Houses don’t come up for sale that often in Old Salem, but the Belo-Stockton House is available again for the second time in about 10 months. The previous owners put the house on the market last December and accepted an offer in three days. They were able to close the sale in less than a month, even with the intervening holidays. I guess the buyer had no trouble getting a mortgage. It was an LLC belonging to L.M. Baker Jr., the former chairman of Wachovia.

It’s almost irresistible to linger over our shared memories of Mr. Baker — for those too young to remember, he typically went by his nickname, “Bud,” which rhymes with “mud” — but let’s not let his presence distract us from this wonderful house.

Priced at $440,000 this time, the house has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in 2,100 square feet ($210/square foot, right about the going rate for top-of-the-line historic houses in the most desirable neighborhoods). Pictures included in the listing suggest the interior and exterior are close to impeccable.

2834 Bellemont-Alamance Road, Alamance Village, Alamance County
Sunny Side

• Sold for $470,000 on September 28, 2021 (listed at $449,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,320 square feet, 1.77 acres
• Price/square foot: $142
• Built in 1871
• Listed July 1, 2021
• Last sale: $275,000, May 2016
• Note: The house was built by Lawrence Shackleford Holt (1851-1937), third generation member of the local family that dominated the Alamance textile industry in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
  • Nation Register nomination: “Sunny Side is a well~detailed, little-altered, two-story T-shaped frame Italianate style house with some Gothic Revival style features constructed in 1871 …. The cross-gable roof house with an elaborate bracketed cornice faces north and has a three-bay wide, single-pile main core with ornate two-bay hip-roof front porch, a projecting double-pile gable-front wing and rear ell at the east, and a small one-story single-room wing at the west. …

618 N. Main Street, Mount Airy, Surry County
The William Edward Merritt House
Heart & Soul Bed & Breakfast

• $850,000
• 7 bedrooms, 7 1/2 bathrooms, 5,024 square feet, 0.66 acre
• Price/square foot: $169
• Built in 1901
• Listed July 8, 2021
• Last sale: $152,000, April 2014
• Neighborhood: Mount Airy Historic District
• Note: The listing gives the square footage as 4,700.
  • District NRHP nomination: “Large, impressive two-story brick late Victorian style house with granite trim, dominated by a two-and-one-half story polygonal projecting bay and one-story wrap-around porch with spindle frieze.
  • “The virtually unaltered house also features decorative, tall, corbelled and recessed panel interior chimneys, one-over-one windows with granite lintels and sills, granite string course extending around the house above the second story windows, decorative sawn brackets supporting wide overhanging eaves and Colonial Revival interior features.
  • “Built in 1901 by contractor J.A. Tesh for W.E. Merritt, who owned a hardware store and brickyard, and was the founder of the Renfro Textile Company and one of the founders of the Mount Airy Furniture Company.”
  • William Edward “Ed” Merritt (1867-1946) was born in Chatham, Virginia. His wife, Caroline Octavia “Carrie” Kochtitzky Merritt (1868-1960), was a native of Oakland, Missouri. After they came to Mount Airy, Ed’s parents and five of his six siblings also moved to the town.
  • From the Mount Airy News: “As is often the case, this new blood energized and benefited the community, as they established or led several major businesses: Merritt Hardware, Renfro Hosiery, Mount Airy Furniture Company, Merritt Machine Shop, Piedmont Manufacturing Company, and Floyd Pike Electrical, the North Carolina Granite Corp., and others. Several family members have served as town commissioners, the city engineer, the Surry County Draft Board, the county Board of Commissioners, and in the US Navy and Army.”

529 W. Allenton Street, Mount Gilead, Montgomery County
Mount Gilead Waterworks Plant

• $169,000
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 2 half-bathrooms, 1,443 square feet, 1 acre
• Price/square foot: $117
• Built in 1932
• Listed May 1, 2021
• Last sale: $23,000, April 2014
• Note: The building was converted into a residence in 2015. It still needs some interior and exterior work.
  • It was constructed in 1932 by the Works Progress Administration.
  • The property includes a goldfish tank and a catfish tank.
  • The Mount Gilead Waterworks Plant is under protective covenants held by Preservation North Carolina. Contact Dawn Williams via email or 919-832-3652 x221 to request a copy.
  • The photos with the listing aren’t great. The video tour is better.