Rockingham County – Piedmont Historic Homes

‘A Rare Survivor’: A Circa 1800 Log House In Rockingham County, $69,000

May 20, 2023

From Preservation North Carolina, here’s the King House, an “early and important” property that’s been on their list for a while. It’s a great opportunity to give a historic structure a total restoration. Here’s how PNC describes it:

“Early log house with large stone chimneys, exposed beaded ceiling joists, wide wall planks, hand-forged door hardware, and a rear wing, once an early separate kitchen. All situated on a scenic ridge between Wentworth and Reidsville.

Here Are 9 Historic Homes Listed in the Past 10 Days That Are Already Under Contract

February 8, 2023

Update: Eight of the houses had sold by March 30, 2023. The other owner had accepted three offers but all had fallen through by the end of March. Two of the houses were put on sale again at higher prices within three weeks of their closings.

Is something going on? The real estate market slowed to a crawl late last year, but it looks like spring might be quite a bit busier. Nine historic homes listed since January 30 are already under contract. The properties include a stately $950,000 home in Winston-Salem’s Buena Vista neighborhood and a $50,000 restoration project in Thomasville, a 1918 bungalow in Greensboro’s Fisher Park Historic District and a 1972 Mid-Century Modern home at the Bermuda Run Country Club.

Twenty-two homes have been added to the site in the last 10 days, so it’s not like everything out there is being grabbed up in just a few days. But the pace does seem to be picking up, right in the middle of winter. Here, in no particular order, are the nine new listings suddenly spoken for:

New Listing: The 1850 Wray-Rainey-Webster House in Reidsville, $350,000

January 22, 2023

Update: The house sold for $334,000 on March 30, 2023.

The Wray-Rainey-Webster House was the home of two major 19th-century leaders in Reidsville. Now for sale at $350,000, it’s a significant and well preserved piece of history in Reidsville’s Old Post Road Historic District and National Register historic district. The address is 716 S. Main Street.

“Believed to be one of the oldest houses surviving in the district, this two-story frame residence has changed hands more than most of the pivotal houses, and its original location was some one hundred yards to the south on the present site of the Hugh Reid Scott [House],” the district’s Nation Register nomination says. The Honorable Mr. Scott owned the house for a time, as did John Webster, congressman and crusading editor of Webster’s Dollar Weekly.

4 Historic Former Neighborhood Stores For Sale as Homes or Outbuildings

January 19, 2023

Some historic neighborhoods and rural communities are fortunate enough to still have buildings that once housed corner grocery stores or other retail businesses. The buildings come up for sale occasionally, and there are now four historic properties for sale in the Triad that feature former stores as homes or outbuildings. For the most part, there are relatively few available details about the structures themselves and the businesses they housed. But there are at least a few facts known about all but one.

2401 Urban Street in Winston-Salem was built to be a neighborhood grocery store with an apartment upstairs. 400 W. Main Street in Reidsville may not have been designed with a residence in mind, but it has provided a location for a business and a home for its owner as far back as 1959. The Robert G. Mitchell Store in Wentworth was built in 1900 and is barely standing, an unsound building with no heat or electricity. At 3405 Maple Avenue in Burlington, the tiny old store behind the house is a mystery.

The Best Example of Tudor Revival in Eden’s Central Leaksville Historic District, $245,000

March 1, 2022

In the first half of the 20th century, James W. Hopper was the man to see about designing just about any kind of building in Leaksville, Spray or Draper. In 1923, he designed his own Tudor Revival home at 817 Washington Street in Leaksville. It’s been for sale for a long time (on and off for eight years) at a conspicuously low price, now $245,000 ($62/square foot). It’s now under contract.

There are some visible reasons for that price. The listing’s photos don’t make the house look like an all-out restoration project, but it could use quite a bit of updating (to use the language of the internet, your jaw will not drop when you see the kitchen and bathrooms). It’s right on the edge of the neighborhood, facing a busy thoroughfare. The air conditioning is unusual.

It’s an outstanding house, though, “the best example of the Tudor Revival style“ in the fine Central Leaksville Historic District, the district’s National Register nomination says.

The Home of a Notable Chandelier Entrepreneur and of an Early Preservationist in Eden, $199,900

February 14, 2022

530 Boone Road, Eden, Rockingham County
The King-Francis House

Sold: Belmont, The Robert Payne Richardson Jr. House, a 1912 Mansion Among Mansions in Reidsville

July 19, 2021

Mansions can be tricky to sell. How many people need a 9,000 square-foot house? Six bedrooms? Five and a half bathrooms? Belmont, the Robert Payne Richardson Jr. House, is as grand a mansion as you’ll find, and it took more than six years to sell it (the sale closed in May).

The price was $950,000, just $106 per square foot. It was listed originally for $1.495 million more than six years ago. The seller lived there and rented it out as a wedding and event venue, and that’s likely to be its use going forward. The buyer is a Delaware corporation that owns a wedding venue called the Bella Collina Mansion in Stokesdale (“Tuscany’s version of Cinderella’s Castle!!!”), so the Richardson house appears to have a sustainable future, always a big question for a grand estate like this.

The W.L. Gardner House in Reidsville: An 1890 Home That Needs a Lot of Work, $45,000

July 16, 2021

635 Lindsey Street, Reidsville, Rockingham County
The W.L. Gardner House

$45,000
Number of bedrooms and bathrooms not specified, 2,222 square feet, 0.49 acre
Price/square foot: $20
Built in 1917 (per county), possibly ca. 1890 (NRHP district nomination)
Listed July 2, 2021
Last sale: $60,000, October 2000
Neighborhood: Reidsville Historic District
Listing: “Home needs to be completely redone. This home also includes another property that is accessed through Snead Street.
- “Enter at your own risk, condition of the home is unknown. SOLD AS IS.”

The William Lindsey House: A Grand 1870 Mansion Built by One of Reidsville’s Early Business Leaders, $434,900

April 6, 2021

“Because of both its historical associations and its architectural distinction, the William Lindsey House is a pivotal building in the Reidsville Historic District.”

— National Register nomination for the Reidsville Historic District

The Lindsey House is as impressive inside as it is from the street. And, being in one of the Triad’s smaller cities, the $434,900 price ($83 per square foot) is probably, say, a third of what it might be in Greensboro or Winston-Salem.

Interestingly, the towering columns out front weren’t an original feature. “Early in the 20th century, a new porch was constructed across this facade, in the Neo-Classical Revival style,” the NRHP nomination says. “It consists of a one-story, full-facade porch supported by corinthian columns which are repeated in monumental fashion in the central projecting two-story pedimented portico.” The original porch was apparently wide enough only to span the entrance.

The Walters House: An 1869 Italianate Classic in Reidsville, Being Sold For Only the Second Time, $227,000

March 11, 2021

719 S. Main Street in Reidsville is for sale for the first time in 84 years. Reflecting the often immense difference between home values in larger cities and smaller ones, its price of $227,000 ($77 per square foot) appears to be a bargain. Some cosmetic work is needed inside (the kitchen and bathrooms aren’t fabulous), but the house appears to be livable as it is. It has been owned by only two families in its 152 years, and it has some serious Reidsville history behind it.

Piedmont Historic Homes

Historic homes for sale in the Piedmont Triad

Tag: Rockingham County