Piedmont Historic Homes

July was a spectacular month for historic-home sales in the Piedmont (this month’s summary is a bit belated — lots going on, houses to visit, furniture to move around the house, four inches of rain yesterday). Two of the Piedmont’s most impressive National Register houses sold — a 1909 mansion in Greensboro and “the most ornate 19th-century mansion in Alamance County.” In Glencoe Mill Village, where few homes at all have come up for sale in recent years, four homes sold very quickly.

Add in a remarkable Mid-Century Modern by Edward Lowenstein in Sedgefield, a pair of 19th-century houses in Alamance and Yadkin counties, a 1935 mansion in Alamance (what a month for Alamance County!), and a 1940 Period Cottage in Wilkesboro, and the month’s sales provide a splendid cross-section of historic homes in the region.

204 N. Mendenhall Street, Greensboro
Double Oaks Bed & Breakfast
The Harden Thomas Martin House
Blog posts — One of Greensboro’s Most High-Profile B&B’s, the Iconic 1909 Double Oaks, $1.795 Million; and An Unexpected New Direction for Greensboro’s Double Oaks, a 1909 National Register Mansion

• Sold for $1.5 million on July 22, 2024 (originally $1.795 million)
• 6 bedrooms, 9 bathrooms, 6,700 square feet, 0.54 acre
• Price/square foot: $224
• Built in 1909
• Listed March 8, 2022
• Last sale: $625,000, June 2016
• Neighborhood: Westerwood

The sale of one of Greensboro’s most outstanding historic mansions would be news any time, but the identity of the buyer makes this one even more remarkable: Down Home North Carolina, a statewide community-organizing group working “to build multiracial and working-class power in small towns and rural communities across North Carolina.” The house will serve as a community center, event venue and meeting place for the organization. Here are their plans.

NRHP nomination: “The dominant exterior feature of the Martin residence is the broad front porch with Tuscan columns and a turned balustrade which carries across the full facade and the forward bays of each side elevation. The centerpiece of the porch — and of the entire house — is the bowed, two-story portico supported by four fluted Ionic columns with large terra cotta capitals. The portico shelters a bowed, second story balcony with a turned balustrade.”

228 Holt Road, Haw River, Alamance County
The Charles T. Holt House
Blog post — For Sale: “The Most Ornate 19th Century Mansion in Alamance County,” $2.4 Million

• Sold for $1.7 million on July 12, 2024 (originally $2.4 million)
• 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 4,454 square feet, 21.10 acres (per county)
• Price/square foot: $382
• Built in 1897
• Listed July 18, 2022
• Last sale: $650,000, October 2007
• Neighborhood: The house has a Graham mailing address but is in Haw River.
• Note: A second home on the property dates to 1905 and has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and 2,431 square feet.
  • The property also includes a pond, a barn and a two-car garage with additional upstairs and downstairs rooms.

The Charles T. Holt House is “one of the best surviving examples of the Queen Anne mansions designed for N.C. industrials by mail-order architect [George F.] Barber. It exemplifies Barber’s ebullient, asymmetrical compositions,” says A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Piedmont North Carolina.

“The large Queen Anne dwelling and its six outbuildings were constructed in 1897 for textile businessman Charles T. Holt, the son of Thomas Holt, governor of North Carolina, and his wife, Gena Jones Holt, the daughter of Thomas Goode Jones, governor of Alabama,” the home’s National Register nomination says.

“The elaborate style and asymmetrical composition of this well-preserved two-and-a-half story Queen Anne house serves as a classic example of the form, devices and motives employed by late-nineteenth century high-style builders. Peaks, turrets and decorative chimney stacks project in the irregular manner of the fashionable Queen Anne architecture of the 1880s and 1890s.”

• Sold for $835,000 on July 5, 2024 (originally $765,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 4,088 square feet, 1.6 acres
• Price/square foot: $204
• Built in 1965
• Listed April 5, 2022
• Last sale: $359,000, October 2009
• Neighborhood: Sedgefield

One of Edward Lowenstein‘s “Commencement Houses,” the three homes designed by Lowenstein and his students at the Women’s College (which had become UNCG by the time this one was built).

The entrance hall has a 17-foot high wall of windows. There are large windows throughout the house, an open staircase and minimal ornamentation. At the back, a second-floor deck provides a view of the second fairway of Sedgefield Country Club’s Donald Ross course. The house sits well back from the street in a forested landscape. The kitchen is modern but maintains its strikingly 1950s look.

2456 Glencoe Street, Glencoe Mill Village, Alamance County

• Sold for $245,000 on July 22, 2024 (listed at $240,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,248 square feet, 0.29 acre
• Price/square foot: $196
• Built in 1900
• Listed June 13, 2024
• Last sale: $159,000, May 2021; $95,000, July 2011
• HOA: $55/month

Glencoe is a National Register historic district and one of Burlington’s local historic districts. It’s one of the most intact millage villages in the state. Although Glencoe is outside the city limits, it’s within the city’s zoning jurisdiction. Compared to historic homes elsewhere around here, Glencoe houses tend to be relatively affordable.

2440 Hodges Road, Glencoe Mill Village, Alamance County

• Sold for $278,000 on July 12, 2024 (listed at $275,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,356 square feet, 0.5 acres
• Price/square foot: $205
• Built in 1900 (according to county property records)
• Listed June 20, 2024
• Last sales: $210,000, November 2020; $45,500, June 2002
• HOA: $55/month
• Note: Restoration was completed in 2008.

2457 Glencoe Street, Glencoe Mill Village, Alamance County

• Sold for $268,000 on July 9, 2024 (listed at $275,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,654 square feet, 0.29 acre
• Price/square foot: $162
• Built in 1885
• Listed June 13, 2024
• Last sales: $247,000, November 2020; $35,000, February 2002
• HOA: $55/month

This listing appeared with only one photo.

2473 Glencoe Street, Glencoe Mill Village, Alamance County

• Sold for $377,000 on July 5, 2024 (originally $370,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,856 square feet, 0.33 acre
• Price/square foot: $203
• Built in 1885
• Listed June 13, 2024
• Last sale: $260,013, May 2021
• HOA: $55/month

2550 Staley Store Road, Alamance County
The McPherson-Cook House

• Sold for $320,000 on July 17, 2024 (originally $450,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,560 square feet (per county), 1.78 acres
• Price/square foot: $125
• Built in 1890
• Listed May 3, 2024
• Last sale: $158,550, May 2017
• Neighborhood: The property has a Liberty mailing address but is across the county line In southwestern Alamance County.

The property was part of a larger tract owned by Samuel McPherson (1843-1924). His heirs sold it to Wayland Clarence McPherson Sr. (1879-1930). Their relationship is unknown. In 1948, Wayland’s wife, Swannie Lee Smith McPherson (1889-1992), passed the property on to two of their children, Wayland Jr. (1927-2004) and Katie Lee McPherson Cook (1924-1996). Waylon Jr. and Katie and her husband, Jack Cook, operated a dairy farm on the property. Katie also raised cattle. She lived in the house her entire life.

4337 N.C. Highway 62 S., Alamance, Alamance County
The Elizabeth Fogleman House

• Sold for $690,000 on July 15, 2024 (originally $675,000)
• 5 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 5,735 square feet, 4.61 acres
• Price/square foot: $120
• Built in 1935
• Listed April 7, 2021
• Last sale: $162,500, December 2005
• Neighborhood: The house is in Alamance village, 6 miles south of Burlington. It has a Burlington mailing address.

The original owner appears to have been Elizabeth Varlier McCuiston Fogleman (1894-1992). She bought the property in 1935, two years after the death of her husband, Clarence Ernest Fogleman (1893-1933). He had been a contractor and a director of Standard Hosiery Mills in Alamance. They had six children. She sold the house in 1954.

There are at least three houses called the “Fogleman House” in the immediate area. This one is on N.C. 62 south of Alamance mill village, next to First Baptist Church of Alamance. The Polly Fogleman House is on Brick Church Road, just off N.C. 62 almost to the Guilford County line; it’s on the National Register. Another Fogleman House is just across the county line in Guilford County on the same road (it’s called Holt’s Store Road in Guilford).

3125 Arnold Road, Hamptonville, Yadkin County
The Haynes-White-Wood House

• Sold for $212,500 on July 11, 2024 (originally $269,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,800 square feet, two tracts totaling 3.08 acres
• Price/square foot: $118
• Built in 1813
• Listed March 7, 2023
• Last sale: January 1922 (55 acres), price not recorded on deed

The listing claims the house was “originally built” in 1764. From Historical Architecture of Yadkin County: “Midway up the shaft of the north chimney is the date 1813, presumably the house’s date of construction. If so, it is one of the oldest buildings in Yadkin County. …

“Despite the addition of wide aluminum siding, alterations to the porch and the addition at the rear, the house retains its overall Federal style characteristics. … Substantial remodeling of the first-floor rooms has removed or covered much of the original fabric. …

“The three-room upper floor is virtually unchanged [as of 1987, the publication date of the book]. The stair opens into the larger of the three rooms. … [T]he most notable feature in this room, and in the house itself, is the mantel. A rather typical molded surround frames the arched fireplace opening, but it is surmounted by an impressive Georgian style cushioned frieze and deep moldings supporting a prominent mantelshelf. It is the single most important piece of Georgian woodwork surviving in Yadkin County.”

104 S. West Street, Wilkesboro, Wilkes County
The Waverly and Pearl Morrison House

• Sold for $325,000 on July 11, 2024 (listed at $325,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,649 square feet, 0.13 acre
• Price/square foot: $197
• Built in 1940
• Listed June 6, 2024
• Last sale: $55,000, July 2023 (one of two properties sold, separate prices not broken out)
• Neighborhood: Downtown Wilkesboro Historic District (local and NR)
• Note: The house is at the corner of South West Street and West South Street.

District NR nomination: “The one-and-a-half-story-with-basement brick-veneer house is a good example of the Period Cottage style. The steep front-gable roof swoops downward in a curve toward the north, ending with an engaged porch with segmental-arched openings. At the south end of the façade, a slightly projecting gabled entrance bay with a round-arched door echoes the main body of the house in the swoop of its roof.”

The house was the office of the local chapter of the American Red Cross from 1991 to 2012.