Annual Preservation Awards
Each year, Preservation Greensboro Incorporated honors noteworthy preservation projects throughout greater Greensboro that were completed the following year. The guidelines for the awards include consideration of sensitivity to the historic integrity of the site following the Secretary of Interior’s Guidelines for Historic Rehabilitation. Emphasis is given to exterior restoration projects that exemplify Greensboro's cultural, historical, and architectural heritage.
2006 Preservation Award Recipients
The 1960s were a tumultuous time for Greensboro, but architect Edward Loewenstein was clearly looking to the future when he designed the modernist Greensboro Public Library at 201 North Greene Street in downtown. The two-story New Formalist-style building features an abstracted façade of aggregate masonry panels, large windows, and a wide overhanging roofline. Friend and UNC-G artist Gregory D. Ivy supplied relief panels to compliment the modernist façade. The exterior of the building and grand spiral stair were restored in 2006 by Elon University for the new location of their School of Law.
The Sebastian’s were pillars of the community when they constructed this grand English Tudor house at 1401 McConnell Road in the late 1920s. Not only was Dr. S. Powell Sebastian a physician at the L. Richardson Hospital across the street, but his wife Marian was librarian at the Carnegie Negro Library on the campus of Bennett College. Their house was a landmark for the east Greensboro neighborhood of Nocho Park for almost 80 years before Allen Sharpe acquired the property as part of an extensive redevelopment project. Sharpe’s plans included saving the house, which is used for offices and serves as the flagship for a soon-to-be completed apartment community.
In spite of being a poster child for High Point’s preservation efforts, plans were unveiled in 2004 for the destruction of the 1897 Queen Anne-style Nettie Brown House on High Street. This was too much for nearby neighbors Dorothy and Joey Darr to bear, so they set about relocating the property to vacant land to ensure its survival. The careful move took time, but the result has been worth it! Today, Nettie Brown’s spectacular home stands firmly at 110 Oak Street in downtown High Point, a few blocks west of its original location.
A parking lot once threatened the Margaret Gay House on North Elm Street in the Fisher Park neighborhood. But the 1920’s classic Rectilinear-style home had a good structure and a great floor plan that caught the eye of David Brossoit and George Weldon. The two acquired the house and planned a dramatic relocation from Elm Street to 204 West Bessemer Avenue, where the house stands today. The house has been fully restored, and looks like it has stood at its current location for 80 years!
This Fisher Park gem was never really threatened by demolition, but a recent restoration by Bill Baites and Stephen Dull has allowed this jewel to shine! The Neoclassical-style house was erected for R. D. Douglas, vice president of Greensboro Bank and Trust Company around 1912. Its soaring portico and lunette window have been a landmark at 106 Fisher Park Circle for nearly a century.
One of a handful of 1840s farm houses in Guilford County, the W. R. Smith House near Whitsett was threatened with destruction for new development when Jerry Nix stepped in to offer an alternative. The solution proved to be relocation of the frame house to a location on Nix’s property on Brightwood Church Road, where the house has been restored for use as a home. Once again, the broad front porch, wide plank wood walls, and wood-pegged doors will be enjoyed by the home’s lucky new residents!
What kind of building is more evocative of Guilford County’s past than a log cabin? It’s easy to see how the Dean Dick House attracted the eyes of Rebekah Howe and David Carpenter. The Carpenter House Road cabin occupies a knoll amid a rolling landscape of fields and woodlands near Sedalia, and features original hand-hewn logs, heart-of-pine floors, and even the old door knobs and hinges. Rebekah and David surely have a treasure in the Dick Log House that provides an insight to the lifestyles of ante-bellum Guilford County.
Located in the very heart of Irving Park, the William Preyer House stands at 603 Sunset Drive overlooking the Greensboro Country Club. The house was designed by Philadelphia architect Charles Barton Keen, and the resemblance to Keen’s other famous commission, Reynolda House in Winston-Salem, is clear. The house was thoroughly renewed in 2006 by Judy and Len White, who have made the house look like new again.