Piedmont Historic Homes

418cherry

• 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)
• Note: The property includes a detached studio apartment (428 square feet).
• 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.”
  • Studio apartment: “This two-story, gable-roofed house is a secondary dwelling associated with 418 Cherry. The frame house has novelty weatherboard siding. A lattice vent at the top of the left gable and triangular brackets in the eaves of the gable are Craftsmen features which may suggest construction before 1940 but not necessarily before ca. 1935 (the house does not appear on the 1929 Sanborn map).”

1813 Alamance Church Road, Guilford County

• Sold for $460,000 on June 24, 2024 (originally listed at $499,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,298 square feet, 6.13 acres
• Price/square foot: $200
• Built in 1925
• Listed April 10, 2024
• Last sale: $282,000, May 2020
• Neighborhood: Just north of Forest Oaks
• Note: The property includes a barn, pasture, fenced areas for livestock and a pond.

• 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.
  • “A front porch with a much broader gable roof and Tuscan columns shelters the three-bay facade. On the south side of the house is a projecting two-story bay; on the north side is a shed-roofed dormer and a porte-cochere.”
  • “Little is known about the history of this house,” the nomination says. It identifies a family named Franklin as owning the house “during the second quarter of the twentieth century.” Columbus Bernard Franklin (1885-1970) and Sallie Martin Franklin (1886-1969) may have bought the property as early as 1912 from his parents, Richard Gwyn Franklin Sr. (1848-1930) and Ann Victoria Harris Franklin (1864-1959). Early deeds’ vague property descriptions and all but unintelligible handwriting make identifying specific properties impossible.
  • C.B. and Sallie sold the property 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.
  • Tragically, Florence took ill and committed suicide in 1937. The News & Observer described her as “a prominent church worker and reputedly one of the wealthiest women in Elkin.” The property was sold in 1945 by their son, William Freed Shores (1922-2005).
  • The buyers in 1945 were Carl C. Myers (1903-1961) and Laura Billings Myers (1906-1998). Carl founded Blue Ridge Airport in Elkin and operated Myers Supply Store. Laura sold the house in 1965 to son William Carl Myers (1927-1987) and Maxine Cheatwood Myers (1932-1991). They sold the house around 1984.

328 Vintage Avenue, Winston-Salem
The Burgess House

• Sold for $347,000 on June 24, 2024 (listed at $325,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,290 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $269
• Built in 1922
• Listed June 6, 2024
• Last sales: $310,000, October 2022; $276,000, September 2021
• Neighborhood: Washington Park Historic District
• District NRHP nomination: “Side-gabled jerkin-head house with projecting front-gabled porch supported by paired square posts on brick piers; three bays wide with central entrance and paired windows with 8/1 vertical-paned sash.
  • “Shingled; false knee braces and exposed rafter ends.
  • “Mrs. O.O. Burgess lived here in 1922; (her son?) Troy L. Burgess (wife Eva) moved here by 1923 from Alex Apartments; he was a clerk with R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company.”

• Sold for $223,500 on June 18, 2024 (originally $230,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,084 square feet, 0.62 acre (two lots)
• Price/square foot: $206
• Built in 1936
• Listed March 28, 2024
• Last sales: $195,000, July 2023; $129,500, January 2020
• Note: The property includes a one-car detached garage and an outbuilding.
  • Caveat emptor: Flipped house

258 West End Boulevard, Winston-Salem
The Murphy-Edmunds House

• Sold for $395,000 on June 17, 2024 (originally $399,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,465 square feet
• Price/square foot: $270
• Built around 1913 (see note below)
• Listed March 7, 2024
• Last sales: $290,000, October 2020; $154,500, October 2015
• Neighborhood: West End Historic District
• Note: The listing gives the home’s date as 1913. The National Register nomination says circa 1913. County records say 1915.
  • Nation Register district nomination: “This house is virtually identical to 612 N. Broad St. (#81), and the two appear to have been built at the same time. The house is a one-story pebbledash cottage characterized by irregular massing, a central pyramidal roof with intersecting gables which correspond with the various projecting bays and wings, tall interior chimneys, and a wrap-around porch with slender Tuscan columns and a plain balustrade. Typical of the setting of many West End houses, this one is located on a slight hill above the street and has a terraced yard with a handsome cut granite retaining wall and front walk steps.”

901 W. McGee Street, Greensboro

• Sold for $275,000 on June 17, 2024 (listed at $275,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 962 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $287
• Built in 1932
• Listed March 29, 2024
• Last sale: $62,000, December 1989
• Neighborhood: College Hill Historic District (local and NR)
• Note: This is the fishiest-looking deed I’ve ever seen. It’s dated April 26, 2024, three weeks before the offer was accepted (another offer was in place from April 14 to May 13). It wasn’t filed until June 17, 2024. The names of the grantees are written in by hand, apparently after the rest of the document was created.
• District NR nomination: “The few houses constructed in the district in the 1930s were generally Colonial or Period Revival in style, modestly finished, and clad in brick. Ornament for the brick-veneered, gable-end Diffie L. Lambert House at 901 McGee Street is primarily provided by a full-facade, Doric porch crowned with a broken pediment.”
  • Diffee Hackney Lambert (1901-1993) bought the property in 1929. He was listed at the address in 1933. He was a manager at Odell Hardware. He owned the house until 1941.
  • In 1944, the house was bought by William Vilas Whitley (1904-1971) and Mosey Rae Reele Whitney (1908-1983). William was a driver for Railway Express. Mosey was a typist at Jefferson-Standard Life Insurance. They lived in the house for the rest of their lives. It was sold in 1984 by Mosey’s estate.

• Sold for $480,000 on June 14, 2024 (listed at $465,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,834 square feet, 0.48 acre
• Price/square foot: $262
• Built in 1939
• Listed May 10, 2024
• Last sale: $425,000, October 2021
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property includes a detached garage.
• District NR nomination: “Period Cottage. One and a half story; side gable; front-gable dormers; aluminum siding; six-over-one, double-hung sash; arched hood over entry on knee braces; front-gable entry pavilion; side porch.”

710 Wharton Street, Greensboro
The Boyles-McCurry House
Sale pending May 24, 2024

• Sold for $365,000 on June 14, 2024 (listed at $380,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,152 square feet, 0.18 acre
• Price/square foot: $317
• Built in 1921
• Listed May 17, 2024
• Last sale: $68,900, August 2000
• Neighborhood: Fisher Park, just outside the historic district
• Note: Located across the street from the entrance to Green Hill Cemetery.
  • The house has had only four owners. Albert Reid “Happy” Boyles (1893-1975) and Flossie Anne Coble Boyles (1890-1976) were the original owners, shown at the address in 1922, the first year it was listed in the city directory. Albert was a foreman with El Moro Cigar Company. Their son, Albert Jr., sold the house in 1977.
  • Charles B. McCurry and Darcy C. McCurry (dates unknown for both) bought the house in 1977. They sold it in 1982 to one of the Boyles’s daughters, Lillie Frances Boyles McCurry (1917-1918), and John Rufus McCurry (1916-1998). John wasn’t their son, but otherwise their relationship is unknown. Frances and John sold the house to the current owners in 2000.

1015guilford

1015 Guilford Avenue, Greensboro

• Sold for $495,000 on June 13, 2024
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,016 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $246
• Built in 1924
• Last sale: $17,600, June 1965
• Neighborhood: Westerwood
• Note: Sold without being listed publicly for sale, apparently to a family member.

1622 W. 1st Street, Winston-Salem
The Robert and Mary Crawford House

• Sold for $569,400 on June 12, 2024 (originally $639,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,350 square feet, 0.31 acre
• Price/square foot: $242
• Built in 1928
• Listed August 11, 2023
• Last sale: $435,000, September 2022
• Neighborhood: West Highlands
• Note: The house was sold in 2020 and 2022.
  • The address appears in the city directory for the first time in 1928 with Robert Rowan Crawford Jr. (1876-1977) and Mary Price Hobson Crawford (1892-1979) listed as residents. Robert was secretary of the Crawford Mill Supply Company. By 1935 they had moved to Buena Vista Road.
  • In 1959, Wayne F. Minish Jr. (1925-2003) bought the house. He owned it for 39 years. At least initially he lived elsewhere and apparently used it as a rental property. The city directory identified him only as a “carrier.”

306 N. Chapman Street, Greensboro
The Frances and Julius Love House

• Sold for $640,000 on June 10, 2024 (listed at $655,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,283 square feet, 0.22 acre
• Price/square foot: $280
• Built in 1939
• Listed May 7, 2024
• Last sale: $670,000, November 2023
• Neighborhood: Sunset Hills Historic District (NR)
• Note: A rare house being listed at a loss.
• District NR nomination: “The one-and-a-half-story, three-bay, side-gabled, brick Cape Cod house displays a reeded arch crowning a fanlight over a paneled wood door flanked by sidelights with x-patterned muntins. Windows are six-over-six and on the façade they are crowned by segmental brick arches with cast masonry keystones.
  • “Three front-gabled, weatherboard dormers rest on the front roof slope. A brick chimney rises from the south gable end and through the flat roof of a weatherboard screened porch with square posts and a crowning wood balustrade. The interior of this center-passage-plan house remains intact.
  • “The Loves bought the parcel from A.K. Moore Realty in June 1939 and likely built the house soon thereafter. According to the 1940 census, Julius Love was born in Russia and had his own tailoring business. Two daughters living with the couple at the time of the census both taught in the city school system. The Loves remained owners until 1971.”

168 Charles Street, West Elkin, Wilkes County

• Sold for $232,000 on June 10, 2024 (originally $259,900)
  • Sold to buyers with a mailing address in Concord
• 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,453 square feet, 3.7 acres (per county)
• Price/square foot: $160
• Built in 1930
• Listed March 22, 2024
• Last sale: $48,000, January 2015
• Neighborhood: The house has an Elkin mailing address but is across the line in Wilkes County in West Elkin.
• Note: Out-of-town owner with an address listed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
  • County records show a 1950 date for the house, which looks way off. The listing says 1930, which is more likely.

504 S. 4th Street, Mebane, Alamance County
The Snipes-Pender House

• Sold for $350,000 on June 3, 2024 (listed at $325,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,637 square feet, 0.26 acre
• Price/square foot: $214
• Built in 1924 (per county but possibly a couple years later; see note)
• Listed April 30, 2024
• Last sale: $65,000, May 1995
• Neighborhood: Old South Mebane Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property includes a one-car garage and a two-car carport.
• District NR nomination: “This is a 1-story gable-front vernacular house of wood construction, clad in vinyl siding, with an interior brick chimney and a hip-roofed front porch supported by battered wood posts which rest on brick piers; the porch is enclosed with a wood balustrade with square balusters. The 3-bay façade has a centered entry and it appears that a gable-roofed addition, slightly shorter than the original house, has been built onto the rear elevation. Windows are flat-topped replacement multi-light sash.”
  • The property was sold in 1926 by the Mebane Land & Development Company to F.M. Snipes (1861-1935) and Eliza Jeanette Smith Snipes (1866-1939). Fred was a nightwatchman at the Mebane Royal Company when he apparently shot himself to death. “There is no known motive for his suicide and it is supposed that he committed the deed in a moment of mental aberration,” The News & Observer reported. The newspaper called him “one of Mebane’s oldest and most respected citizens.”
  • Their heirs sold the house in 1941 to Dewitt Albright Pender (1903-1991) and Dora Mildred Stone Pender (1012-1994). Dewitt was a supervisor at White Furniture Company, where he worked for 35 years. Their descendants are now selling the house.

505 Atwater Street, Burlington, Alamance County
The Wingfield-Cox House

• Sold for $285,000 on May 30, 2024 (listed at 290,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,355 square feet, 0.26 acre
• Price/square foot: $210
• Built in 1928
• Listed April 26, 2024
• Last sale: $212,000, October 2023
• Note: The original owners may have been Charles T. Wingfield (1887-1954) and Susanne Miles Wingfield (1891-1963). Charles was the proprietor of Wingfield’s Barber Shop. After Susanne’s death the house was sold to John Alvin Cox (1914-1990) and Glennice Jones Cox (1922-2006). John worked for Western Electric and was a member of the Telephone Pioneers. Glennice owned the house until her death.

1521 Seneca Street, Winston-Salem

• Sold for $398,500 on May 28, 2024 (originally $420,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,822 square feet, 0.15 acre
• Price/square foot: $219
• Built in 1912
• Listed March 15, 2024
• Last sale: $300,000, December 2022
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “Dutch Colonial Revival. One and a half story; cross-gambrel; weatherboard and decorative shingles; two-over-two, double-hung sash; hip roof porch; Tuscan columns; porch partially enclosed (may be original).”

• Sold for $215,000 in May 24, 2024 (originally $275,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,450 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $148
• Built in 1920
• Listed October 16, 2023
• Last sale: $30,000, July 2020
• Neighborhood: Rosemary Park, Lexington Residential Historic District (NR)
• Listing: “This home qualifies for a special lender program through First National Bank that allows little or no downpayment and up to $5000 towards closing costs with some restrictions.”
• District NR nomination: “One-story weatherboarded bungalow with a front-gable roof and a gabled front porch and porte cochere with large, square, stuccoed posts; 5/1 sash, brick interior chimney, false beams in gables, exposed rafter ends.
  • “The house appears on the 1929 Sanborn map and was occupied by H. Lee and Mabel Waters in Mr. Waters owned the H. Lee Waters photography studio.” Lee and Mabel bought the house in 1930 and lived in it until at least 1962. It was sold in 2020 by a descendant.
  • Photographs from the remarkably long career of Herbert Lee Waters (1902-1997) are in the Davidson County Historical Museum. “Beginning in 1926, H. Lee Waters captured local community life during a period of unprecedented change … from the Great Depression, through the WWII years, and on to the post-war manufacturing boom. …
  • Waters bought the studio in February 1926 from J. J. Hitchcock, but had been working with the older photographer for at least a year.  One of his first big commercial jobs was to document the construction of High Rock Lake Dam, 1926-1927.
  • “Waters married Mabel Elizabeth Gerald (1908-1974) a few months after buying the studio.  The young couple became partners in all aspects of running the studio, spending long hours at the studio. Before the advent of color printing, Mrs. Waters did all the hand painted tinting of portraits.”
  • H. Lee Waters website
  • H. Lee Waters Photography Gallery (Davidson County Historical Museum)
  • H.Lee Waters Film Collection (Duke University): “Born in Caroleen, North Carolina, in 1902, studio photographer Herbert Lee Waters supplemented his income from 1936 to 1942 by traveling across North Carolina and parts of Virginia, Tennessee, and South Carolina to film the people of small communities. He collaborated with local movie theaters to screen his films, which he called Movies of Local People. It is estimated that Waters produced films across 118 communities, visiting some of them multiple times.”

518 Church Street, Gibsonville, Guilford County

• Sold for $235,000 on May 17, 2024 (listed at $235,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,440 square feet, 0.92 acre
• Price/square foot: $163
• Built in 1927
• Listed April 24, 2024
• Last sale: $114,000, October 2002
• Red flag: No interior pictures are included in the listing.

211 S. Payne Street, Lexington, Davidson County

• Sold for $203,000 on May 16, 2024 (listed at $203,500)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,370 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $148
• Built in 1933 (per county, but probably earlier; see note)
• Listed March 1, 2024
• Last sales: $59,000, March 2020; $12,500, March 2017
• Neighborhood: Lexington Residential Historic District (NR)
• Note: The house is currently a short-term rental. “Can be sold fully furnished.”
• District NR nomination: “One-story German-sided bungalow with a clipped-front-gable roof and a wraparound porch supported by tapered posts on brick piers spanned by a brick railing; 4/1 sash, brick interior chimney, gabled bay projects from north elevation, exposed rafter ends. The house appears on the 1929 Sanborn map.”

701-703 5th Avenue, Greensboro
The Denny-McMahan House

• Sold for $550,000 on May 15, 2024 (listed at $495,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,136 square feet, 0.75 acre (two lots)
• Price/square foot: $257
• Built in 1923 (per county, but probably a couple years earlier; see note)
• Listed April 11, 2024
• Last sale: $273,000 total — $18,000 for 701 5th Avenue, February 2015; and $255,000 for 703 5th Avenue, June 2016.
• Neighborhood: Dunleath Historic District (local), Summit Avenue Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property consists of two lots — 701 5th Avenue, on the corner of 5th Avenue and Yanceyville Street, and 703 5th Avenue, which is the lot with the house.
  • The original owner of the house was C.M. York, who bought the property in 1920. By 1921, the first time the address was listed in the city directory, York had sold the house to Kathleen Shirley Evan Denny (1864-1928), and she and her husband, Robert McCheyne Denny (1855-1942) were living at the address. Robert was a clerk with Arctic Ice & Coal Company. They sold the house in 1925 but continued to live in it until 1929.
  • In 1941, Noah McMahan (1894-1969) bought the house. His widow, Ruby Lee Rakestraw McMahan (1904-1980), sold it in 1970. Noah was the superintendent of the Greensboro water filter plant. He was a veteran of World War I.
• District NR nomination: “This eclectic cottage draws from a number of late nineteenth and early twentieth century styles; its round-arched porch recalls the Richardsonian Romanesque and its continuous shingled walls the Shingle style, while its diamond-paned windows and exposed rafter ends harken to the more contemporary Tudor Revival and Craftsman styles.”

• Sold for $345,000 on May 9, 2024 (originally $369,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 1,460 square feet, 0.25 acre
• Price/square foot: $236
• Built in 1925
• Listed March 14, 2024
• Last sale: $239,000, January 2020
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “Period Cottage. Side facing jerkinhead roof; one and a half story; wood shingles; six-over-six, double-hung sash; asymmetrically gabled entry pavilion with recessed door in arched opening; stuccoed, facade chimney.”

• Sold for $225,000 on May 9, 2024 (originally $250,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,886 square feet, 0.37 acre
• Price/square foot: $119
• Built in 1930
• Listed March 23, 2024
• Last sale: $89,000, November 1999
• Neighborhood: Lamrocton
• Note: One of at least four log cabins in the 2500 block of Pinecroft Road. All date from 1928 to 1930.

• Sold for $645,000 on May 3, 2024 (listed at $635,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,820 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $354
• Built in 1913 (per county, possibly a bit later; see note)
• Listed March 29, 2024
• Last sale: $365,000, July 2015
• Neighborhood: Fisher Park Historic District (local and NR)
• Note: The house doesn’t appear in the city directory until 1917. It was listed that year with Walter Harry Dickieson (1883-1970) and Ethel Hale Dickieson (1888-1976) identified as the residents. Walter was a traveling salesman. They don’t appear to have owned the house, although the original owner is difficult to identify.
  • By 1927, Pearly Arthur Hayes (1882-1963) and Virginia Townsend Hayes (1890-1973) owned the house and were renting it out. They lived next door at 206 East Hendrix. Pearly was a prominent local businessman and a prolific buyer of Greensboro real estate. He was president of Byrd Laboratories, which produced patent medicines; president of Justice Drugs, a drug wholesaler and manufacturer; and secretary-treasurer of Barbee-Hayes Company, wholesale confectioners. He was still chairman of the board of Justice Drug when he died at age 80.
  • He served as a City Council member and mayor pro tem. He was chairman of the Juvenile Court Commission from 1933-1953. During World War II, he was a member of the local draft board. He served as president of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce, Greensboro Rotary Club and the Community Chest.
  • Pearly was a founder of the N.C. Pharmaceutical Research Association and in 1940 served as president of the National Wholesale Druggists Association.
  • By 1922, Frank Thomas Miller (1884-1960) and Louise Davis Miller (1888-1983) were listed as the tenants. By 1931, they had bought the house, and it stayed in their family until 1983. Frank was a consulting engineer.

• Sold for $225,000 on April 30, 2024 (originally $299,500)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,402 square feet, 1.45 acres
• Price/square foot: $161
• Built in 1909
• Listed August 12, 2023
• Last sale: $140,000, August 2020

• 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. They are typically frame or brick residences, one-and-one-half stories with broad gable roofs and gracious, engaged front porches. … [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. …
  • “Spacious, handsomely detailed one-and-one half story brick bungalow … The large attached front porch, with wide, gabled entry bay, extends across the main elevation to the north to encompass a porte-cochere; heavy, battered brick piers support the porch.
  • “Both the porch gable and an offset gabled dormer feature rough stucco and applied wooden trim imitative of half-timbering and are lighted by Palladian windows. The main entrance is composed of leaded glass sidelights and multi-paned door.”
  • Early Quincy Benbow (1895-1962) and Hallie Stanton Benbow (1900-1981) were the original owners. They bought the house in 1931 and lived in it until 1951.
  • Early was born in Guilford County; he was a veteran of World War I. He came to Mount Airy in 1926. He and his partners opened the Grand Theatre in 1928 and the Earle in 1935.
  • Adding a little local color to the online listing:

• Sold for $134,000 on April 25, 2024 (listed at $149,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,168 square feet, 0.6 acre
• Price/square foot: $115
• Built in 1925
• Listed March 10, 2024
• Last sales: $89,000, February 2021; $49,000, December 2017

• Sold for $475,000 on April 25, 2024 (listed at $449,900)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,413 square feet, 0.21 acre
• Price/square foot: $197
• Built in 1931
• Listed March 8, 2024
• Last sale: $332,000, July 2020
• Neighborhood: Lindley Park
• Note: The listing contains “beauty,” “charm,” “gorgeous,” “exquisite,” “stunning,” “delights,” “spacious,” “perfect,” “cozy,” “serene,” “charm” (again), and “charming.”

• Sold for $480,000 on April 24, 2024 (listed at $459,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,494 square feet, 0.47 acre
• Price/square foot: $321
• Built in 1927
• Listed January 1, 2024
• Last sale: $228,500, September 2016
• Neighborhood: Sedgefield
• Note: For sale by owner
  • The Sedgefield Country Club is across the street.
  • The property includes a swimming pool.
  • The house is one of the oldest in Sedgefield. Development of the community began in 1923.

The original owners were Sidney Love Alderman (1860-1931) and Bessie Carolina Sherrill Alderman (1870-1939). Sidney was a commercial photographer and artist, “prominently identified throughout the greater part of his life with the civic advancement of Greensboro,” the Greensboro Daily News said upon his death. They bought the property in 1925. Although Bessie died in 1939, her estate didn’t sell the house until 1965.

In 1966 the house was bought by Audrey Herzberg McCrory (1925-2006) and Rollin John McCrory (d. 1995). They moved to Sedgefield from Columbus, Ohio. Audrey was born in Milwaukee. She earned a B.S. in nursing from Marquette University and masters and doctoral degrees in human growth and development from UNC Greensboro. She taught sociology at Elon University, High Point University and Guilford Technical Community College. They were the parents of Pat McCrory, former governor of North Carolina. Audrey sold the house in 2004.

• Sold for $389,900 on April 24, 2024 (originally $424,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1,636 square feet, 0.10 acre
• Price/square foot: $238
• Built in 1912
• Listed October 13, 2023
• Last sale: $124,900, January 2023 (last previous: $3,000, March 1976)
• Neighborhood: Dunleath Historic District (local), Summit Avenue Historic District (NRHP)
• Note: Caveat emptor — flip job with a gigantic markup. It does look better than when they bought it, though.
  • Longtime rental property
  • Although it was built in 1912, the district’s NRHP nomination classifies the house as a “non-contributing structure”: “Permastone, asbestos siding, and altered windows have compromised this dwelling’s integrity.”
  • Dr. Rigdon Osmond Dees (1884-1954) and Helen Hazel Groome Dees (1891-1988) were the original owners. Rigdon bought the property in 1913, and they sold it in 1933, although by 1923 they had moved to 305 S. Mendenhall Street.
  • Dr. Dees was a physician and surgeon. He practiced with his brother, Ralph Erastus Dees (1881-1957). Rigdon and Helen moved to Myrtle Beach in 1952. They were the paternal grandparents of noted media figure Rigdon Osmond Dees III (b. 1950).

• Sold for $535,000 on April 17, 2024 (originally $599,900)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,176 square feet, 0.45 acre
• Price/square foot: $246
• Built in 1950
• Listed November 29, 2023
• Last sale: $217,000, December 1996
• Neighborhood: Starmount Forest
• Note: The original owners were Alois V. Flock (1921 or 1922-1986) and Cecile C. Flock (dates unknown), who bought the property from the Starmount Corporation in 1949. Alois was a factory worker who later worked in advertising and sales. They sold the house in 1953.

• 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)
• Note: The home of the late poet, novelist and critic Fred Davis Chappell (1936-2024) and Susan N. Chappell. They bought the house in 1973. 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.
• District NR nomination: “The one-and-a-half-story, three-bay, hip-roofed, brick Period Cottage with front and side gables features a projecting, flat-roofed porch supported by decorative metal posts.
  • “The porch shelters the single-leaf front door and a small, fixed-light window just to the south (right) of the entrance. Brick steps flanked by metal balustrades lead to the concrete and brick porch where the metal balustrade continues.
  • “A front-gabled dormer with German siding rests on the front hip-roofed slope, while a large, shed-roofed dormer occupies the north elevation roof slope. Windows are six-over-six and framed by soldier-course lintels and header-course sills. A brick chimney rises on the south gable end.
  • “A flat-roofed, two-bay garage with tile coping is attached to the south elevation; because of the topography, it is set lower than the house.”
  • Floyd Ray Eubanks Sr. (1906-1953) and Nancy Caroline “Nannie” Eubanks (1908-1998) bought the property in September 1938 “and likely built the house soon thereafter. He was owner of Banks Clothing Company. They sold the house in 1951.”

• Sold for $365,000 on April 11, 2024 (listed at $355,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,580 square feet, 0.12 acre
• Price/square foot: $231
• Built circa 1922
• Listed September 9, 2021
• Last sales: $307,500, March 2022; $216,500, October 2014
• Neighborhood: Southside
• Note: Although county records date the house only to 1935, the address appears in city directories as far back as 1922. The original owners were John Ward Sparrow (1891-1967), a brakeman, and his wife, Ruby Juanita Bain Sparrow (1896-1969). They owned the property until 1938 but bought it back two years later. They sold it a second and final time in 1943.
  • With the decline of Southside in the mid-20th century, the property fell into disrepair and was acquired by the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission in 1999. As part of the city’s ambitious rehabilitation of the neighborhood, it was restored and sold to a new homeowner in 2001.
  • How the house looked in 2022:

• Sold for $291,500 on April 11, 2024 (listed at $289,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 2,212 square feet, 0.20 acre
• Price/square foot: $132
• Built in 1930
• Listed March 9, 2024
• Last sale: $265,000, October 2022
• Neighborhood: Sherrod Park Historic District (NR)
• Note: For sale by owner
• District NRHP nomination: “1 1/2 story brick Craftsman style house, quite similar to the Crissman House at 226 Woodrow Ave., with overhanging bracketted eaves, a stuccoed shed dormer across the rear, and a side front porch with heavy brick posts.
  • “W.L. and Mazie Hepler bought the lot in December 1927 and apparently built the house soon afterward. In July 1928 they lost the house through foreclosure. Hepler was a captain in the City Fire Department.”
  • Walter Lee Hepler, 1877-1940; Mazie Eleanor Roach Hepler, 1880-1970

• Sold for $201,000 on April 11, 2024 (listed at $208,900)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,080 square feet, 0.15 acre
• Price/square foot: $186
• Built in 1914
• Listed November 2, 2023
• Last sale: $60,000, May 2023
• Neighborhood: Lexington Historic District (NR)
• Note: Caveat emptor — quickie flip job, listed at an audacious price. The listing includes no interior photos.
• District NR nomination: “One-story weatherboarded bungalow with a side-gable roof and a gabled front porch supported by square posts on brick piers; 12/1 sash, wood shingles and false beams in gables, exposed rafter ends, brick interior chimneys.
  • “The house appears on the 1923 Sanborn map, was vacant in the 1925-26 city directory, and occupied by Henry C. and Myrtle Leonard in 1937. Mr. Leonard was a contractor.”

• Sold for $599,999 on April 10, 2024 (originally $749,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 3,182 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $189
• Built in 1905
• Listed on September 22, 2022
• Last sale: $150,000, June 2021
• Neighborhood: West End Historic District (local and NRHP)
• District NRHP nomination: “The Lentz House is a one-and-a-half-story frame bungalow with a broad gable roof with overhanging, braced eaves, three hipped dormers across the front, a south side bay window, nine or twelve-over-one sash windows, and an unusual wrap-around engaged porch with paneled posts set on brick plinths.”
  • At one point, the house had aluminum siding. The listing says it now has vinyl siding, which is very unusual in a local historic district.
  • “A cement and stone retaining wall begins at the front walk and wraps around the east and north sides of the property.
  • “James M. Lentz, Forsyth County’s Register of Deeds for twenty-nine years, purchased the property in 1913, although city directories list him at this location as early as 1907.” Lentz (1868-1949) died at age 81. He was still in office as register.
  • The Lentz family owned the house until 1975, when they sold it to Elizabeth Ann Melton (dates unknown). She owned the house until 2019.

• Sold for $455,000 on April 9, 2024 (listed at $465,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,876 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $243
• Built circa 1926 (see note)
• Listed February 23, 2024
• Last sale: $360,000, December 2021
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• Note: County records show a 1937 date. The district’s National Register nomination says circa 1926.
• District NR nomination: “Craftsman Bungalow. One and a half story, front gable; asbestos siding; four (vertical)-over-one, double-hung sash; gable front porch with square columns; sidelights; knee braces. 1926 [city directory]: Lansing Womble, a high school teacher, and wife Phoebe.”

• Sold for $200,000 on April 9, 2024 (listed at $225,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,154 square feet, 0.21 acre
• Price/square foot: $173
• Built in 1890
• Listed February 29, 2024
• Last sales: $48,500, November 2022; $52,000, April 2020
• Note: Caveat emptor — flipped house with a pretty huge markup. A lot of the historic character on the interior appears to have been lost, although, to their credit, they kept the wooden siding.
  • How it looked when it was sold in 2022:

2314elizabeth

• Sold for $730,000 on April 5, 2024 (originally $650,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,684 square feet, 0.25 acre
• Price/square foot: $433
• Built in 1925
• Official listing date March 21, 2024 (the offer was accepted while the house was listed as “coming soon”)
• Last sales: $399,500, February 2021; $225,000, May 2017
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property has a detached guesthouse (800 square feet), built in 2023.
  • The listing calls it “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!” but this would be the third time the house has been sold in seven years.
• District NR nomination: “Period Cottage. One story; hip roof; front-gable projection; brick; six-over-one, double-hung sash; flat-roof porch; square posts; stuccoed gable end.”

• Sold for $365,000 on April 4, 2024 (originally $365,000)
• 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,815 square feet
• Price/square foot: $130
• Built in 1937
• Listed February 28. 2024
• Last sales: $256,000, November 2020; $195,000, April 2012
• Neighborhood: Sherrod Park Historic District (local and NR)
• District NR nomination: “1 1/2 story brick Tudor house, with side gable roof and front cross-gable and extremely simple detailing consisting of exposed heavy timber window lintels and door framing and eave brackets.”
  • The lot was bought in 1931 by May Renfrow Shuford (1899-1993); the deed indicates there was no home on the property. May and her husband, Forrest Herman Shuford Sr. (1897-1954), lived nearby on Hamilton Avenue. He was High Point’s juvenile court probation and parole commissioner, or “boys commissioner.”
  • The Shufords moved to Raleigh in 1933, when Forrest was appointed chief inspector for the state Department of Labor. They may have built the house, although there’s no indication they ever lived there. It was listed in the city directory for the first time in 1938, identified as vacant.
  • May sold the property in 1938 to Claude S. Canady, assistant fire chief. He sold the house around 1944.

• Sold for $375,000 on April 3, 2024 (listed at $380,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,082 square feet, 0.23 acre
• Price/square foot: $180
• Built in 1924
• Listed March 8, 2024
• Last sale: $20,400, December 1965
• Neighborhood: Emerywood, Uptown Suburbs Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “This one-story, side-gabled, Period Cottage is three bays wide and double-pile with a full-width gabled rear wing. The house has a brick veneer with soldier-course brick watertable and continuous lintels.
  • “The six-over-one, wood-sash windows are generally in groups of two or three. There is a slightly projecting, front-gabled bay on the left (west) end of the facade and an inset porch under a gabled bay on the right (east) end of the facade.
  • “The porch has brick supports with arched openings and shelters a fifteen-light French door. There are arched vents in the side gables and fanlights in the two front gables. A frame, gabled ell extends from the left rear (northwest).
  • “The earliest known occupant is J. William Lindsay (secretary/treasurer, Guilford Hosiery Mill) in 1927.”

• Sold for $699,000 on April 2, 2024 (listed at $699,000)
  • The buyers’ address is listed in Carmel, Indiana.
  • The sale closed 15 days after the full-price offer was accepted, 18 days after the house was listed for sale.
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,473 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $283
• Built in 1933 (per county, but probably a few years earlier; see note)
• Listed March 15, 2024
• Last sale: $295,000, November 20, 2023
• Neighborhood: College Park
• Note: This is a bafflingly high price for a house in this neighborhood and an audacious money grab. To compare, one of the grandest mansions in Irving Park was recently sold for $402/square foot.
  • The address was first listed in the city directory in 1926 with Dewey Madison Morris (1898-1937) and Addie R. Morris (1902-1992) as residents. Dewey had come to Greensboro in 1920 from Spray, where he worked for Carolina Cotton and Woolen Mills. He was city auditor and chief of the Accounting Department until 1926, after which he organized the State Industrial Bank and served as vice-president and cashier until 1931. He later headed the district office of Hogart Manufacturing Company. At the age of 38, he died on a trip to Raleigh “of what the coroner reported apparently was an attack of acute indigestion.”
  • Dewey and Addie had lost the house to foreclosure in 1932. In 1936 Conrad Bryan Haynes (1896-1976) and Mary Belle Smith Haynes (1903-1992) bought the house and owned it for the rest of their lives. Haynes was a salesman for Rabb-Smith Company, a store that sold appliances, radios, sporting goods, toys and games.
  • Mary’s heir sold the house in 1994.

• Sold for $294,000 on April 2, 2024 (listed at $299,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,249 square feet, 0.14 acre
• Price/square foot: $235
• Built in 1925
• Listed March 1, 2024
• Last sale: $124,500, September 2005 (see note)
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property was donated to the Winston-Salem Foundation’s land holding company in November 2023.
• District NR nomination: “Colonial Revival Bungalow. One story; gable-on-hip roof; front-facing jerkinhead roof porch; Tuscan columns; six-over-six, double-hung sash; asbestos shingle siding; stone retaining wall.”
  • The address first appears in the 1926 city directory with William Graves (1892-1937) and Lena Irene Davis Graves (1898-1958) as residents. William was born in Mount Airy. He studied at Guilford College and the University of North Carolina. After serving in World War I, he studied at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1920, he began practicing law in Mount Airy, moving to Winston-Salem in 1923.
  • Graves gained a measure of fame when he represented the defendant in North Carolina’s crime of the century, the 1932 killing of Reynolds heir Z. Smith Reynolds. Graves was co-counsel for Reynolds’s wife, Libby Holman, who was accused of murdering her husband. After the charges were dismissed, he represented Holman and her son, Christopher Smith Reynolds, in a civil action over her husband’s $30 million estate (she received $750,000; Christopher received 25 percent, about $6 million).
  • On his death at age 45, the Winston-Salem Journal said, “[T]he humanity of William Graves was nothing less than remarkable. He had that subtle, indefinable, sense of appreciation, of understanding, which enabled him to say and do the things most needful and most gracious.”

406 W. Bessemer Avenue, Greensboro

• Sold for $337,000 on April 1, 2024 (listed at $335,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,253 square feet, 0.26 acre
• Price/square foot: $269
• Built in 1926 (per county, but probably earlier; see note)
• Listed March 2, 2024
• Last sales: $319,900, February 2022; $165,500, November 2010
• Neighborhood: Fisher Park Historic District
• District NRHP nomination: “Colonial Revival bungalow, 1920-23. Gable-end structure with full facade, engaged, columned porch.”
  • The first residents were Leon M. King and his wife, Edith. He was a salesman with Justice Drug Company. They were listed at the address in the city directory in 1921.
• Note: This is an Aladdin kit home, the Kentucky model. Developer J.E. Latham had a number of Aladdin homes built in this part of Fisher Park.

• Sold for $369,000 on March 28, 2024 (listed at $369,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,742 square feet, about a half acre (see note)
• Price/square foot: $212
• Built in 1949
• Listed February 23, 2024
• Last sale: $141,900, July 2016
• Neighborhood: West Salem Historic District (NR)
• Note: The listing calls it a half-acre lot. County records list the property as 0.23 acre, but the GIS map shows two lots combined as one, which should be about a half acre.
• District NR nomination: “Period Cottage. Large example. One and a half story; side gable; steeply-pitched, front-gable projection; brick facade chimney and entry surround with stone accents; round-head door; picture window; eight-over-eight, double-hung sash; vinyl siding. Appears on 1951 Sanborn map.”
  • The original owners were Forrest Flynn Ader (b. 1930), a clerk at the O’Hanlon-Watson Drug Store and later a layout operator and analyst at Western Electric, and Virginia Juanita Cope Ader (1929-2012), a physician’s receptionist and later for 20 years a teacher’s assistant. They were listed at the address in 1951, the first year it was included in the city directory. They sold the house in 1979.

• Sold for $203,000 on March 28, 2024
  • Sold at auction. Starting bid: $127,500 (originally $159,300)
  • The seller is a mortgage company that acquired the property in a foreclosure auction in December 2023.
  • The buyer is an LLC in Raleigh.
  • The home is occupied, but the auction service advertises an “eviction partner” (“Evictions can be difficult — End2End Solutions makes it easy”).
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,192 square feet, 0.30 acre
• Price/square foot: $64
• Built in 1918
• Listed January 19, 2024
• Last sale: $210,622, December 2023 (foreclosure auction)
• Neighborhood: Old Post Road Historic District (local), Reidsville Historic District (NR)
• Something you don’t see everyday: The house has “a secret entrance to the attic in an upstairs room” (according to a previous listing).
• Note: Next door is the Penn House, a National Register mansion now owned by the city and operated as a wedding and event venue.
• District NR nomination: “At the same time that the classical revival styles were enjoying popularity in Reidsville and elsewhere, the less formal bungalow became a dominant house form, with the craftsman style being the prevailing fashion. some of its elements were grafted onto other forms, particularly the four-square, many examples of which have porches very similar to those frequently found on bungalows. In its various guises, the bungalow was built for professionals, merchants, foreman at local industrial plants, as well as members of the blue-collar community.
  • “Two of the finest examples of the bungalow in Reidsville are located on Maple Avenue and were built at about the same time. Constructed in 1917 for attorney and Recorders Court Judge Ira R. Humphreys, the house at 312 Maple Avenue has a clipped gable roof, wide shed dormer, a shed-roofed porch supported by tapered wooden posts on brick piers, and wood shingle siding in the gable ends. …
  • “[T]his handsome one and one-half story frame bungalow was an attractive addition to the landscape as a somewhat unusual example of the style. Set on a well-shaded, elevated lot with a stone retaining wall, the house features a clipped gable side roof, a wide shed dormer with exposed rafter ends and a smaller shed attic dormer layered above.
  • “A one-story, attached, shed-roofed porch with tapered posts on brick piers and a turned balustrade spans the three-bay facade, paired ten over one windows flanking the entrance, which has beveled sidelights and transom.
  • “Interior end chimneys on the north and south elevations have exposed faces. A bay window on the south elevation and a porte cochere on the north complete the house, whose only exterior change has been the application of aluminum siding [now vinyl] on the first floor, leaving the wood shingle gable ends intact.”

• Sold for $325,000 on March 26, 2024 (listed at $325,000)
• 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,425 square feet, 0.58 acre
• Price/square foot: $134
• Built in 1947
• Listed February 17, 2024
• Last sale: December 2023, price not recorded on deed
• Note: The property includes a circular driveway and a detached garage.

• Sold for $510,000 on March 25, 2024 (originally $549,900)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 2,433 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $210
• Built in 1927
• Listed September 22, 2023
• Last sale: $440,000 September 2021
• Neighborhood: Ardmore Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “Craftsman Bungalow. One and a half story; side gable; brick; large, hip-roof dormer with wood shingle sheathing; six-over-one, double-hung sash; engaged porch; battered posts on brick piers; projection on east side with crenellated parapet.”
  • The original owners were R. Lee Coleman and Era Belle Coleman (dates unknown for both). Lee was vice president and general manger of the Red Star Filling Station and general superintendent of North Carolina Oil Company. He also served as secretary of the Loyal Order of Moose Lodge No. 466.

• Sold for $365,000 on March 22, 2024 (listed at $369,900)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,372 square feet, 0.38 acre
• Price/square foot: $154
• Built in 1920
• Listed January 23, 2024
• Last sale: $110,000, June 2023
• Neighborhood: Central Leaksville Historic District (NR)
• Note: Flipped house with a difference — this one has refinished hardwood floors and restored original windows.
  • The 2023 listing showed 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms.
• District NR nomination: “The simple, functional bungalow, a nationally popular style in the 1920s, is well represented in central Leaksville with a number of intact examples found throughout the district. They share similarities in their one or one-and-one-half story form with gently pitched broad gables and spacious, engaged porches.
  • “A group of three exceptionally well-preserved one-and-one-half story frame bungalows, constructed between 1910 and 1920 and ornamented with a variety of decorative elements, is located at 510, 512 and 514 Patrick Street. They differ slightly and represent variations on a theme. The house at 510 Patrick has a gracious wraparound porch and gabled dormer …”

• Sold for $328,000 on March 12, 2024 (originally $349,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,380 square feet, 0.29 acre
• Price/square foot: $138
• Built in 1948
• Listed September 14, 2023
• Last sale: $320,000, May 2023 (listed at $300,000)
• Note: The house had only two owners in its first 59 years. Now it’s for sale for the second time in five months. The owners are asking $30,000 more than they paid in May.
  • The house is across the street from High Point Central High School.
  • The street was called Jones Street when the house was built. The house number has always been 812.
  • The original owners were Robert David Armfield (1905-1963) and Helen Allred Armfield (1910-1993). Robert was a printer for the Greensboro Daily News.
  • Helen sold the house in 1964 to James Herbert Blair (1925-2009) and Helen Marie Bayne Blair (1926-1973). James was a Navy veteran of World War II. He was co-owner of Green House Fabrics. Herbert and his second wife, Edith Lucille Calloway Blair (1932-2017), sold the house in in 2007.

• Sold for $392,500 on March 4, 2024 (listed at $399,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,044 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $192
• Built circa 1917
• Listed January 24, 2024
• Lasr sale: $235,000, June 2018
• Neighborhood: West End Historic District (local and NR)
• Note: County record give the date as 1925; more reliable records show an earlier date.
• District NR nomination: “Even though the Cassel House was sheathed with aluminum siding in recent years, it remains a good representative example of a basic bungalow house type. The one-and-a-half-story frame dwelling has broad gable roofs for the main body, the front dormer, and the facade porch, all of which have widely overhanging braced eaves.
  • “The front porch features square Tuscan posts on stuccoed plinths and a plain balustrade, Typical of the West End, the front yard has a stone retaining wall and steep stone steps.
  • “The 1917 Sanborn Map depicts this house, and it is first listed in the city directories in 1918 as the residence of pharmacist Arthur S. Cassel and his wife, Alice. They occupied the house through at least 1925, and in 1927. W.T. Shaffner acquired the property. He used it as a rental house until selling it in 1940.”

• Sold for $367,000 on March 4, 2024 (originally $412,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 950 square feet, 7.75 acres
• Price/square foot: $386
• Built in 1932
• Listed November 18, 2023
• Last sale: $133,000, September 2016
• Note: The property has an Eagle Springs address but is about 4 miles north in northwestern Moore County.
  • The property was in the Cole-Blake family for more than 100 years. In 1903, Lovda Cole Blake (1873-1954) bought the property from Joseph Burl Cole (1869-1949) and Margaret Bethel Blake Cole (1871-1930). Lovda was married to David W. Blake (1875-1959); his name wasn’t on the deed. Some familial connection seems likely, but its exact nature isn’t identifiable from online records.
  • In 1951, Lovda and David sold the property to their daughter Margaret Cole Whitley. She owned it until 2001.

• Sold for $365,000 on February 26, 2024 (originally $390,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,004 square feet, 9.9 acres
• Price/square foot: $182
• Built in 1928
• Listed September 26, 2023
• Last sale: $91,000, April 2018
• Note: The house has a Burlington mailing address but is in the village of Alamance, 6 miles south of Burlington.

• Sold for $363,000 on February 22, 2024 (listed at $365,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,929 square feet, 0.46 acre
• Price/square foot: $188
• Built in 1922
• Listed January 12, 2024
• Last sale: $155,000, June 2014
• Note: The house is a block away from the West Davis Street-Fountain Place Historic District.
  • Some listings show 2,817 square feet, 46 percent larger than county records, which say 1,929.
  • The original owners most likely were Walter Allen Mebane (1881-1948) and Lena Garrison Mebane (1884-1973). They were listed throughout the 1920’s and 30’s at 803 W. Front Street, an address that no longer exists but was probably the original address of 909 (city directories showed 803 as the second house west of Atwater Street, now the location of 909 W. Front). Walter was president of the Mebane Shoe Company, retailers of Star Brand Shoes and Hosiery and “one of the city’s oldest stores,” according to his obituary.
  • Lena may also have owned the house next door at 905 W. Front. It’s identified on the State Historic Preservation Office map as the Lena Garrison House.
  • The listing says the house still has its original front-yard light at the sidewalk. It’s quite striking, but none of the photos show it.

• Sold for $174,000 on February 20, 2024 (originally $225,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,112 square feet, 0.35 acre
• Price/square foot: $156
• Built in 1928
• Listed July 24, 2023
• Last sale: $160,500, December 2022
• Note: Fix-and-flip; caveat emptor.

• Sold for $260,000 on February 16, 2024 (listed at $285,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,518 square feet, 0.17 acre
• Price/square foot: $171
• Built in 1920
• Listed November 23, 2023
• Last sale: $115,000, December 2019
• Neighborhood: Gwyn Avenue-Bridge Street Historic District (NR)
• Note: The house is now being used as an short-term rental and is being marketed as such, fully furnished.
• District NR nomination: “The one-story, weatherboarded frame bungalow is historically associated with W.J. Snow, the county tax collector.
  • “The most distinctive features of the house are its prominent roof and porch. The roof has a broad front gable with a horizontal five-light window flanked by trapezoid louvered vents, and smaller side gables, two per side. The gable ends are wood shingled, and the overhanging roof eaves are braced.
  • “The expansive wraparound porch is engaged beneath the house roof and features tapered wood posts set on brick plinths.
  • “The house has both exterior and interior chimneys, three-over-one sash windows, and a three-bay facade with a center entrance flanked by pairs of windows.
  • “Like the yard at 372 Gwyn Avenue, this yard has a river rock low retaining wall, step risers, and round planters.”
  • William Jasper Snow (1875-1971) and Etta Grace Parks Snow (1879-1938) are buried just across the street in Hollywood Cemetery.
  • Behind the house and to one side, the yards are paved with asphalt; an office building occupies what apparently was the back half of the lot. The property line appears to follow the edges of the pavement.

• Sold for $239,000 on February 16, 2024 (originally $289,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,558 square feet, 1.52 acres
• Price/square foot: $153
• Built in 1920
• Listed October 26, 2023
• Last sale: $1,000, July 1975
• Note: The original owners were A.J. Borrow and his wife, N.A. Burrow (dates unknown for both), who bought the property in 1920. After they lost it in a foreclosure, it was bought in 1945 by Luther Gordon Burrow (1892-1972) and Ina Steed Burrow (1894-1961). Their heirs sold the house in 1975.
  • The home has been owned since 1975 by Brenda Morton Johnson (1943-2022). She was a born in West Montgomery County and graduated from Montgomery High School. She had degrees from Appalachian State and UNC Charlotte. She was a special education teacher for 43 years.

• Sold for $259,900 on February 12, 2024 (listed at $259,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,377 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $189
• Built in 1928
• Listed November 24, 2023
• Last sale: $$112,000, August 1994
• Neighborhood: Westerwood
• Note: Being sold by an estate.
  • The original owners were Houston Jones Wilson (1871-1948) and Susan R. Highfill Wilson (1869-1947). Houston was a printer and a carpenter. They sold the house in 1930 to their adopted daughter, May Crocker Wilson (1891-1945). She sold it in 1944. May worked in the circulation department of the Greensboro Daily News until she retired in 1940 due to poor health.
  • May sold the house to George W. Lemons Jr. (1905/1906-1989) and Georgia V. Lemons (dates unknown). George was advertising manager for the Greensboro Daily News, a position he held for 23 years. He served as president of the national Newspaper Advertising Executives Association in 1959. He also served as president of the Greensboro Merchants Association and the Greensboro Holiday Jubilee and as a charter director of the United Fund of Greater Greensboro. George sold the house in 1988.

• Sold for $189,000 on January 29, 2024 (listed at $189,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 990 square feet, lot size not recorded in online records
• Price/square foot: $191
• Built in 1935
• Listed December 11, 2023
• Last sale: $65,000, September 2023
• Neighborhood: Gwyn Avenue-Bridge Street Historic District (NR)
• Note: Caveat emptor — very quick flip job
• District NR nomination: “Historically associated with the Tyson family, the one-story, brick, Minimal Traditional house has a broad, side-gable roof, six-over-six sash windows, and an off-center front entrance marked by a small roof gable that is echoed by a small, gabled porch with slender posts and a segmental-arched ceiling.
• “Chimneys are on the south side and rear of the house, and a gabled porch extends from the south side of the house.
• “A steep set of steps leads up the terraced front yard to the house.”

• Sold for $242,000 on January 24, 2024 (listed at $250,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,148 square feet (per county), 0.93 acre
• Price/square foot: $113
• Built in 1936
• Listed December 21, 2023
• Last sale: August 2002, price not recorded on deed
• Note: The kitchen and bathrooms have had recent work; one of the bathrooms appears unfinished, as does at least one bedroom.

• Sold for $458,000 on January 23, 2024 (listed at $469,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,858 square feet, 0.19 acre
• Price/square foot: $247
• Built in 1929
• Listed December 7, 2023
• Last sale: $355,000 on February 15, 2022
• Neighborhood: West Salem Historic District
• District National Register nomination: “Craftsman Bungalow. One story; side gable; four (vertical)-over-one, double-hung sash; wraparound porch; knee braces; shingled gable ends; weatherboard; stone retaining wall and steps from street.”
  • The address first appears in the city directory in 1926 with Walter Ray Hauser (1895-1984) and Viola Mae Wrights Hauser (1898-1966) as residents. Walter worked in the office of Southern Railway for 17 years before operating a grocery store next door at 415 W. Academy. That property is now part of a two-acre complex of duplexes built in 2002.
  • The Hausers lived in the house until at least 1963. In 1988 it was sold by the city for restoration as part of the redevelopment of the neighborhood.

• Sold for $276,000 on January 23, 2024 (originally $284,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 2,287 square feet, 0.39 acre
• Price/square foot: $121
• Built in 1917
• Listed July 12, 2023
• Last sale: $85,000, September 1998
• Neighborhood: Old Post Road Historic District (local), Reidsville Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “Although clad in aluminum siding, this one and one-half story frame residence remains a handsome example of a craftsman bungalow dating probably from the early 1920s. Topped by a side gable roof, it has a small gable dormer, and a larger gable above the entrance bay of the one-story porch; large triangular brackets support the deep roof over-hangs. An exterior end chimney rises through the roof overhang on the north elevation.”

• Sold for $230,000 on January 23, 2024 (listed at $230,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,070 square feet, 0.20 acre
• Price/square foot: $215
• Built in 1910
• Listed December 13, 2023
• Last sale: $`164,000, August 2021
• Neighborhood: West Salem Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “Tri-gable Cottage with Queen Anne decorative work. One story; side gable; asbestos shingle siding; decorative wood shingles in gables; two-over-two, double-hung sash; hip-roof porch; turned posts; sawn brackets. Appears on 1917 Sanborn map.”
  • The original residents were Charles Craft (1883-1952) and Laura Jarvis Craft (1886-1972), listed on Hunter Street in 1915. Charles was a motorman. By 1928 they had moved.

• Sold for $480,000 on January 18, 2024 (listed at $475,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3,076 square feet, 0.66 acres
• Price/square foot: $156
• Built in 1910
• Listed December 8, 2023
• Last sale: $212,000, April 2014
• Neighborhood: Gwyn Avenue-Bridge Street Historic District (NR)
• Note: The property includes a garage with former maid’s quarters upstairs.
• District NR nomination: Many one- and two-story Queen Anne-style houses in the district “reflect the fanciful spirit of the style.”
  • “The ca. 1910 Mason Lillard House at 105 Gwyn Avenue made use of an asymmetrical Queen Anne-style form, while incorporating a hint of the Colonial Revival style in its wraparound porch with Tuscan colonettes. When built, the Lillard House was one of only six brick houses in Elkin. Mason Lillard was an executive with the nearby Chatham Manufacturing Company and a civic leader. …
  • “Thomas Mason Lillard (1870-1943) moved to Elkin from Tennessee in 1891 to work for the Chatham Manufacturing Company. He quickly became active in the community, and in 1896 was listed as a member of both the Elkin Cornet Band and the Elkin Bicycle Club. In 1902, Lillard married Kate Gwyn, but she died two years later.
  • “By 1907 Lillard had become secretary of the Chatham Manufacturing Company; he later was promoted to vice-president. Also in 1907, Lillard married his second wife, Marion Howison Kelly (1881-1966). Educated at the North Carolina College for Women in Greensboro, she moved to Elkin in 1901 to become secretary to Hugh Chatham, and in doing so, became the first woman to be employed in the offices of Chatham Manufacturing Company.
  • “The Lillard House was probably built ca. 1910, within a few years after the marriage of Mason and Marion. According to Grady Burgiss, writing in the October 4, 1934, issue of The Elkin Tribune about Elkin twenty years earlier (1914), the T.M. Lillard House was one of only six brick houses in Elkin at that time. Here the Lillards reared four daughters born between 1909 and 1918.
  • “Mason Lillard was an active member of the Methodist church. In 1914 he served on an appointed citizens’ committee—with C.E. Holcomb and A.G. Click—to oversee the installation of Elkin’s water and sewerage system and to arrange for the town’s new lighting system. He was on the original board of trustees of the Hugh Chatham Memorial Hospital when it was established in 1931.
  • “Lillard was also on the boards of directors of the Elkin Building and Loan Company, the Elkin National Bank, and the Bilt-Rite Furniture Company, and he served as secretary and treasurer of the Elkin Water Company, directing its operation and growth for many years. His community service continued with his help in surveying, planning, and maintaining Hollywood Cemetery.
  • “Marion Lillard also possessed a strong community spirit. Like Mason, she was an active member of the Methodist church. She also was a charter member of the Yadkin Valley Garden Club, the Elkin Woman’s Club, and the Parent-Teacher Association. Accustomed to being a ‘first’ when it came to women’s roles, Marion Lillard was also the first woman member and the secretary-treasurer of the Elkin School Board.
  • “Set on a rise above both Gwyn Avenue and Market Street, the Lillard House is a one-and-a-half-story brick dwelling. Its metal-shingled roof consists of multiple front and side intersecting gables; two shed dormers flank the north-side gable.
  • “Interior chimneys pierce the roof. A distinctive wraparound porch features grouped Tuscan colonettes set on brick plinths and a turned balustrade. Another, smaller, porch wraps around the northwest corner at the rear of the house. It has turned posts and is screened.
  • “On the south side of the house, what was originally an open porch is now a sun room enclosed with jalousie windows. Other windows are one-over-one sash. …
  • “Because of the district’s topography, many houses have no outbuildings. … The oldest outbuilding in the district is also one of the largest. It is the one-and-a-half story frame garage/apartment associated with the Mason and Marion Lillard House at 105 Gwyn Ave.
  • “Though now covered with vinyl siding, the ca. 1910 building still conveys a strong sense of its original appearance, when it provided housing for a servant with space below for a vehicle. The building has a steep hipped roof with intersecting cross gables.”

• Sold for $407,500 on January 8, 2024 (listed at $385,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1,927 square feet, 0.29 acre
• Price/square foot: $211
• Built in 1922
• Listed December 1, 2023
• Last sale: $250,000, August 2019
• Neighborhood: Emerywood, Uptown Suburbs Historic District (NR)
• District NR nomination: “This one-and-a-half-story, side-gabled, Craftsman-style bungalow is three bays wide and double-pile with an oversized, front-gabled dormer on the facade. The house has plain weatherboards with wood shingles in the gables and on the dormer.
  • “It has six-over-one, wood-sash windows and six-over-one windows flanking the eight-over-one windows on the facade. The eight-light-over-two-panel door is sheltered by a full-width, engaged, shed-roofed porch supported by tapered wood posts on brick piers.
  • “There is a shed-roofed, projecting bay on the left (west) elevation and a small, gabled dormer at the rear. There is a replacement arched window in the left gable, knee brackets in the gables, and exposed rafter tails throughout.
  • “The earliest known occupant is T. Elmer Hunt (electrician, Bryant Electric Company) in 1923.”

• Sold for $212,250 on January 8, 2024 (listed at $220,000)
  • Sold to a house-flipper
• 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 1,632 square feet, 0.60 acre
• Price/square foot: $130
• Built in 1910
• Listed December 8, 2023
• Last sale: $160,000, January 2022

• Sold for $171,900 on January 8, 2023 (originally $199,900)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,638 square feet, 0.46 acre
• Price/square foot: $105
• Built in 1910
• Listed November 16, 2023
• Last sale: $119,000, October 2021
• Neighborhood: Decatur-Hunter Historic District (local)
• Note: The original owners were John Thomas Wilson (1847-1936) and Minerva Amos Wilson (1848-1942), who bought the property in 1909. John enlisted in the Confederate Army at age 16. He later worked in the marble business before retiring at age 79. When he died at age 89, he was reported to be Madison’s oldest resident.
  • The house remained in the Wilson family until 2002.

• Sold for $325,000 on January 5, 2023 (originally $359,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,691 square feet, 0.22 acre
• Price/square foot: $192
• Built in 1922
• Listed October 25, 2023
• Last sale: $115,000, November 2002
• Neighborhood: Westerwood
• Note: The original owners were David Lawson Shreve Sr. (1883-1950) and Marjorie Robertson Shreve (1896-1981, later Marjorie Shreve Moore). They bought the house in 1923 and sold it in 1927. David was a salesman for Justice Drug Company.
  • After three changes of ownership and a foreclosure, the house was sold in 1938 to Lee Thomas Sidden (1898-1989) and Mary Shutt Sidden (1898-1963). They owned the house for 27 years. Lee was co-proprietor of Gate City Paint Company.