North Carolina – Piedmont Historic Homes

This Week’s Best: An 1871 Italianate on the National Register, a Notable Architect’s Bungalow and a Relatively Affordable MCM

September 7, 2025

This week’s most notable new listing was built by a member of Alamance County’s Holt family in 1871. Sunny Side, 2834 Bellemont Alamance Road, was originally owned by Lawrence Shackleford Holt (1851-1937), a third-generation member of the pioneering mill owners. they were to 19th-century Alamance County what the Scotts were to 20th-century Alamance, although the Holts produced only one governor (Thomas, 1891-1893) compared to the two Governor Scotts (Kerr, 1949-1953, and his son Bob, 1969-1973).

The house is way down on the south side of the village of Alamance, an Italianate with well preserved Gothic Revival details.

This Week’s Best: Two National Register Houses, a Sweet MCM in Asheboro and an 1875 House in Greensboro

August 3, 2025

Two houses on the National Register were put up for sale this week. The John Randle House, circa 1800, on Lake Tillery near Norwood has 27 acres, a richly detailed history and a million-dollar price tag. The J.L. Hemphill House in Wilkesboro is an 1895 Queen Anne with just about the shortest National Register nomination you’ll ever see. Those things usually read like the writers got paid by the word.

This 1979 Mid-Century Modern home in Asheboro is an outstanding example of the style, which isn’t too common in the region’s smaller towns but does keep popping up here and there, now and then.

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

May 12, 2025

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

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

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

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

April 30, 2025

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

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

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

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

April 14, 2025

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

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

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

April 12, 2025

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

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

An Unexpected New Direction for Greensboro’s Double Oaks, a 1909 National Register Mansion

August 2, 2024

One of Greensboro’s grandest historic mansions has been sold to a new owner with a new vision. Known as Double Oaks Bed and Breakfast for much of the past 25 years, the house has been bought by Down Home North Carolina, a statewide community-organizing group working “to build multiracial and working-class power in small towns and rural communities across North Carolina.” The house will serve as a community center, event venue and meeting place for the organization.

Update, August 9, 2024: Here are their plans.

“Together, we are taking action to increase democracy, grow the good in our communities, and pass a healthy and just home down to our grandbabies,” its website says.

The organization paid $1.5 million for the house, 204 N. Mendenhall Street. The purchase was made possible by years of successful fund-raising, Down Home said. Among its recent major gifts was a $250,000 grant from the Katz Amsterdam Foundation in Colorado for “increasing voter registration in rural communities of color and addressing disinformation and voter disenfranchisement.”

The 7 Most Interesting Historic Homes Sold in June

July 3, 2024

June’s most notable sales include an 1881 Italianate farmhouse, a couple of particularly sweet bungalows, a Mid-Century Modern house designed by one of the state’s first African American architects and a pair of intriguing restoration candidates.

Of particular note among the past owners is James Holt Green, owner of the Glencoe mill and village in the 1930s and one of the state’s great heroes of World War II. Although rejected by the Army, he was determined to join the war effort and finagled a posting with the Office of Strategic Services. He led units behind German lines in Yugoslavia and Slovakia, rescuing downed airmen and wreaking havoc. He didn’t make it back home.

Click on the links below for more information about the houses and their histories.

The 8 Most Interesting Historic Homes Sold in May

June 5, 2024

Farmhouses, mansions, bungalows — May was an interesting month. The most notable historic homes sold in the Triad last month include a grand 1900 house in Sanford (and I know that Sanford is a bit of a stretch, but the house is worth looking at), a strikingly well preserved 1926 farmhouse in Rockingham County and an 1880 church in Pinebluff. A Winston-Salem mansion, a Greensboro Queen Anne and three diverse bungalows round out the best of the month.

The 6 Most Interesting Historic Houses Sold in April

May 4, 2024

A National Register mansion and the home of a renowned poet and novelist are among the most notable historic houses sold in the Triad in April. Others worth noting include the homes of a prominent 19th-century millwright, a Lexington orphan who became one of the town’s most successful businessmen, and a small-town theatre owner. In addition, a decrepit farmhouse was sold for the first time since it was built around 1800.

Piedmont Historic Homes

Historic homes for sale in the Piedmont Triad

Tag: North Carolina