Preservation names 10 award winning preservation projects
The Bennett College campus, the UNCG Chancellor's and a long-ago school house in rural Guilford are among the 10 winners of Preservation Greensboro Inc. preservation awards for 2005.
In the spring issue of Landmarks, the preservation's group's publication, Bennett is recognized for a campus restoration plan started in 2004. Financed with a Getty Foundation grant, the plan singled out 12 buildings for renovation and the grounds for reverbishing.
Preservation Greensboro says the progress is highlighted by the restoration of Wilbur Steele Hall as an art gallery, improvements to Race Administration Building, Pfeiffer Chapel and the Holgate Library.
"With careful planning, Bennett College is an example by institution across the country for care of their historic buildings."
The relocation and restoration of the Chancellor's House came after much controversy involving preservationists and UNCG administrators, who at first wanted the 1922 Georgia-style house demolished.
After months of wrangling, a compromise was reached. The two-story house, designed by the late Greensboro architect Harry Barton, was moved a few blocks west on Spring Garden and now serves as Jane Harris Armfield and Emily Harris Preyer Admissions and Visitors Center. Preservation North Carolina raised the money to make the relocation possible.
Before their deaths, Armfield and Harris pledged money to save the house, along with 850 others that enabled Preservation Greensboro to finance the move. All of UNCG chancellors, save founder Charles Duncan McIver, lived in Chancellors House.
Pinedale School is one of the few surviving examples of an early 20th century rural school house in Guilford County. Located in eastern part of the county, the school eventually became a rental house. Preservation Greensboro salutes Daniel Shoffner, who grew near the school house, for carefully restoring the building and making it his home.
The other honorees are:
- 315 Martin Luther King Jr. Drive. The house, once known as the Bernard house, dates from the era when MLK Jr. Drive, then known as Asheboro Street, was lined with many of Greensboro's finest houses.
The house was in ruins when the city sold it to Bob Isner, who was developing the Southside project at the northern end of MLK Jr. Drive. He has renovated the Italianate-style house, which was built in the early 1890s.
- Lyndon Street Townhouses. These are believed to one of the few rowhouses in North Carolina, a style found mostly in Washington, Philadelphia and Baltimore. Located on a back street on the eastern side of downtown, the row houses were built for well-to-do white residents in 1905.
They remained whites-only even after a black man, school teacher Daniel Suggs, bought them in the 1920s. Eventually, the row houses became run down and the four original units - each with an upstairs and downstairs - were subdivided into eight units.
The Preservation Society hails Milton and Debby Kern, who bought and renovated the rowhouses starting in 2003. The houses have attracted artists who have studios in the neighboring Lyndon Street Artworks.
- 801 Woodland Drive, designed by Charles Hartmann (who also did the Jefferson Building, Grimsley and Dudley high schools) in 1917, the house was occupied for years by Buick dealer Hunter Galloway and his family. More recently, the Mediterrean style house in Irving Park, across from the ninth green of the Greensboro Country Club's Ross Course, has been lovingly restored by Denise and Rodney Speight.
"With this careful restoriation, yet another architectural jewel of the roaring twenties has been saved in Greensboro,'' Preservation Greensboro says.
- 612 Simpson St. Yet another example of a lovely old home being divided into apartments, it was blighted when purchased by Allison and Matt Butwinski. They have restored the Fisher Park house to its 1918 look.
"Neighbors on Simpson Street are extremely grateful for their efforts, which have turned Simpson Street's most disreputable-looking house into a handsome house," Preservation Greensboro says.
- 908 Fairmont St. Located in Westerwood, just west of downtown, the house was chopped up into apartments years ago. Page and Tim Cox purchased the colonial revival cottge and restored it for single- family use. "Today, the home stands as an example of preservation at work in Westerwood, and an inspiration to other future projects," Preservation Greensboro says.
- 707 Blair St. Designed by modernist architect Edward Loewenstein in 1965, the Irving Park house was in danger of being demolished and replaced by a larger house when purchased by Sara and Tom Sears, fans of the Loewenstein style. They have updated the house's infastructure. It was a stop on a tour of Loewenstein-designed houses last fall.
- 1207 Lakewood Drive. This neoclassical mansion was built for A.M. Scales, who went bankrupt trying to develop what's now Hamilton Lakes and Starmount Forest. The house's rear, with lofty columns overlooks Lake Hamilton, one of three lakes that Scales created in Hamilton Lakes. After Scales lost the house, it went through a series of owners. In 2004, Laura and Ron Hahn purchased and renovated the house.