prominent amateur golfer. When he and Gerda (1937-2022) divorced, she got the house. It’s now being sold by her estate.

604 W. Webb Avenue, Burlington, Alamance County

• Sold for $190,000 on June 27, 2024 (originally $199,999)
  • The buyer is an LLC in Greensboro.
• 10 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, 5,108 square feet, 0.53 acre
• Price/square foot: $37
• Built in 1910
• Listed March 28, 2024
• Last sale: $30,000, August 2011

This one is especially appalling — the owner has let this property deteriorate almost beyond the point of no return and now wants almost seven times what he paid for it. Listing: “Certain areas of the property may pose safety risks, including weakened floors due to water damage. Be advised, and entry into specific areas is at one’s own risk.”

The house was built by Harold Walter Trollinger (1862-1934) and Cora N. Markham Trollinger (1869-1947). H.W. was a prominent local businessman who, beginning in 1892, sold real estate, coal, wood, gasoline, fertilizer and terra cotta pipe. “His honorable business methods and square dealing have made him a most enviable reputation,” The Twice-a-Week Dispatch reported in November 1909. The newspaper also said he was building “one of the handsomest residences in the city” on Park Avenue, the original name of Webb Avenue.

3529 Price Road, Hamptonville, Yadkin County

• Sold for $85,605 on June 19, 2024 (auction, Case 21 SP 51)
  • Sold to lender
• 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 2,248 square feet, 3.98 acres
• Price/square foot: $38
• Built in 1910
• Last sale: $45,000, March 2005

The house is about 2 1/2 miles east of Hamptonville and 10 miles west of Yadkinville, just off U.S. 21 north of U.S. 421.

A 1936 deed shows this property being part of a 79-acre tract sold by J.H. Long, or his estate, presumably, to Mrs. L.M. Long. They could be John H. Long (1862-1935) and Laura Mittie Teague Long Davis (1880-1966). Their relationship is unknown (father-daughter? siblings?). John was a farmer. His tragic death was reported across the state: “Farmer Killed as Mules Bolt; John H. Long Thrown From Wagon by Frightened Animals Near Yadkinville.”