Piedmont Historic Homes

4 Historic Homes, for Sale for Years, that Just Haven’t Sold

June 1, 2025

Here are four historic homes that have been for sale for a conspicuously long time. They include a very historic 1798 National Register property in Forsyth County, an 1870 house in historic Milton, an intriguing 1898 mansion in Troy and a 1925 mansion in Greensboro’s Irving Park.

There are a variety of reasons why thy haven’t sold. Some are obvious — $600 per square foot is awfully high for any house, and Milton and Troy are a little remote from the hotter real-estate markets in the state. But the Greensboro house is a mystery. Click on the links for the complete listings.

You Can’t Always Get What You Want When Selling a Home, As These Recent Sales Show

May 12, 2025

Sold for $99,900 below initial asking price
Sold for $175,000 below initial asking price
Sold for $100,000 below initial asking price
Sold for $80,000 below initial asking price
Sold for $300,000 below initial asking price
Sold for $202,000 below initial asking price

There can be a lot of reasons why houses, historic and otherwise, sell for far less than their listed prices. Sometimes the sellers (and their agents) are just too optimistic. Sometimes inspections reveal previously unknown problems that would be costly to fix.

Here are seven historic houses that, for one reason or another, have sold recently at conspicuously lower prices than the sellers wanted. They include an 1885 house in Mount Airy, whose sale was especially painful; a 1929 bungalow in a very popular Greensboro neighborhood; a 1915 house in a Greensboro historic district; farm houses in Davidson and Davie counties; a Mid-Century Modern house in Greensboro; and a 1950s mansion in Reidsville. Some of the sellers at least deserve credit for facing reality and reducing their asking prices to get their houses sold in less than a year.

Competition to Buy Historic Homes Is Building, Especially in Winston-Salem

April 30, 2025

Sold for $55,000 over asking price
Sold for $20,000 over asking price
Sold for $22,000 over asking price
Sold for $15,000 over asking price
Sold for $31,000 over asking price
Sold for $15,000 over asking price
Sold for $26,000 over asking price
Sold for $9,500 over original asking price
Sold for $11,000 over asking price
Sold for $101,000 over asking price

It may seem like current trends — interest rates, especially — are disadvantaging both homebuyers and sellers these days. There are some interesting trends emerging, though. April has seen an uptick in the number of historic homes for sale. It’s largely seasonal, of course, but the sheer number of homes coming onto the market seems greater than the typical spring upturn.

At the same time, competition among buyers is becoming more common. This month, 14 historic-home sales have closed at prices above asking prices, eight of them in Forsyth County. Compared to recent years, that’s a lot. (There also have been a few closings with conspicuously lower prices than listed. There’s more to say about that next time.) Here are eight of the houses that have sold significantly above their asking prices this month, plus the big winner of the year, which closed at 67 percent over its asking price in January. Click on the links for more information.

Sold: Ayershire, an Impressive 1935 Mansion in Sedgefield, $2.8 million

April 14, 2025

For sale, on and off, for 17 years, one of Sedgefield’s most extraordinary homes has been sold. Ayershire, the 1935 mansion at 3215 N. Rockingham Road, had been in the family of textile executive Nathan and Martha Adams Ayers since it was built.

The price was $2.8 million. That figure works out to $212 per square foot, far less than the price of many relatively ordinary houses these days. But there just aren’t many buyers looking for 13,000 square-foot mansions. The buyers in this case live a half-mile away in Sedgefield, so we can hope that they appreciate its value and that Ayershire won’t meet the same fate as two similarly impressive multi-million dollar mansions — Adamsleigh in Sedgefield and the J. Spencer Love House in Greensboro — that were bought in recent years and then torn down by owners with more arrogance than sense.

A Huge Condo in a 1920 Building in Downtown Lexington, $535,000

April 12, 2025

A 4,000 square-foot, $600,000 condo would be uncommon anywhere in the Piedmont. In downtown Lexington, it’s a unicorn. 121 N. Main Street is the second floor of a commercial building dating back to 1920 or so. The building itself is a small but attractive contributing structure to the Uptown Lexington Historic District on the National Register. It’s at the corner of North Main Street and East 2nd Avenue.

Condos over downtown retail spaces are familiar in larger cities, but why an owner would create one gigantic condo instead of two smaller and more affordable units is a mystery (the unit is owned by one of the condo’s developers). The condo is relatively new; the building was converted to a condominium in 2021. The interior is contemporary with no trace of historic character, not even an exposed brick wall. Its most striking feature is a 1,300 square-foot space that now contains a home theatre, pool table, ping pong table and arcade video-game machine (if you know a teen-age boy who can afford a $600,000 condo, pass this along).

Four Remarkable 19th-Century Homes Listed One After Another

February 15, 2025

February is typically a rather slow month for new listings, and this one is no exception. And yet four outstanding 19th-century homes have popped up in the first two weeks of the month, scattered from one end of the Triad to the other among the region’s smaller communities. It’s a rare profusion of significant properties.

One is on the National Register. One is built into a hillside so snugly rocks form part of the interior walls. One has fallen on hard times (the other three are in great condition). One went under contract just three days after listing. All are well documented, which isn’t surprising, given their prominence.

Click on the address links for more information.

Happy Holidays to All from Piedmont Historic Homes

December 24, 2024

Hildy (left), Bobby and the entire Piedmont Historic Homes staff wish you happy holidays and a safe and peaceful new year.

2 Extraordinary Restoration Opportunities

August 19, 2024

It’s no surprise that it’s taking a while to find buyers for these two grand houses. Both are large projects that will require a lot of effort, vision and money. Neither, however, appear to be absolute, falling-down wrecks, and they both have the potential to be well worth the investment.

They both have stories. The Merry Oaks Hotel in Chatham County was once the center of a small but lively railroad community. The Charles T. Sinclair House in Carthage was built in 1904 and has never been sold. And with some luck and hard work (and money), they may have glorious futures ahead of them as well.

A Digression: The Heritage Brothers Big Three-Ring Trained Animal Circus, April-September 1926

August 16, 2024

This is a digression — there’s an interesting historic house that’s marginally involved — but who knew that two guys from Burlington started a big-time circus? Here’s a brief history, necessarily brief as there’s not a lot of information about it online (or probably anywhere else). I’ll post this to Wikipedia if I can figure out the coding on the footnotes.

The Heritage Brothers Circus had the distinction of being the only circus ever organized in Burlington. Circus veterans and brothers Albert and Arthur Heritage put the show together in the winter of 1925-26. It began operations by April 6, 1926, when it visited Raleigh. It closed on September 1, 1926, in Stafford, Kansas. The Greensboro Record reported that “it is thought that the show closed because it was not making good financially, as there were many misfortunes at different points in the itinerary.”

The 11 Most Interesting Homes Sold in July

August 9, 2024

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.

Historic homes for sale in the Piedmont Triad