Piedmont Historic Homes

Recent Sales

• Sold for $256,000 om December 22, 2022 (listed at $249,000)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,593 square feet (per county), 6 acres
• Price/square foot: $161
• Built in 1885
• Listed November 30, 2022
• Last sale: $200,000, July 2022

The Shutt family had owned the property since before the original house was built in 1885. Now the house is on the market again after being sold in July 2019 and July 2022.

The original one-and-a-half story timber frame house was built in 1885; the larger three-bay-wide weatherboard story-and-a-half house was added in 1905. They’re connected by a breezeway, providing air circulation throughout the house.

The listing says seven mini-split systems have been installed. How the interior components of the systems fit into the rustic look of the house is an intriguing question, but none are visible in the listing’s interior photos.

National Register nomination: “The J.E.B. Shutt House and outbuilding complex is an intact reminder of the emergence of a nineteenth- century, middle-class, subsistance-farm family who forged a successful business through inherent skills, careful management, and prosperous ventures. …

“During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Davie County, the Greek Revival style was being succeeded by the Italianate style which was followed by the Queen Anne style. Rarely did the rural house reflect the full expression of an architectural style but rather builders adapted details to traditional house forms.

“The post-bellum farmhouses in Davie County applied details of both Greek Revival and Italianate styles onto traditional house forms. The J.E.B. Shutt House form and simple stylistic details of both the 1885 block and the 1905 block are products of this post-war rebuilding era.

“The J.E.B. Shutt House, a typically conservative dwelling, blends delayed architectural details of Greek Revival and simple Italianate in the 1885 block with simple Queen Anne detail in the 1905 block. As such, the J.E.B. Shutt house personifies the traditional farmhouses of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and relates to their characteristics in general form and detail.

“The house is also a reflection of J.E.B. Shutt’s craft in that while the 1891 extension of the Southern Railroad allowed more access to manufactured goods, including mass-produced millwork, he elected to produce the woodwork for his new addition in his shop.

“Although J.E.B. Shutt was not a trained architect, evidence shows he had some knowledge of the architectural fashions of the day. This is exemplified by the entrance hall staircase which reflects the craftsmanship of J.E.B. Shutt while conveying his effort to achieve style.

“J.E.B. Shutt demonstrates his independence from the pure Greek Revival and Italianate styles through several characteristics in design. While the existence of both paired and single doors reflect the Greek Revival and the Italianate styles, five-panel doors are predominant instead of the more traditional one, two, and four panel doors of the Greek Revival style. The large panes of the front door and north side breezeway double doors express the Italianate detail. The simple door and window surrounds deviate from the typically ornate Greek Revival and Italianate houses.

“Although the characteristics of the mantels deviate from the more ornate Greek Revival and Italianate styles, the basic post and lintel mantelpieces are indicative of that style. Similar to many houses in the area … the hip-roofed porch extends over most of the front elevation with four posts linked by a balustrade support. The turned post and balustrades feature J.E.B. Shutt’s artistry in decorative detailing which are typical in the Queen Anne houses.”

“Wood products, such as furniture, grain cradles, coffins, and building materials, were the domain of the Shutt family who operated wood shops for nearly a century. John Edward Belle Shutt [1860-1932], son of John Wesley Shutt (1823-1888) and Mahala (Mahaley) Jane Sidden (1827-1870), in addition to maintaining a subsistence and cash crop farm, continued the family craftsman tradition with the 1898 establishment of his woodworking shop in an outbuilding adjacent to his house. He expanded his business into a separate commercial building on an adjacent lot to the north around 1905. …

“He furthered his enterprise by combining his blacksmith skills with woodworking to repair farm equipment and build wagon wheels, and later added to his expertise that of a licensed undertaker and coffin and casket dealer.”

---

• Sold for $510,000 on October 25, 2022 (listed at $495,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 4,901 square feet (per county), 4 acres
• Price/square foot: $101
• Built in 1860
• Listed September 20, 2022
• Last sale: $130,000, July 1992
• Neighborhood: Richardson Houses Historic District
• Note: One of three houses in the Richardson Houses Historic District
  • The listing shows only 4,800 square feet.

NRHP nomination: “The Robert Payne Richardson Houses Historic District, on the outskirts of Reidsville, North Carolina, is significant in the history of the town and the state as an outstanding example of a plantation complex chronicling the rise and decline in the fortunes of a family and a community over a period of nearly one hundred and fifty years. The associated buildings, including three principal houses and an important group of surviving domestic and farm-related outbuildings, combine to present a graphic picture of the development of the plantation complex through the continuous occupation of one family from the early 1840s to the present [i.e., 1986], although the majority of buildings were built prior to 1930.

“Built about 1842, the first house, a modest, hall-and-parlor plan Greek Revival
structure, is probably the oldest house surviving in Reidsville and predates by some thirty years the incorporation of the town. Its builder, Robert Payne Richardson, Sr. (1820-1909), who was only twenty-two at the time, became a prominent plantation owner, merchant and tobacco manufacturer in the second half of the nineteenth century.

“The more substantial structure that he added to the earlier house about 1860 reflects the steady rise in.his fortunes. The Italianate elements incorporated in the basically Greek Revival house anticipated the strong popularity of the Italianate style for substantial Reidsville residences in the quarter century following the Civil War. Richardson continued to live in the large, two-period house until his death in 1909.”

“The Robert Payne Richardson Houses Historic District consists of a complex of twenty-two buildings and structures sited on approximately thirty acres of land located some one and one-half miles southwest of the center of Reidsville in Rockingham County. Standing on sites elevated above the surrounding countryside are the three principal buildings in the district, the Robert Payne Richardson House I (ca. 1842), the Robert Payne Richardson House II (ca. 1860), and the Robert Payne Richardson House III, Belmont (1912).

“The houses are accompanied by a variety of outbuildings, both domestic and farm-related, on the three separate tracts comprising the district — the eleven-acre House I tract, the five-acre House II tract, and the fourteen-acre Belmont tract. These tracts are only a small portion of the more than 1600 acres which made up the Richardson plantation in its heyday.

“Although the surviving farm buildings attest to the once-significant farming operation, the acreage which remains associated with the houses now consists of woodland (behind and to the west of all three houses), terraced lawns (around the Robert Payne Richardson Houses II and III), and fallow fields (around the Robert Payne Richardson House I ). …

“It is believed that the house built by Robert Payne Richardson Sr. in the early 1840s originally stood on the site now occupied by Belmont, built by his son in 1912. This appears likely since the Belmont site is clearly the most commanding of the three on which the Richardson houses stand. Tradition also holds that the second house built by Richardson was joined to the first house, either directly or by a breezeway, and that the two were separated and moved to their present locations to the northeast and southwest of Belmont when the latter was constructed.”

---

128 Pet Burwell Road, Warrenton, Warren County
The John Watson House
National Register of Historic Places

• Sold for $1.149 million on September 20, 2022 (listed at $1.149 million)
• 6 bedrooms, 7 1/2 bathrooms, 6,909 square feet, 9.89 acres
• Price/square foot: $166
• Built in 1815, expanded 1855 (per county; see note)
• Listed June 18, 2022
• Last sale: $685,000, December 2019

Built by Jacob Holt: “Although not trend-setting or sophisticated, Jacob Holt’s work is important as a consistent and highly personalized oeuvre within the mainstream of mid-nineteenth-century American vernacular architecture. 

“Particularly significant are three aspects of his work: he was prolific, constructing dozens of buildings in a many-county area, perhaps as many as eighty; many of his buildings are documented and either surviving or pictured; and at least two mid-nineteenth-century pattern books are known to have been his sources. 

“His handsome Greek Revival buildings and distinctive, more ornate Italianate ones are an important element in the mid-nineteenth-century architectural fabric of North Carolina.” (NCpedia)

National Register nomination: “… a unique example of the Greco-Italianate mode of Jacob Holt and his school. His style dominated Warren County and nearby areas in the decade before the Civil War.

“The Watson House is unusual in two respects: for the use of a front cross-hall and side wings seldom seen in Holt’s work, and for the construction of the 1850s house as an expansion of a much earlier dwelling. While most of Holt’s houses were built all of a piece, he was clearly not above expanding an existing house in his distinctive style — and leaving the early house pretty much intact. 

“The house, typical of Holt’s two-story Italianate structures, has one of the county’s most beautiful porches and front entrance with well proportioned sawnwork brackets and graceful detail. In addition to the plan, the interior is important for its excellent and extensive marbleizing and woodgraining. 

“The earlier house still retains its original integrity from the simple Federal finish of the baseboards and flat paneled mantel in the attic room of the ell to the fine mantel in the first floor east room, typical of the Federal era in Warren County.”

---

2177 Highway 801 S., Advance, Davie County
The John Edward Belle Shutt House
Shutt House NRHP

• Sold for $200,000 on July 8, 2022 (listed at $144,500)
• 3 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,593 square feet (per county), 6 acres
• Price/square foot: $126
• Built in 1885
• Listed June 10, 2022
• Last sale: $82,500, July 2019. Before that, the property had been in the Shutt family since before the houses were built.
• Note: The original one-and-a-half story timber frame house was built in 1885; the larger three-bay-wide weatherboard story-and-a-half house was added in 1905. They’re connected by a breezeway, providing air circulation throughout the house.

National Register nomination: “The J.E.B. Shutt House and outbuilding complex is an intact reminder of the emergence of a nineteenth- century, middle-class, subsistance-farm family who forged a successful business through inherent skills, careful management, and prosperous ventures. …”During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Davie County, the Greek Revival style was being succeeded by the Italianate style which was followed by the Queen Anne style. Rarely did the rural house reflect the full expression of an architectural style but rather builders adapted details to traditional house forms. “The post-bellum farmhouses in Davie County applied details of both Greek Revival and Italianate styles onto traditional house forms. The J.E.B. Shutt House form and simple stylistic details of both the 1885 block and the 1905 block are products of this post-war rebuilding era.

“The house is also a reflection of J.E.B. Shutt’s craft in that while the 1891 extension of the Southern Railroad allowed more access to manufactured goods, including mass-produced millwork, he elected to produce the woodwork for his new addition in his shop.

“Although J.E.B. Shutt was not a trained architect, evidence shows he had some knowledge of the architectural fashions of the day. This is exemplified by the entrance hall staircase which reflects the craftsmanship of J.E.B. Shutt while conveying his effort to achieve style.

“J.E.B. Shutt demonstrates his independence from the pure Greek Revival and Italianate styles through several characteristics in design. While the existence of both paired and single doors reflect the Greek Revival and the Italianate styles, five-panel doors are predominant instead of the more traditional one, two, and four panel doors of the Greek Revival style. The large panes of the front door and north side breezeway double doors express the Italianate detail. The simple door and window surrounds deviate from the typically ornate Greek Revival and Italianate houses.

“Although the characteristics of the mantels deviate from the more ornate Greek Revival and Italianate styles, the basic post and lintel mantelpieces are indicative of that style. Similar to many houses in the area … the hip-roofed porch extends over most of the front elevation with four posts linked by a balustrade support. The turned post and balustrades feature J.E.B. Shutt’s artistry in decorative detailing which are typical in the Queen Anne houses.”

“Wood products, such as furniture, grain cradles, coffins, and building materials, were the domain of the Shutt family who operated wood shops for nearly a century. John Edward Belle Shutt [1860-1932], son of John Wesley Shutt (1823-1888) and Mahala (Mahaley) Jane Sidden (1827-1870), in addition to maintaining a subsistence and cash crop farm, continued the family craftsman tradition with the 1898 establishment of his woodworking shop in an outbuilding adjacent to his house. He expanded his business into a separate commercial building on an adjacent lot to the north around 1905. …

“He furthered his enterprise by combining his blacksmith skills with woodworking to repair farm equipment and build wagon wheels, and later added to his expertise that of a licensed undertaker and coffin and casket dealer.”

---

5838 N.C. Highway 61 N., Gibsonville, Guilford County
The Simeon Wagoner House

• Sold for $605,000 on May 10, 2022 (listed at $579,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 4 1/2 bathrooms, 4,067 square feet, 8.33 acres
• Price/square foot: $149
• Built in 1861
• Listed March 22, 2022
• Last sale: $275,000, November 2004
• Note: The property includes a detached building that can be a garage or workshop.

NRHP nomination: “A brick dwelling with distinctive recessed panels and corbelling, the Simeon Wagoner House is a unique antebellum expression of the Italianate style in Guilford County. It was built in rural Guilford County in 1861 for Wagoner, a successful merchant and farmer, and his wife, Elizabeth.

“The structure’s stylish exterior finish, coupled with its vernacular. center-hall, single-pile plan and form, reflects the convergence of two contrasting forces in the county just prior to the Civil War: the sway of the traditional in an almost exclusively vernacular landscape and the impact of the North Carolina Railroad, which pulled the county into a more urbane world of architectural ideas.

“The house’s unusual Italianate features were probably drawn from the railroad, either directly, via the enterprise’s antebellum Italianate repair facilities in nearby Burlington, or indirectly, via other Italianate style structures the Wagoners could have viewed along the railroad’s line.

“Simeon Wagoner (1827-1887) built his house, a mile northwest of the North Carolina Railroad’s Gibsonville depot, in the German Lutheran community of Friedens. An enterprising man whose commercial activities must have brought him into contact with a world beyond his rural community, Wagoner was a farmer, tanner, whiskey distiller, brickmaker, and store owner.

“At his general store, he sold meat, fish, whiskey, brandy, clothes, and leather goods. He shipped his whiskey by train from Gibsonville and by wagon along the Fayetteville Road, now Route 61 or Friedens Church Road, at the edge of which he built his house.

“In 1853 Wagoner married Elizabeth Summers (1831-1914). Four years later he inherited 103 acres of land from his father’s estate. Four years after that, in 1861, they built their house. Clay for the brick was dug locally and molded and fired into bricks across from the house.”

---

432 Willow Oak Drive, Eden, Rockingham County
Willow Oaks Plantation
Willow Oaks Plantation NRHP (as “Cascade Plantation”)

• Sold for $4.675 million on February 10, 2022 (listed at $5.7 million)
• Bedrooms and bathrooms not specified, 6,187 square feet, 1,768 acres
• Price/square foot: $756
• Built in 1825
• Listing date unknown
• Last sale: $1.58 million, August 2001

Property website: “For the past years the plantation has hosted hunting and sporting activities … Throughout most of our long history, Willow Oaks Plantation has been a private residence. The Property is reverting to such. Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.  More information is coming soon.” (via the Wayback Machine) The property includes two additional residences called the Lodge and the Ranch.

Located on the Dan River, the property includes creeks, two 6-acre lakes, ponds and shallow impoundments.

The property includes equestrian facilities.

---

284 S. Main Street, Mocksville, Davie County
First Davie County Jail
Davie County Jail NRHP
Blog post — The 1839 Davie County Jail: A National Register Property in Mocksville Is For Sale in an Online Auction

• Sold for $402,000 on December 22, 2021 (originally listed at $620,000)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,752 square feet (jail only), 0.53 acres
• Price/square foot: $229
• Built in 1839
• Listed January 29, 2015
• Last sale: $650,000, April 2001
• Note: The property includes the old jail and a guesthouse. The property is being marketed as residential or commercial. It has been used as an office for many years.

NRHP nomination: “The Davie County Jail is of considerable local significance, for its history parallels that of the county since its founding. The sturdy, well-maintained building with its handsome Flemish bond brickwork is an important Mocksville landmark.

“Davie County was formed in 1836 from Rowan County with court being held in Mocksville, the county seat, the next year. The jail was probably completed in 1839, the same year Mocksville was incorporated. The November 1839 court session held in Mocksville ordered “‘that Henry R. Austin procure locks of the best and most substantial construction for the Jail of Davie County and that he fix them to the doors, in the proper manner. … and that Thomas McNeely and Lemuel Bingham act as Commissioners to let out the building of a kitchen and smoke house on the jail lot according to plans to be furnished by the court.’

“Henry R. Austin was the architect-builder of the Davie County Jail as well as the courthouse (now destroyed). Both buildings were built under a single contract at a cost of about $40,000 which was raised by a bond issue.

“The jail served the county in its original capacity until 1909 when the board of commissioners bought part of the Davie Hotel lot from Gaston E. Horn as a site for the new jail The price paid was $4,000, and Mr. Horn accepted the old jail and lot, allowing the county $1,500 for the exchange.

“The property, which became a private residence, was owned by Mr and Mrs. Lonnie S Korfels during much of the twentieth century (1927-1968) and was purchased by Hugh S. Larew in 1969. He has restored the exterior and first floor and renovated the second floor as a residence.”

---

411 W. Union Street, Morganton, Burke County
The Dr .Joseph Bennett Riddle House

• Sold for $500,000 on December 10, 2021 (originally $595,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,779 square feet, 0.76 acre
• Price/square foot: $132
• Built in 1892
• Listed November 2019
• Last sale: $425,000, July 1998

National Register nomination: “The c.1892 Riddle House is an exuberant and well-preserved Queen-Anne home, one of the best examples of that style in the western piedmont town of Morganton, seat of Burke County (N. C.). The house is located on a deep lot on the south side of West Union street, historically the preeminent neighborhood for Morganton’s professional and business upper-class. The street is characterized by many substantial late-Victorian or early-20th century Colonial Revival homes sited on large, well-Iandscaped lots. …

“It is the most ornate and substantial example remaining of the many Victorian-era homes built on the street by the town’s professional class during the l890s. The house is associated with Dr. Joseph Bennett Riddle, prominent local physician and surgeon who was long connected with Grace Hospital of Morganton.”

---

112 N. Stratford Road, Winston-Salem
The Thurmond and Lucy Hanes Chatham House
National Register of Historic Places

• Sold for $1.725 million on September 28, 2021 (originally $1.45 million, later $2.1 million)
• 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 9,872 square feet, 2.72 acres
• Price/square foot: $175
• Built in 1925
• Listed April 30, 2019
• Last sale: $1.325 million, April 5, 2019
• Neighborhood: Buena Vista
• Note: Designated as a Forsyth County Landmark

Designed by Charles Barton Keen and William Roy Wallace for a couple whose marriage united two major Winston-Salem textile families, the Chathams (Chatham Manufacturing) and the Hanes (Hanes Hosiery and P.F. Hanes Knitting Company).

---

2834 Bellemont-Alamance Road, 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 has a Burlington mailing address but is well to the south, just off N.C. 62 south of the village of Alamance.

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. …

“Approached by a long gravel driveway, Sunny Side is situated on a slight knoll near the rear of a well-landscaped two-acre yard which retains remnants of the gardens planted by the original owner, textile magnate Lawrence S. Holt. The present house tract, once the center of a 600-acre working farm, is now bordered by contemporary houses located on large lots which line the road.”

---

1056 N. Main Street, Mount Airy, Surry County
The Edgar Harvey Hennis House

• Sold for $560,000 on August 19, 2021 (originally $649,900)
• 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,798 square feet, 0.78 acre
• Price/square foot: $147
• Built in 1909
• Listed March 15, 2021
• Last sale: $187,000, August 2017
• Neighborhood: Lebanon Hill Historic District

Listing: “The main home has 4 BR’s & 2 full baths; Formal LR, DR, Den, & Southern Kitchen. The upper level has a separate kitchen, to allow for multipurpose living, & lots of unfinished attic space which could easily convert to more living area or baths. The Carriage House has a fully functional apartment for separate living space, & a 2-3 car garage.”

National Register nomination: “The Edgar Harvey Hennis House is significant both architecturally and for its historical associations. Located at 1056 North Main Street in Mount Airy, the house is a handsome, intact example of early twentieth century design reflecting influences of the late Victorian and Colonial Revival styles. The large, well-detailed, asymmetrical one-and-one-half story brick veneer house features multiple projecting shingled gables with Palladian and round-arch windows, projecting bays, windows with beveled glass transoms, a generous, U-shaped wrap-around porch and a wealth of original interior decorative woodwork, mantelpieces and hardware. Granite, the hallmark Mount Airy building material, is used for window sills and lintels, porch plinths, foundation, and retaining wall.

“Constructed in 1909, the Hennis House is the earliest known residence built on Lebanon Hill. Lebanon Hill was a center of early Mount Airy suburban development from the 1910s through the mid-1930s. Located approximately three-quarters of a mile north of the central business district, Lebanon Hill was the site from 1831 to c. 1858 of the town’s first Methodist Church.

“The house was constructed for Edgar Harvey Hennis (1884-1965), a prominent early Mount Airy businessman, horse trader and, later, long-time owner of the town’s Chrysler automobile dealership. Hennis’ wife, Susan (1883-1983) owned the house until her death. The house remained virtually unltered during their seventy-four year occupation. The present owner has preserved the house and sensitively renovated the kitchen, baths and attic space.”

---

1700 Richardson Drive, Reidsville
Belmont, The Robert Payne Richardson Jr. House, 1912
Richardson Houses Historic District NRHP
Blog post — Sold: Belmont, The Robert Payne Richardson Jr. House, a 1912 Mansion Among Mansions in Reidsville

• Sold for $950,000 on May 10, 2021 (originally $1.495 million)
• 6 bedrooms, 5 1/2 bathrooms, 8,946 square feet, 8.67 acres
• Price/square foot: $106
• Built in 1912
• Listed June 13, 2018
• Last sale: Unclear in online records
• Note: County property records say the house has 8,946 square feet. A current listing lists that figure and an additional 3,332 unfinished square feet for a total of 12,278.

Note: Belmont is one of the three Richardson family homes comprising the principal structures of the Robert Payne Richardson Houses Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. The district consists of 22 buildings and structures on about 30 acres near downtown Reidsville.

Listing: “The home has been completely restored … currently being used as a private residence and venue for weddings and other events.”

---

106 N. McNeil Street, Carthage, Moore County
The J.C. Black House

• Sold for $460,000 on March 31, 2021 (listed at $475,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 3,594 square feet, 0.65 acre
• Price/square foot: $128
• Built in 1893
• Listed January 19, 2021
• Last sale: $349,000, March 2011

NRHP nomination: “Its irregular massing, variety of surface materials, and rich ornamentation create a sophisticated late Victorian house of the Queen Anne style. Located at the south comer of McNeill and Barrett streets only two blocks from the county courthouse, the J.C. Black House is set back from McNeill Street on an L-shaped, flat lot. The facade of the house is sheltered from the street by a row of trees composed of hollys, pines, oaks, and one large magnolia. Other trees and shrubs are scattered around the property, but in no formal pattern. A low stone wall dating from 1937 borders the yard on the front and northeast sides.”

“While the interior of the house has seen modest alterations through the years, the exterior remains largely intact with only a few minor changes. As a whole, the J.C. Black House retains a high degree of integrity in terms of location, setting, design, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association.”

“J.C. Black (1850-1902), who had broad political and commercial commitments in Moore County, was one of the most prominent men of his day in Carthage. A lawyer by profession, he served for years as Moore County attorney. Black was a strong promoter of economic growth in Carthage. Not only was he the leading spirit in the building of the Carthage Railroad in the mid 1880s, serving as its first president, but he was also one of the organizers and first stockholders of the Bank of Carthage.”

“Having been built during the pinnacle of Black’s career, his house survives as the consummate physical expression of his productive life and, in particular, his significance in the areas of commerce and politics/government. During the decade between the ca. 1893 construction of the house and Black’s death in 1902, J. C. Black represented Moore and Randolph counties in the state senate, served as mayor of Carthage, and was president of the Bank of Carthage. No other property attesting to his local importance survives.”

“After Black’s death, the house remained in family ownership and occupancy for nearly a century.”

---

1189 Jericho Church Road, Mocksville, Davie County
The McGuire-Setzer House
National Register of Historic Places

• Sold for $235,000 on January 11, 2021 (listed at $229,900)
• 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, 1,865 square feet, 1.823 acres
• Price/square foot: $126
• Built in 1825
• Listed October 19, 2020
• Last sale: $15,000, February 1994

National Register nomination: “… a relatively intact typical dwelling of the North Carolina Piedmont during the early decades of the nineteenth century. The house is composed of two one-room-and-attic pens, the first built about 1825 of log and the second, of frame construction, built against the west wall of the original house about 1835. … On the exterior, the house has weatherboard siding and flush gable-end eaves of the period. The interior contains a molded chair rail, Federal-style mantels, plank walls, ceilings, and floors, narrow molded surrounds on doors and windows, paneled and beaded doors, and boxed stair. A contemporary detached frame kitchen with large chimney and fireplace stands on the property, one of very few left in the county.”

Listing: “The home features fascinating Federal-style interiors with four substantial mantels and a unique boxed staircase with vintage box lock. The main home features two bedrooms and 1.25 baths.”

“The property includes two functioning outbuildings: a small guest cottage of 367 square feet with a full bath and fireplace (gas log insert needs to be replaced by buyer), plus a 255 square-foot contemporary structure that was used as a commercial kitchen at one time to support a bed-and-breakfast in the Main house. The converted guest house is one of the few remaining examples of an original detached kitchen building and lends itself to intimate living when desired or hosting guests.”

2020

6069 Burlington Road, Sedalia, Guilford County
The Dr. Joseph McLean House, 1852
National Register of Historic Places
Blog post — A circa 1850 National Register House in Guilford County Has Become Very Affordable (October 4, 2017)

124 West End Boulevard, Winston-Salem
The Henry D. Poindexter Cottage
National Register of Historic Places
Blog post — The H.D. Poindexter Cottage: A National Register Property in Winston-Salem’s West End, $299,900

• Sold for $307,500 on December 1, 2020 (listed at $299,900)
• 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1,420 square feet
• Price/square foot: $217
• Built in 1874
• Listed October 6, 2020
• Last sale: $172,000, June 2015
• Neighborhood: West End Historic District

The cottage was built behind the house at 506 W. Fifth Street, facing Spruce Street. Both were moved to West End Boulevard in 1978 to make way for the expansion of the Integon building (Winston-Salem’s Architectural Heritage).

Henry Dalton Poindexter was born in Yadkin County in 1849. In 1871, he moved to Winston-Salem, where he “became one of Winston’s earliest and most successful merchants,” the Poindexter houses’ National Register nomination says.

NRHP nomination: “In 1874, the year of his marriage to Augusta Miller, H. D. Poindexter moved into a cottage on Spruce Street. It is unclear whether Poindexter himself built the cottage, but he obtained the property from E. A. de Schweinitz, a Moravian brother. The original cottage was small, only three rooms, and local tradition maintains that Mr. Gaston Miller, a local builder, helped expand the cottage to five rooms. Miller lived in a two room dwelling on the corner of Spruce and Fifth Streets (the future site of H. D. Poindexter’s large home) until he built a larger home for himself on Fourth Street. When Miller moved to Fourth Street, legend maintains that he offered the two rooms to Poindexter if he would move them to his own lot. According to Ruth Poindexter, her father ‘went to the top and sawed the house in two.’ He then rolled the sections on logs to their new site adjoining his cottage. Eight of the nine Poindexter children were born in the five room cottage.”

The family lived there until around 1894.

---

3960 Walnut Hills Drive, Winston-Salem
The Christian Thomas Shultz House

• Sold for $65,000 on October 29, 2020
• 3 bedrooms, 1 1/2 bathrooms, 2,016 square feet, 1.18 acres
• Price/square foot: $32
• Built in 1825
• Apparently not listed publicly for sale

National Register nomination: “Its construction type demonstrates continued close cultural ties with the Moravians who settled Wachovia, retaining signature features of Germanic log construction, such as a large, exposed summer beam supporting exposed ceiling joists and a common rafter roof system with no ridge pole but with rafters supported by horizontal purlins, three trusses, and diagonal braces.

“Other features, such as the house’s stone foundation, gable roof with two gable-end chimneys, exposed and whitewashed interior walls, hall-and-parlor plan, enclosed stair, and fireplaces with large arched openings are characteristic of both Germanic and English construction.

“The Flemish-bond brick chimneys of the Shultz House are among a small group that survive in the county and are rarely found with log houses.

“Although some alterations were made to the house in the mid 1940s, these changes remained remarkably true to the house’s conservative heritage and simply reinforced the early-nineteenth-century vernacular character of the house. A 2005 field check of one-and-a-half- and two-story log houses recorded in western Forsyth County during an architectural survey conducted twenty-five years earlier demonstrates the increasing rarity of relatively well-preserved nineteenth-century houses of this type in this place.

“Within this context, the Christian Thomas Shultz House is one of the best surviving rural examples in Forsyth County. The house is accompanied by a late 1860s log smokehouse that is typical of countless smokehouses built in the western Piedmont during the nineteenth century, but that are rapidly disappearing from the rural landscape. The property’s period of significance is the construction date of the house, ca. 1830, and the erection of the smokehouse in the late 1860s.”

Undated photo included in the 2005 NR nomination:

---

279 Old Rail Road, Mount Airy, Surry County
The William Carter House (aka The Carter-Miller House)
William Carter House NRHP

• Sold for $2 million on August 3, 2020 (listed at $1.925 million)
  • 4 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, 5,678 square feet, 15.9 acres
• Price/square foot: $352
• Built in 1834
• Listed November 15, 2019
• Last sale: $1.3 million, March 2009
• Note: The property is protected by a preservation covenant held by Preservation North Carolina.
  • Located northwest of Mount Airy, west of Interstate 77
  • A creek forms the rear property line.
  • The property includes a “Mountain-Style Lodge” of about 550 square feet, built in 2006 along the creek.

National Register nomination: “Few houses in the county survive from the early nineteenth-century Federal period. … [The Carter House is] one of the most impressive, as well as one of the best preserved, dwellings of the period. It is the only pre-1850 brick house remaining in Surry County (and one of only three surviving from prior to 1900), which, in itself, renders it significant.”

The original brick house is now located behind a large 20th-century addition:

---

5869 U.S. 158 West, Locust Hill, Caswell County
The Moore House, 1790 (aka Stamp’s Quarters, aka the Moore-Gwyn-Ewalt House)
Moore House NRHP
Blog post — Historic House of the Week: A 1790 Federal-Style Mansion in Caswell County on the National Register

• Sold for $1.4 million on July 6, 2020 (listed at $1.75 million)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 6,226 square feet, 200 acres
• Price/square foot: $225
• Built in 1790
• Listed June 1, 2018
• Last sale: Unavailable in online records
• Note: The property apparently has a Yanceyville address but is located in the Locust Hill area, southwest of Yanceyville.

Listing: “The Moore-Gwyn-Ewalt House, a classic Federal style attributed locally to a design by Thomas Jefferson [Note: Jefferson’s name does not appear in the National Register documentation] was originally built in 1790 for Samuel Moore, a successful planter. The current owners added 2 flanking wings in 1995 housing 2 additional master bedrooms, a kitchen, family room & 2 offices. The 200+/- acres of fields & managed forests give the Moore-Gwyn-Ewalt House the appropriate landscape for its period & history, including the formal boxwood gardens & a fenced garden. Heated & cooled Guest House. Pond”

---

3125 N.C. Highway 62 N., Blanch, Caswell County
The John Johnston House
Blog post — The 1820 John Johnston House in Caswell County: An Immaculate Little Cottage on the National Register, $118,500

• Sold for $131,000 on June 26, 2020 (listed at $118,500)
• 2 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 937 square feet, 2.59 acres
• Price/square foot: $140
• Built in 1820
• Listed May 28, 2020
• Last sale: $48,000, December 2015
• Note: The house is a few miles northeast of Yanceyville toward Milton. The second floor (486 square feet) has heat and cooling but can’t be counted in the square footage because the ceiling height is only 6 feet, 10 inches.
  • A rear ell was added in the house’s 1990 restoration, containing a kitchen and bathroom.

National Register nomination: “The John Johnston House is an academically-restored early nineteenth-century rural house type that has almost disappeared from the North Carolina landscape. The house is set in a pristine section of this rolling Northern Piedmont rural county and evokes the feeling of the antebellum tobacco culture which gave rise to a plantation economy that supported several notable plantation seats. Although a number of the county’s great plantation houses are maintained in good condition, many of the modest, well-crafted Federal-inspired dwellings that once housed early nineteenth-century small planters have followed a typical progression of conversion to tenant houses, then to produce or equipment shelters, and finally, to abandonment and neglect.”

“In 1990, the John Johnston House, fallen into disrepair and bordering on decay, was rehabilitated with a meticulous academic restoration to its antebellum appearance, and a rear ell was added to render the house suitable for modern residential use. The owner recognized that a rare early house-type was concealed under early twentieth-century shed porch additions and a layer of stucco. As a result of the restoration, all early twentieth-century alterations were reversed, including the removal of the stucco and porches from all facades. The stucco was probably applied during the 1910s or 1920s, reflecting a common treatment of many other Caswell County buildings. The original beaded lapboard siding and window framing, which were deteriorated beyond repair, were replicated and milled to closely resemble the historic.”

---

80 Country Club Road, Tryon, Polk County
Friendly Hills
Friendly Hills NRHP

• Sold for $1.05 million on March 13, 2020 (originally listed at $2.475 million)
• 5 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 4,553 square feet, 17.54 acres
• Price/square foot: $231
• Built in 1924
• Listed April 20, 2018
• Last sale: $250,000, April 1983

Note: Friendly Hills was owned by Margaret Culkin Banning, novelist, essayist and an early advocate of women’s rights, from 1936 until her death in 1982. She spent the winters there (instead of her home in Duluth, Minnesota). “In addition to its acreage, Friendly Hills is composed of a 1924 Tudor Revival house, a 1920s-1930s swimming pool, a small log cabin built in the 1920s or 1930s, a stone-lined fish pool that probably dates from the 1920s, a 1988 workshop-garage, a 1988 well house, and a mid-1980s garage apartment.” (National Register nomination)

It’s located 1 1/2 miles from downtown Tryon.

Friendly Hills is under protective covenants held by Preservation North Carolina.

2019

1415 Kellenberger Drive, McLeansville
Miramichi
Miramichi NRHP
Blog post 1 (April 2017)
Blog post 2 (May 2018)
contract pending as of September 23, 2019

• Sold for $650,000 on October 31, 2019 (originally listed at $750,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,757 square feet, 32 acres
• Price/square foot: $173
• Built in 1921
• Listed April 6, 2018
• Last sale: $365,000, May 1999
• Note: The property includes a pond and a detached building that could be used as a studio, guest house or workshop.

---

118 S. Cherry Street, Winston-Salem
The Conrad-Starbuck House
Conrad-Starbuck House NRHP

• Sold for $330,000 on August 16, 2019 (listed at $699,000)
• 6 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms, 5,129 square feet
• Price/square foot: $64
• Built in 1890
• Listed April 30, 2018
• Last sale: $630,000, April 2008
• Note: The house is being marketed as a B&B, office, business or restaurant.
  • The property is next to the Cherry Street exit ramp on Business 40.

---

2177 Highway 801 S., Advance, Davie County 
The John Edward Bell Shutt House
Shutt House NRHP

• Sold for $82,500 on July 29, 2019 (listed at $89,900)
• 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 1,606 square feet, 6 acres
• Price/square foot: $51
• Built in 1885
• Last sale: The property has been in the Shutt family since the houses were built.
• Note: The original one-and-a-half story timber frame house was built in 1885; the larger three-bay-wide weatherboard story-and-a-half house was added in 1905. They’re connected by a breezeway, providing air circulation throughout the house.
  • The property is eligible for state and federal tax credits.

---

112 N. Stratford Road, Winston-Salem
The Thurmond and Lucy Hanes Chatham House
National Register nomination

• Sold for $1.325 million on April 5, 2019
• 12 bedrooms, 6 1/2 bathrooms, 8,738 square feet, 2.72 acres
• Price/square foot: $152
• Built in 1925
• Listing date not available
• Last sale: $704,000, February 2013
• Neighborhood: Buena Vista
• Note: Designated as a Forsyth County Landmark
  • The property does not appear to have been listed before the sale.

2018

2058 Brentwood Street, High Point
The Model Farm
Model Farm NRHP

• Sold for $31,100 on December 19, 2018 (listed at $30,000)
• 7 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 3,359 square feet, 1.99 acres
• Price/square foot: $9
• Built in 1867
• Listed September 13, 2018
• Last sale: $30,000, May 2014
• Note: The property, once 200 acres, now sits in a commercial/industrial area and is not suitable for residential use.

From the National Register nomination (2008): “The Model Farm house manifests a high degree of integrity due to its retention of its original, character-defining exterior architectural elements such as weatherboards, window and door surrounds, and the sidelights surrounding the front door.

“The interior also possesses good integrity, with original fireplace mantels, ten-foot ceilings, and door and window surrounds. The original stair design includes simple rectangular balusters and a turned newel post and cap. The original floor plan is intact other than the installation of a bathroom in place of the pantry between the dining and kitchen in the 1940s. …

“The Model Farm was established by the Baltimore Association of Friends to Advise and Assist Friends in Southern States in 1867 to educate Southern Quakers and other area farmers of the most modern methods to reclaim the soil, practice animal husbandry, and produce abundant crops.”

2017

707 Blair Street
The James H. and Anne B. Willis House
Willis House NRHP
Blog post

• Sold for $524,095 on August 2, 2017 (originally listed at $600,000)
• 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,077 square feet, 0.7 acre
• Price/square foot: $170
• Built in 1965
• Listed April 8, 2017
• Last sale: $495,000, October 2002
• Neighborhood: Irving Park
• Note: Mid-Century Modern classic, designed by the Lowenstein-Atkinson firm. The house has been meticulously restored by the current owners.

---

2715 Old Salisbury Road, Winston-Salem
The John Wesley Snyder House

• Sold for $296,000, July 1, 2016 (originally listed at $449,900)
• 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,373 square feet, 2.19 acres
• Price/square foot: $88
• Built in 1927
• Listed April 17, 2009
• Last sale: $275,0090, February 1999

National Register nomination: “Located just south of Winston-Salem, the John Wesley Snyder House is one of the most architecturally striking dwellings erected in Forsyth County during the early 1920s. The two-story house with its matching garage/apartment and smokehouse is a rare domestic example of solid stone construction in the county, particularly outside the city. Though it is more modest than the mansions of Winston-Salem’s industrial magnates, the Snyder House’s use of materials, Craftsman-style exterior, and outstanding Colonial Revival/Craftsman interior with wood paneling, stone fireplaces, and extensive collection of original lighting fixtures, combined with its matching outbuildings and picturesque rural setting, make it one of the county’s best domestic architectural complexes from the early 1920s. …

John Wesley Snyder (1889-1961) grew up in Forsyth County south of Winston-Salem. Around 1912 he moved into the city to seek his fortune. There, he joined his brother, Fred, in the establishment of the Snyder Credit Company, a combined credit and retail furniture business. This became John’s primary occupation throughout most of his adult life.

“On December 2, 1914, John Snyder married Treva Adelia Shore (1892-1938). … Although John continued to work in Winston-Salem, he missed the country and its connection to the land. Around 1918 John and Treva moved back to the country to help care for Treva’s sick mother; they lived with Treva’s parents in their home on Old Salisbury Road (Johnson Interview; Foltz Interview). On August 7, 1918, after the death of Treva’s mother, John purchased thirty acres of land on Old Salisbury Road from his father-in-law, John Joseph Shore. This became the site of the Snyders’ stone house.”

Older Sales

• Sold in July 1945, price not recorded on deed
• 4 bedrooms, 1 bathroom, 2,239 square feet, 7.91 acres
• Built circa 1787
• Not listed publicly for sale
• Last sale: 1938
• Note: The State Historic Preservation Office refers to this house as the “Col. Isaac Beeson House,” but Isaac was a devout Quaker who never served in the military.
  • County records date the house only to 1901.
  • The 1945 purchase included 160 acres; the house is now on a tract with 7.91 acres.

National Register nomination: “The substance, scale and formal complexity of details in this two-story brick house combine to provide an excellent and intriguing example of the retention of medieval plan type overlaid with Federal high style details which, in their robust interpretation retain a feel of the Georgian from which they emerge The Beeson House is a significant and useful survival in Piedmont North Carolina where it provides a complement and contrast to the German and Moravian fonns which tend to predominate.

“The Beeson House embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type (the Quaker plan), period (late Georgian-early Federal) and method of construction that is significant to the development of architecture in Piedmont North Carolina in the late 18th and early 19th centuries The use of the “Quaker plan”–the three-room arrangement–is found here in a house known to have been built for a Quaker family. The plan, together with the conservative gable-roof brick form, are characteristic of the more substantial houses of the North Carolina Piedmont. The interior woodwork is unusually rich and well-preserved.”

Isaac Beeson (d. 1802) came to North Carolina in 1758 and settled near his parents, Richard and Charity, Quaker ministers who had come from Virginia a few years earlier. Richard and Charity hosted a Quaker meeting in their home; in 1778 Isaac and his parents led the establishment of the Deep River Friends Meeting.

Isaac Beeson bought 480 acres on an eastern fork of Deep River, a few miles northwest of his father’s home. He built a small log house that stood immediately behind the present house. At some point a breezeway was built to connect the old house, which was used as a kitchen to the main house; that architectural feature survived until about 1900. Foundation remains of the old house can still be seen under the present kitchen.

“By 1787 Isaac had become a prominent Guilford County landowner and had risen in social status as far as his Quaker heritage would permit. His income was derived from livestock and grain production, but his religious beliefs prohibited ownership of slaves. Those same religious convictions had forced him to take a nonmilitaristic position in the American Revolution, but he had served the patriotic cause by hiring out his wagons and by supplying field troops with beef and other foods.

“The discovery of a brick dated 1787 suggests that Beeson either began or completed the house now standing in that year. … [T]he plan of the house closely follows a general style designed for Quaker homes by William Penn many years earlier and according to T.T. Waterman ‘is the typical house plan in Piedmont North Carolina.'”

In 1859 Isaac’s descendants sold the house to J.A. Davis, a “planter, local magistrate, and land speculator who was often referred to as Squire Davis.” Davis lost his fortune after the Civil War but managed to hang onto the property until around 1900.

In the early 20th century, the Beeson House became the center of a large tobacco farm operated initially by Thomas E. Reynolds, a member of the  R.J. Reynolds family. The house was briefly used for tobacco storage. 

In 1945 Lee Columbus Bame Sr. (1902-1980) and Etta Marie Johnson Bame (1917-1984) bought the Beeson House and 160 acres. It is still owned by their descendants, although the property itself is now just under 8 acres.