North Elm Street house gets reprieve and will be moved.
For the second time since 1995, First Presbyterian Church has found someone to accept an expensive freebie.
Two residents of 201 West Bessemer Avenue, David Brossoit and George Weldon, will take for free a house at 620 N. Elm St., across from the church. In return, they'll move the 76-year-old, 3,000-square-foot house to one of the few remaining vacant lots, 204 W. Bessemer, in the historic Fisher Park neighborhood.
The men have the lot under contract to buy.
The church bought the North Elm house a few years ago with the intention of tearing it down for parking.
That idea enraged the neighborhood association, which urged the church to consider options: move the house; jack it up and park cars beneath it; leave it as is and shuttle church members from a city parking deck about three blocks away.
The neighborhood association's board met Monday night and unanimously approved Brossoit and Weldon's plan to move the house. Preservation Greensboro Inc. also has endorsed the move.
And the Greensboro Historic Properties Commission, which governs the city's three historic neighborhoods, gave its unanimous blessing Wednesday. It stimulated that the owners must provide a landscaping plan for the house at the new site and that they get permission of affected property owners before removing and replanting any street trees.
Brossoit, who appeared before the commission, said he didn't anticipate any problems getting the necessary permission from property owners. He said he hopes the move can be made soon, possibly as early as May.
"I'm excited,'' he said. "I see it as a once and a life time opportunity to save a contributing property in Fisher Park."
A "contributing property" is one of the houses and places that influenced the city's decision to make Fisher Park one of Greensboro's three local historic neighborhoods and the federal government to place Fisher Park on the National Register of Historic Places. The local historic designation came in the early 1980s with College Hill and Aycock neighborhoods also gaining historic district status at about the same time.
The disagreement over the North Elm house's future between neighborhood and church was a repeat of one in 1995 when the church wanted to demolish the even bigger McAlister House, located on the North Greene side of the church.
The house was once the home of Pilot Life Insurance Co. founder A.W. McAlister Sr. and his daughter, Dr. Jean McAlister, one of the city's first women physicians.
At the last minute, antique dealer Margaret Carlson, accepted the church's offer to take the house and move it. The cost of the move was paid in part by an anonymous donor.
The house now stands a tenth of a mile away to North Church Street. Carlson used it and an even older house next door for Carlson Antiques. She has since moved her business and an architectural firm occupies the houses.
With the latest move, the house will travel about two blocks north on North Elm, a block west on Fisher Park Circle, a block north on Carolina Street and about a half block west on West Bessemer.
Brossoit said he and Weldon plan to renovate the house for single-family use. He said it is uncertain whether they'll live in it or sell it. It will not become a rental property, he promised.
The move is expected to cost about $75,000 and will cause the tearing down of a maple tree on Fisher Park Circle, two magnolias on West Bessemer and four trees on the vacant lot.
The maple will be replaced and six magnolians at least 12 feet high and with a span of six feet will be added to West Bessemer to replace the two that will be lost. One of the two is diseased and close to death.
The magnolias along both sides of West Bessemer date to about 1918 and are considered an historic ingredient to a neighborhood that was started about 1900.
The house to be moved was built in about 1930, and lived in from then until the 1930s by the late Margaret Gay. In the early 1980s, the house was divided into offices for psychologists and counselors.