The West End Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1986. Portions of the text below were adapted from a copy of the original nomination document. [‡]
Description
The West End Historic District is one of the most fully-realized and intact examples of a turn-of-the-century streetcar suburb in North Carolina, retaining to a remarkable degree the integrity of its primary period of significance, 1887-1930. The late 19th-early 20th century urban neighborhood is defined by its picturesque landscape features — including a system of curvilinear streets, terraced lawns with stone retaining walls and steps, and parks — which take full advantage of the dramatic hilly topography of the site, and by its rich and varied collection of architecture reflective of the West End's period of development.
Originally situated on the western edge of the town of Winston, the continued westward growth of the city has left the West End Historic District a center-city neighborhood on the western edge of Winston-Salem's central business area. The crescent-shaped West End Historic District is bounded roughly by West End Boulevard on the northeast and north, Peter's Creek through Hanes Park on the northwest and west, Sunset Drive along the west and southwest, West End Boulevard and Interstate-40 along the south, and West Fourth Street along the southeast and east meandering in a northeastwardly direction back to Fifth Street, Broad Street, Sixth Street, and to the junction of West End Boulevard, Chatham Road and Buxton Street in the northeast corner. The boundaries include that part of the original West End development which retains its integrity, as well as small areas of associated property along some of the original borders. While all was originally known as the West End, the area today includes what is commonly called the West End, West End South (south of First Street), and Crystal Towers (east of Broad Street). Within the West End Historic District the system of curving and straight streets, which respond to, rather than resist, the topography of the land, establishes a collection of irregularly-shaped blocks. Major streets include West End Boulevard, which winds its way through the district from the northeast corner to the southwest edge, and Summit Street, Brookstown Avenue, Glade Street, and Fourth Street. The West End Historic District is composed of 46 whole or partial blocks with 610 recorded properties and their accompanying outbuildings. While the West End is, and always has been, primarily residential in character, there are some commercial buildings, churches, and miscellaneous structures such as the YWCA (1201 Glade St.) and the YMCA (775 West End Blvd.).
As an entity distinguished from its surroundings, the West End today remains much as Jacob Lott Ludlow designed it in 1890: a picturesque residential neighborhood, which emphasizes the natural qualities of its landscape through the use of curving streets and occasional parks. Into this idyllic setting were built some of the finest houses in Winston-Salem between 1887 and 1930, representing the most popular architectural styles of the day, along with a collection of less sophisticated yet well-built and representative examples of the same styles. Other man-made components of the West End Historic District include numerous outbuildings associated with the houses, four architecturally significant churches, several commercial buildings and apartment buildings from the West End's primary period of development, and post-1930 structures including a variety of houses, apartments, and commercial buildings along with the YWCA, the YMCA, and an arrowhead-shaped granite memorial marker to Daniel Boone (island at junction of West End Boulevard & Reynolda Road). In addition to its distinctive plan and architecture, the West End Historic District is definable from its surroundings due to noticeable changes in land use and building type beyond its boundaries, such as more recent commercial buildings and parking lots to the east and southeast, later and/or lesser quality housing to the southeast, an interstate highway (I-40) along the south and southwest, later schools and parkland to the west and northwest, and small-scale commercial and industrial development to the north.
Of central importance to the character of the West End Historic District is its landscape plan as designed by Jacob Lott Ludlow, Winston's first city engineer. Influenced by the picturesque concept of suburban planning as promoted on the national level by Frederick Law Olmstead, the West End plan, which remains largely intact today, takes advantage of the dramatic topography of the area.
Curving streets, with West End Boulevard a prime example, meander through the neighborhood along with some straight streets, creating an assortment of irregularly-shaped blocks. Physical remains around the intersection of Brookstown Avenue and Fourth Street reveal that at least some of the streets were paved with granite blocks, but all are now covered with asphalt. To provide convenience for houses located on steeply sloping lots, many of the blocks are divided lengthwise by narrow, unpaved, service alleys. West of the Summit Street ridge, the land generally slopes downward from east to west, and the house lots are frequently terraced to accommodate the changes in elevation. In a sense the street system itself is terraced, with, for example, Jersey Avenue, Carolina Avenue, and West End Boulevard aligned in descending order from Summit Street, with Pilot View Street, Brookstown Avenue, and Clover Street intersecting in a steeply downhill direction and terminating at low-lying Hanes Park in the Peters Creek flood plain. This terraced arrangement of streets is repeated south of Glade Street, with Piedmont Avenue, West End Boulevard and Sunset Drive in descending order from Fourth Street and in this case intersected by the steeply sloping Forsyth Street, First Street, and Jarvis Street.
The typical West End street is lined with granite curbs and has one or two narrow grassy strips, often tree-planted, dividing it from the sidewalks. (Original brick sidewalks remain along two stretches of North Spring Street, but the rest were built or replaced since the 1920s with cement or concrete.) Responding to the landscape, many of the house lots have retaining walls which separate the front yards from the sidewalks. These are usually of granite, with noteworthy examples being those at the apartment building at 72 West End Boulevard, at the J.J. Gentry House (661 N. Spring St.), at the Thomas-LeDuc House (260 West End Blvd.), and at the W.B. Hawkins House (722 Manly Street). Other walls are constructed of other types of stone or brick, as exemplified by the handsome brick wall with granite cap at the Webb-Reece House (655 N. Spring Street). Yards, if not terraced, are usually at least sloping and frequently have granite or other steps leading to the level of the house. Yards are lushly landscaped with numerous trees and shrubs. While the individual lots, because of their limited size, are not for the most part park-like in and of themselves, the cumulative effect of the total neighborhood landscaping creates a park-like atmosphere. Adding to this effect are several of the few vacant lots which have been converted to "green spaces" as well as the landscaped triangles found at eight of the street intersections. An important part of Ludlow's plan for establishing a picturesque landscape setting for the West End was the creation of several parks. At the center of the district is Grace Court, a bowl-shaped park bounded by Fourth Street, Fifth Street, Glade Street, and an alley. Strategically located originally in front of the Zinzendorf Hotel, Grace Court remains a focal point for the neighborhood (especially since its ca.1980 rehabilitation) as the scene of many social gatherings and summertime music events. Ludlow's plan also delineated Springs Park, which remains intact as a quiet, wooded ravine retreat. (Ludlow's Little Louise Park at the northeast corner of the West End appears never to have been developed.) Along the northwestern boundary of the West End, Ludlow indicated a stretch of land along Peters Creek which he labeled "lawn." In 1919 P.H. Hanes donated this land to the city for a park. Hanes Park, with its impressive stone entrance at the foot of Clover Street, its avenue of maples, footbridges over Peters Creek, and recreational areas, remains a source of pleasure for residents of the neighborhood and the city at large as well as serving as an appropriate closure for a large section of the northwestern edge of the West End. Also in the West End Historic District are two post-1960 pocket parks, a memorial garden associated with St. Paul's Church, and several vacant lots and parking lots.
In the West End Historic District, the lush landscape establishes a complementary environment for the architecture which it surrounds. Steep lots with terraced front lawns and flights of steps provide impressive settings for similarly impressive houses. Particularly close relationships between the landscape and the architecture are seen when a material such as granite is used both for retaining walls and steps and for house foundations and porch elements, as at the W. Kerr Scott House (139 Piedmont Avenue), or when a garage with a terrace above is built into the hillside adjacent to the house, as at the W. Ernest Dalton House (1209 Clover Street). Another close relationship between the houses and the environment can be seen in the use of front porches. The West End is a neighborhood of porches, with most of the houses built during the primary period of development (1887-1930) having front porches and sometimes rear porches. These provide today, as they did originally, an easy transition from public (exterior) to private (interior) living spaces. They, like the sleeping porches found on the rear second story of many of the houses, also provide places for taking advantage of the cooling breezes often present in the hilly West End (as touted in an 1892 advertisement for the Zinzendorf Hotel).
The built environment of the West End consists primarily of residential structures and associated outbuildings, but also includes a few commercial buildings, four churches, and several miscellaneous structures. For the most part, buildings in the West End are densely arranged on narrow but deep lots with shallow front yards. Most are one-and-a-half or two-stories in height. Although frame structures predominate, there is a rich variety of building materials present. Frame buildings include weatherboarded structures like the Jacquelin P. Taylor House (236 West End Blvd.), the Rosenbacher House (848 W. Fifth St.), and the P. Oscar Leak House (1101 Glade St.); wood shingled dwellings such as the G.F. Hinshaw House (829 Sixth St.), the Byrd-Justice House (833 Sixth Street), and the W.B. Hawkins House (722 Manly St.); and numerous bungalows like the Hollenback-Garner House (1028 West End Blvd.) and its mate, the Harry A. Cunningham House (1032 West End Blvd.), which are weatherboarded on the first story and wood shingled on the upper story. Though fewer in number, some of the most impressive dwellings are brick, as exemplified by the B.J. Sheppard House (420 Summit St.), the John E. Coleman House (533 Summit Street), the Charles M. Thomas House (1300 Brookstown Avenue), and the rowhouses on W. Fourth Street (840, 842, 844 and 846 W. Fourth Street). Many of the brick structures, such as the William B. Taylor House (915 W. Fourth Street), are detailed in granite or another material. Full-fledged use of stone is found with the monumental St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit St.) and Augsburg Lutheran Church (845 West Fifth Street). Other popular building materials in the West End include stucco and pebbledash. Prime examples of stuccoed houses include the Taylor Houses (1000 W. Fifth Street; 1012 W. Fifth Street; 1014-1016 W. Fifth Street), the P. Huber Hanes House (1200 Glade St.), and the Kerner E. Shore House (1281 W. Fourth St.). Good examples of the rougher pebbledash treatment include four back-to-back houses on West End Boulevard and Sixth Street (Sharp-Graves-Spaugh House, 612 North Broad Street; Murphy-Edmunds House, 258 West End Blvd.; Kennerly-Shelton House, 819 Sixth St.; Penry-Austin House, 825 Sixth St.), and the Charles M. Taylor House (934 W. Fifth St.) where pebbledash is used in conjunction with mock half-timbering. Rusticated concrete block construction is also found in the West End, used primarily for outbuildings, but also for a pair of houses on Glade Street, the Aaron Cook House (1322 Glade St.) and the W. Thomas Smither House (1326 Glade St.). Post 1945 materials such as brick veneer, asbestos shingles, aluminum siding, and vinyl siding are present in the West End, but their impact on the overall character of the West End Historic District is far less than that of the rich variety of pre-1930 building materials. Throughout the West End, from the most elaborate mansion to the simplest bungalow, the quality of design and workmanship is generally excellent. While the majority of buildings are reserved in their use of exterior ornamentation, some nearly explode with richness of detail. Among the best examples are the John E. Coleman House (533 Summit St.) and the Charles M. Thomas House (1300 Brookstown Avenue), both brick Colonial Revival dwellings; the G.W. Orr House (626 Summit St., a frame Colonial Revival dwelling; the J. Cicero Tise House (952 W. Fourth St.), a brick Neo-Classical Revival structure; the Edgar D. Vaughn House (1129 W. Fourth St.), a Queen Anne frame residence; and the Harry H. Davis House (1408 Brookstown Avenue), a frame Craftsman style dwelling.
Building activity has occurred throughout the history of the West End, but it has been most heavily concentrated between the years 1900 and 1929. An analysis of the 610 surveyed properties reveals that 4% (23) were built prior to 1900, 33% (202) were built between 1900 and 1917, 34% (206) were erected between 1918 and 1929, only 4% (27) were constructed between 1930 and 1945, and 22% (131) were built after 1945. While the surviving pre-1900 buildings are congregated along N. Spring Street, Fifth and Summit streets, and Fourth Street, structures representative of the subsequent building periods are mixed throughout the West End Historic District. There does appear to be a tendency, however, for the oldest buildings to be located along the highest elevations, with later development filling in the gaps and continuing along the lower-lying streets.
Between 1887, when Jacob Lot Ludlow's own house (434 Summit St.) was built, and 1929, when the Depression hit, the West End witnessed a continuum of mainstream stylistic expressions, including examples of the late Victorian Queen Anne style, the Neo-Classical Revival, the Colonial Revival, the Craftsman style, and a variety of other styles which made brief appearances, among which were the Tudor Revival, the Spanish Mission style and the Gothic Revival. Together these establish a richly varied architectural environment in the West End. It should be noted that while there are fairly high style examples in each stylistic category, more of the buildings in the neighborhood exhibit somewhat simpler and therefore more popular interpretations of the represented styles. In addition, many of the houses reflect a cross-over of styles, the most common of which is the Colonial Revival-Craftsman combination. Regardless of the style or the level of sophistication, however, most buildings erected during the West End's primary period of significance exhibit well thought-out design, good use of materials, and quality craftsmanship.
The oldest houses in the West End are products of the late Victorian period and reflect to a large degree the visual variety associated with the Queen Anne style. Emphasizing irregularity of plan and massing and combinations of texture and ornamentation, the style provided a visually rich beginning for the architectural character of the neighborhood. Jacob Lott Ludlow's own house (434 Summit Street), poised at the prominent intersection of Summit and Fifth streets, is representative of the style.
Erected in 1887 by Fogle Brothers builders, the house features a decorative wraparound porch and center bay balcony, sawn-work gable ornamentation, and stained glass windows. Next door to, and across the street from, the Ludlow House are the B.J. Sheppard House (420 Summit St.; now Summit Street Bed & Breakfast Inns) and the R.E. Dalton House (431 Summit St./870 W. Fifth St.), both impressive two-story brick dwellings from the 1890s. The Sheppard House is a particularly striking, if unusual, example of the Queen Anne style with its parapeted gables with peak finials and ornate wrap-around porch with groups of bulbous colonettes with tobacco leaf capitals. The most elaborate examples of the style in the West End are the H.D. Poindexter House (130 West End Blvd.) and the Jacquelin P. Taylor House (236 West End Blvd.), both built in the 1890s. Both are massive two-story frame dwellings with particularly irregular configurations, multiple decorated gables, fancy windows, and broad wrap-around porches with decorative balustrades, turned posts, sawnwork brackets, and open-work friezes. The Poindexter House also boasts a projecting corner tower. Tradition claims that architect Hill Linthicum designed the house. He was also the architect of the well-preserved 1892 Edgar D. Vaughn House (1129 W. Fourth St.), one of the most handsome of the Queen Anne dwellings in the West End. The distinguishing features of this two-story frame house are its left front and right side polygonal bays with carved sunburst panels, elaborate gable ornamentation, and a wrap-around porch and entrance bay balcony with arcaded balustrades and, on the main porch, a spindle frieze. The interior retains many period details, including plaster cornices and ceiling medallions and embossed wallpaper. The ca.1892 Miller-Galloway House (923 W. Fifth Street) is a smaller version of the style, but it is one of the most richly detailed and best preserved examples in the West End. This house emphasizes variety in texture and ornamentation with its brick first story, wood shingled upper story, gable peak fan ornaments and corner porch with turned posts and balustrade, sawnwork brackets, and spindle frieze. Less elaborate, yet well detailed, versions of the style are more frequent in the West End. Good examples are the two-story frame Dr. Robert H. Jones House (643 North Spring Street) and its neighbor, the James J. Norman House (614 N. Spring St.), as well as the one-story frame Andrew D. Mickle House (927 W. Fifth St.). Each achieves its primary stylistic character through the use of decorated porches and gables.
Though few in number, some of the most impressive houses in the West End were built during the early years of the twentieth century in the Neo-Classical Revival style. Characterized by monumentality, the style lent instant prestige to the houses of this mode. The most grandiose and best preserved examples of the NeoClassical Revival in the West End are the Rosenbacher House (848 W. Fifth St.) and the J. Cicero Tise House (952 W. Fourth St.). The Rosenbacher House is a large weatherboarded dwelling dominated by a two-story central portico with Corinthian columns and a full pedimented entablature. The portico is complemented by flanking one-story quarter-circle porches with Ionic columns. The interior of the Rosenbacher House is as impressive as the exterior with an arcade of Ionic columns, segmental-arched sliding pocket doors, numerous leaded glass windows, and other high-quality details. The nearby Tise House is one of the largest in the West End. It is a massive two-and-a-half story brick structure with a granite foundation ornamented with segmental arches filled with ironwork grills. Like the Rosenbacher House, the Tise House is dominated by a two-story central Corinthian portico. Here a one-story Ionic porch wraps around three sides of the house. An impressive double-leaf entrance with leaded and beveled glass sidelights and transom leads to the generously proportioned and richly detailed interior, whose primary features are a grandiose stair with a double balustrade and bronze Classical figures atop spiral newels and a high paneled wainscot. Somewhat smaller-scaled examples of the Neo-Classical Revival style in the West End are the Farish-Glenn-Bitting House (1074 W. Fourth St.) and the S.E. Hall House (1144 W. Fourth St.), both of which carry the central feature of the style, a two-story Classical portico.
One of the two most widely represented architectural styles in the West End is the Colonial Revival, popular throughout the first quarter of the twentieth century when the West End experienced its greatest period of building activity. Interpreting the architectural forms and details of the American colonial period, this traditional style was used for seemingly countless buildings in the West End and ranged from the richly ornamental to the chastely simple. At the top end of the spectrum are the 1902 John E. Coleman House (533 Summit Street) and the 1920 Charles M. Thomas House (1300 Brookstown Avenue). Both are large two-story brick dwellings. The Coleman House is one of the most sophisticated houses of its period in Winston-Salem. The symmetrically designed house has pedimented cross gables and dormers, a garland frieze, dark brick lintels and corner quoins which contrast with the light brick body of the house, a Palladian window, and a wrap-around Ionic porch with a balustraded upper deck. The interior contains an incredibly rich collection of details such as a paneled closed string stair, a paneled wainscot and paneled ceiling in the hall, sliding pocket doors, multiple Colonial Revival mantels, and both leaded and beveled glass and jeweled glass. The Thomas House exhibits the typical Colonial Revival symmetry in its five-bay facade and is distinguished by Flemish bond brickwork, a chaste Federal Revival entrance, a balustraded terrace, a Palladian window, and on the interior, a Doric colonnade, molded cornices, and delicate Federal Revival mantels, among other details. The William B. Taylor House (915 W. Fourth St.), designed by the architectural firm of Blauvelt and Gates, is a more simple yet boldly monumental example of the style. The severely formal two-story brick house features symmetry of design, granite trim, a slightly projecting pedimented center bay, and a Palladian window. One of the most handsome of the many examples of the style is the Robert S. Galloway House (817 West End Blvd.), designed in 1918 by prominent local architect Willard C. Northup. With is white stuccoed walls and green tile roof, the two-story house suggests the influence of Charles Barton Keen's design for Reynolda House. The Galloway House is detailed with blind arches over the first story windows, a modillioned cornice, and matching front, side, and rear porches with Tuscan columns, a full entablature with triglyph and metope frieze, and a balustraded upper deck. The interior is designed with a variety of Federal Revival details. Next door, the two-story brick Bess Gray Plumly House (821 West End Blvd.) is another good example of the Colonial Revival, with a symmetrical five-bay facade, pedimented dormers, a modillioned cornice, and a Doric entrance porch. On a slightly smaller scale, the ca.1915 G.W. Orr House (626 Summit Street) is one of the most correctly detailed Colonial Revival houses in the neighborhood. The two-story wood shingle house has among its features a symmetrical five-bay facade with pedimented dormers, a dentiled and modillioned cornice, a Palladian window, and a Doric entrance porch with a pedimented entablature and a barrel-vaulted, coffered ceiling.
The Colonial Revival was treated in a variety of ways in the West End, and one of the most popular was the form that utilized as its primary feature the gambrel roof. Examples such as the ca.1917 Stockton-Tatum House (1149 W. Fourth Street) designed by C. Gilbert Humphreys, the ca.1915 Fletcher-Blackwell House (640 Summit St.), and the ca.1922 Jones-Heath House (1210 W. Fourth St.) used the side gambrel roof, while other houses such as the 1905 Joseph E. Alexander House (1120 W. Fourth St.) and the 1911 Roberts-Leman House (1110 West End Blvd.) used the cross gambrel roof. Stucco and wood shingles, often in combination, as well as weatherboard siding were popular building materials for these houses.
While there were many elaborate examples of the Colonial Revival style in the West End, there were even more examples that were correct but simple. The 1912 Gregg House (909 West End Blvd.), with its hipped roof, hipped dormers, and wrap-around porch with Tuscan posts and slightly projecting central entrance bay is one good example. Another is the Matton-Carmichael House (705 Manly St.), designed in 1922 by architect Harold Macklin. This two-story wood shingled house has a three-bay facade, a gable roof with a gable end chimney, and a one-story front porch with plain Tuscan posts.
Other building types were designed in the Colonial Revival style. Prime examples are the 1927 Friends Meeting House (502 N. Broad St.) and the 1924 First Church of Christ, Scientist (north corner Brookstown Avenue & Fifth Street). Designed by the firm of Northup and O'Brien, the Friends church exhibits a Federal Revival Classicism with its pedimented two-story Doric portico which enframes three double-leaf entrances with fanlight transoms. Round-arched windows line the sides of the church. The Christian Science church is a much smaller building which also expresses a chaste Federal Revival Classicism. It has a pedimented facade and a pedimented entrance porch, and is encircled by fifteen-over-fifteen sash windows with round-arched, keystoned lintels. Apartment buildings erected in the 1920s also chose a simple version of the style for their design, as exemplified by the Summit Apartments (608 Summit Street). This handsome three-story brick building has a Classical entrance, a balcony with a round-arched sash window, other windows with keystoned lintels, and a parapeted cornice.
While the Colonial Revival continued, the formality of that style began to give way to the informality of the Craftsman style — with the Colonial Revival the second of the two most frequently expressed architectural styles in the West End. Many houses reflected the influence of both styles, such as the impressive J.J. Gentry House (661 N. Spring St.), built in 1917 according to the design of C. Gilbert Humphreys, the ca.1917 Maslin-Tudor-Martin House (1100 W. Fourth St.), also a C. Gilbert Humphreys design, and the 1912 P. Oscar Leak House (1101 Glade St.). But many others more fully embraced the Craftsman ideal, which included simplicity, informality of plan, and emphasis on the natural qualities of building materials so as to be in better harmony with the natural surroundings. The Craftsman influence was reflected in the design of many two-story houses, but it was even more closely aligned with the one or one-and-a-half-story bungalows. Good examples abound in the West End. One of the better examples of the two-story variety is the ca.1926 Ray B. Diehl House (701 Manly St.). The two-story frame house has a low hip roof with widely overhanging eaves, groups of casement windows, and a heavy granite front porch. The well-preserved interior features boxed beam ceilings, high paneled wainscots, and built-in dining room cupboards. The ca.1922 Nicholas Mitchell House (1417 Brookstown Avenue) is typical of many of the two-story Craftsman-inspired dwellings in the West End. It has a stuccoed first story, a wood shingled second story, the ubiquitous low hipped roof with widely overhanging eaves, grouped windows, and a porch with wood posts on granite plinths and a plain balustrade. Up the street from the Mitchell House, the Harry H. Davis House (1408 Brookstown Avenue) is one of the most outstanding examples of the Craftsman style in the neighborhood. The 1923-1924 one-and-a-half-story frame dwelling has a combination of weatherboard and wood shingle siding, a multi-gable roof with overhanging braced eaves and plain bargeboards, grouped windows, stained glass, and a porch with tapered wood posts on brick plinths and a solid brick balustrade.
The West End possesses a wealth of 1910s and 1920s bungalows in a wide range of types. Many are classic examples of the Craftsman Bungalow style. Two of the best are the W.B. Hawkins House (722 Manly Street) and the W. Kerr Scott House (139 Piedmont Avenue). The Hawkins House is a wood shingled example with bargeboarded gables, an offset porch, and granite foundation, steps, and chimney. The Scott House is a pristine example with coursed wood shingled siding, overhanging gables with bargeboarded eaves, battered and crossetted door and window surrounds, and a granite front porch, chimney, and front steps. Other bungalows which make good use of granite are the J.D. Slawter House (1225 Forsyth Street) and the Philip T. Hay House (1040 West End Boulevard). In the West End many Bungalows appear identical, or nearly so, to others in the neighborhood. A striking example is the Hollenback-Garner House (1028 West End Boulevard) and its next door mate, the Harry A. Cunningham House (1032 West End Boulevard). These houses exhibit a common bungalow form. Each is a one-and-a-half-story frame structure with a weatherboarded first story, a coursed wood shingle upper story, a broad gable roof with widely overhanging eaves, a matching front dormer, grouped windows, and an engaged front porch with paired posts on brick plinths and a plain balustrade. One of the most interesting groups of bungalows in the West End is the row of five houses at 1316 to 1334 West First Street. These closely knit and renovated houses together display a wide variety of bungalow forms, materials, and details.
Other revival styles made brief appearances in the West End, adding to both the visual variety and the romanticism of the neighborhood. The most popular of these was the Tudor Revival of the 1910s and 1920s. Probably the most classic example of the style is the 1925 Robert S. Tilley House (834 Carolina Avenue). It displays many hallmarks of the style, including stuccoed walls with mock half-timbering, multiple steep clipped gables with overhanging eaves, a second floor overhang, grouped windows, and an entrance porch of matching design. Other prime examples include the large, "half-timbered" Joseph L. Graham House (645 Summit Street) built around 1910, and the row of three Taylor family houses at 1000, 1012 and 1014-1016 W. Fifth Street which were erected in 1916. One of the pivotal buildings in the West End Historic District, the P. Huber Hanes House (1200 Glade Street), is an eclectic adaptation of the style. Built ca.1915, it is a large two-and-a-half story stuccoed dwelling with a steep truncated hip roof and steeply-pitched front, side, and rear bracketed gables. In typical eclectic manner, the interior of the Hanes House is handsomely detailed in the Colonial Revival style.
The Spanish Mission style is rare in the West End, but its two main examples are both prominent buildings. The major example is the ca.1921 Kerner E. Shore House (1281 W. Fourth Street), a large two-story stuccoed house which displays a green tile hip roof with matching front dormer, overhanging eaves with shaped rafter ends, balconied windows, arched openings, and parapeted wings. In the spirit of eclecticism, the interior contains Colonial Revival and Gothic Revival details. The 1920s apartment building at 72 West End Boulevard is a more simple, yet nicely detailed, version of the style. Primary features of the white stuccoed building include a green tile pent eave at the roofline with a shaped parapet above, scrolled brackets, and a round-arched balconied window above the central entrance. A grand entrance to the building is provided by the split flights of granite steps which rise from the street corner.
Two monumental Gothic Revival churches in the West End add significantly to the dignified character of the neighborhood. The grandest of these is St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street), one of the most outstanding Gothic Revival structures in the region. Magnificently sited on one of the highest elevations in the city, it was designed by the distinguished ecclesiastical architect, Ralph Adams Cram of Boston, with Harold Macklin assisting as local architect. The 1928-1929 church is a granite structure with sandstone trim modeled after thirteenth century Gothic architecture, complete with lancet stained glass windows, lancet portals, buttresses, and a tower which rises ninety-three feet above the transept crossing. The fully-developed Gothic interior is characterized by bold simplicity and excellent craftsmanship. The slightly earlier Augsburg Lutheran Church (845 W. Fifth Street) was designed by architect Hall Crews in 1926. This fortress-like structure with twin towers flanking the arched portal, a steeply pitched gable roof, side buttresses, and stained glass windows is built of stone from the Bald Mountain Quarry, now covered by High Rock Lake.
While most of the buildings in the West End Historic District are residential structures, there are others which make a positive contribution to the architectural fabric of the district. In addition to the churches already described, there are several commercial buildings of particular merit, along with several outbuildings significant apart from their houses which no longer stand. Joyner's West End Grocery (858 W. Fourth Street), one of the oldest buildings in the district, is a two-story brick, flat-iron shaped structure with a parapeted roofline and a heavy bracketed cornice along the Fourth Street facade. Across Burke Street from Joyner's is the well-preserved ca.1915 drugstore (848 W. Fourth Street) attached to the west end of the row of four brick townhouses (840, 842, 844 and 846 W. Fourth Street) of the same date. The two-story brick drugstore has an angled facade and a modillioned wood cornice. At the northwest edge of the West End, the 1928 Summit Street Pharmacy (490 West End Boulevard) is one of the most architecturally unusual buildings in the West End Historic District. The two-story structure of vaguely Mediterranean style influence is characterized by a rough stucco facade with applied slate blocks, an arcaded first story, and an engaged porch across the second story facade with a red and yellow tile shed roof.
Significant outbuildings which remain despite the loss of their associated houses include the ca.1890 Frank Miller Carriage House (just east of 923 W. Fifth Street) and the ca.1910 former garage or stable (between 1001 and 1101 W. Fourth Street) associated originally with the Hanes-Hill House. Both are substantial brick structures. The Miller Carriage House has a steep gable roof, a row of stalls, and a cupola-like ventilator, while the Hanes-Hill House outbuilding has a steep hip roof and cross gable.
The general condition of the buildings in the West End is good. Since the late 1960s many have been sensitively rehabilitated or restored, while others never fell into disrepair in the first place. Alterations have most frequently involved the addition of new siding, but in most cases the alterations, siding or otherwise, have not destroyed the significance of the buildings and therefore the West End Historic District as a whole has retained a large degree of integrity.
Of the 260 noncontributing resources in the West End Historic District, relatively few are actual intrusions. Most are either post 1930 outbuildings or residential structures built after the district's primary period of significance which might simply be labeled "fill." Good examples are the rows of small post World War II houses along Pilot View and Sixth streets. (831, 833, 835, 837, 839, 841, 843 Pilot View Street and 836, 838, 840, 842, 844, 846 Sixth Street), the beautifully-detailed YWCA (1201 Glade Street) which was built in 1942, the John W. Pack House (123 North Sunset Drive) which is the only example of the Art Moderne style in the West End Historic District, and the 1982 Blackwell-Chapman House (520 Jersey Avenue), a modern dwelling which nevertheless relates well to the West End in scale, form, material, and site placement. Intrusions consist primarily of unsympathetically designed and placed two-story motel-like apartment buildings such as the Summit Square Apartments (651 Summit Street), the Brookshill Apartments (1310 Brookstown Avenue), the three-story West Hill Apartments (201 N. Sunset Drive), and the apartments at 123 Piedmont Avenue. Other types of intrusions include the one-story brick veneer office building at 854 W. Fifth Street with its front-facing kicked-gable roof and front parking lot which looks as if it belongs on "franchise row" and the massive YMCA (775 West End Blvd.), erected in 1976 and enlarged ca.1985. Because the intrusions are not great in number and are scattered, they have not destroyed the West End's ability to convey its architectural and historical significance.
Significance
The West End neighborhood was one of the first streetcar suburbs in North Carolina designed to reflect the picturesque concept of suburban planning promoted on the national level by Frederick Law Olmstead. In addition, it was the first picturesque suburb in North Carolina developed according to its original design. Developed at the western edge of the town of Winston, the West End was planned in 1890 by Jacob Lott Ludlow, who would become a nationally-recognized municipal, sanitary and hydraulic engineer and who was Winston's first city engineer. Ludlow's remarkable plan of curvilinear streets and parks took advantage of the already dramatic topography of the area and formed a radical departure from the grid plans of Winston and Salem. The West End reflected Winston's phenomenal growth period from the late 1880s through the 1920s, as tobacco and textile manufacturing reached new levels of production and Winston-Salem became North Carolina's largest city. The economic growth of the city enabled some of its citizens to build handsome residences of the distinctive character found in the West End. The neighborhood contains well-detailed examples of the Queen Anne, Neo-Classical Revival, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman styles. Many of the houses were designed by locally and regionally-known architects and executed by prominent local construction firms. Hill Linthicum, C. Gilbert Humphreys, Willard Northup, and other architects of regional preeminence designed homes in the West End, and one nationally-known architect, Ralph Adams Cram, designed a church in the neighborhood — St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street). The local construction firm of Fogle Brothers which had been building in Winston and Salem since 1871 constructed many of the West End's residences. The neighborhood today is one of the most intact and fully-realized examples of a turn-of-the-century streetcar suburb in North Carolina, and it has retained its system of parks and residential boulevards.
West End Criteria Assessment
The West End neighborhood is associated with the late nineteenth and early twentieth century suburban growth patterns which occurred in cities across North Carolina and the nation as a whole as the streetcar encouraged housing to move away from the center city and into newly planned suburbs. The West End was one of the first neighborhoods in North Carolina designed to reflect the picturesque concept of suburban planning promoted on the national level by Frederick Law Olmstead which is characterized by curvilinear residential streets with parks interspersed throughout. It was the first picturesque suburb in North Carolina developed according to its original design. In addition, the West End is associated with Winston-Salem's boom period from the late 1880s through the 1920s when the manufacturing of tobacco and textiles reached new unprecedented levels and Winston-Salem became the state's largest city.
The West End neighborhood is associated with Jacob Lott Ludlow, one of North Carolina's first civil engineers, who gained a national reputation as a municipal, sanitary and hydraulic engineer. Ludlow planned the curving streets and parks of the West End, and he lived on Summit Street in the neighborhood. In addition, the West End is associated through some of its buildings with the productive years of regionally acclaimed architects including Hill Linthicum, Willard Northup and G. Gilbert Humphreys. Other local architects' work is also represented in several residences in the neighborhood. St. Paul's Episcopal Church in the West End was designed by Ralph Adams Cram, a nationally known architect.
The West End neighborhood embodies the distinctive characteristics of the architecture of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with well-detailed examples of styles such as Queen Anne, Neo-Classical Revival, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman. Hill Linthicum, a well-known North Carolina architect, designed the high-style Queen Anne residence of Edgar Vaughn at 1129 W. Fourth Street, and G. Gilbert Humphreys designed the Colonial Revival residences of J.J. Gentry (661 N. Spring Street), Norman Stockton (1149 W. Fourth Street), Thomas Maslin (1100 W. Fourth Street) and others. Willard Northup designed the R.S. Galloway House (817 West End Boulevard). Several outstanding examples of the Neo-Classical style such as the Cicero Tise House (952 W. Fourth Street) and the Rosenbacher House (848 W. Fifth Street) stand in the district but the architects are unknown at the present time. Many of the residences, including the 1887 J.L. Ludlow House (434 Summit Street), were the work of the local building firm of Fogle Brothers. St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street), designed in 1926 by nationally-known architect Ralph Adams Cram, is, after Duke University, perhaps the finest example of the Gothic Revival style in North Carolina.
Criterion Exceptions
The four religious properties in the West End neighborhood — St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street), Augsburg Lutheran Church (845 W. Fifth Street), First Church of Christ, Scientist (north corner Brookstown Avenue & Fifth Street), and the Friends Meeting House (502 N. Broad Street) — are significant for their architecture, not religious significance. St. Paul's Church, designed by Ralph Adams Cram, is one of the most outstanding examples of Gothic Revival in the state, and Augsburg Lutheran Church is built from Bald Mountain Quarry stone in a fortress-like style. Both the First Church of Christ, Scientist and the Friends Meeting House are good representations of the Colonial Revival style which is mirrored in many residences in the West End neighborhood. Buildings which have been moved in the West End neighborhood include the Jacquelin P. Taylor House (236 West End Blvd.), Maynard House (212 West End Blvd.), McGehee-Rierson House (633 N. Spring St.), William J. Liipfert House (618 Jersey Ave.), Blumenthal-Goodman House (234 West End Blvd.), H.D. Poindexter Cottage (124 West End Blvd.), H.D. Poindexter House (130 West End Blvd.), and the Van Nemen Zevely House (901 W. Fourth St.). All of them were moved to insure their preservation and the Liipfert and Taylor Houses were moved within the West End neighborhood where they originally stood. The other houses, with the exception of the Zevely House, are of the same period, scale, texture and style as those which already existed in the West End neighborhood, and they enhance the architectural character of the area. The ca.1815 Zevely House, already listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was moved in 1974 to insure its preservation. In addition, the Poindexter Houses also are listed individually in the National Register and were moved in 1978 to insure their preservation.
In 1752 the Moravians, German-speaking Protestants, purchased 100,000 acres in the heart of what is now Forsyth County, and in 1753 the first Moravian brethren arrived to carve a settlement out of the wilderness. The new settlement was named Bethabara and it gave the Moravians a foothold from which to establish other settlements in the 100,000 tract. The Moravians were careful planners and they established the towns of Bethania (1759) and Salem (1766) with town squares and a grid pattern of streets based on plans from towns in Germany with which they were familiar. With a characteristic sense of German practicality and planning, the towns were not only planned, but also regulated as to building types, placement and uses. Salem became the central and largest town, and by the middle of the nineteenth century the population of the area had grown to the extent that the North Carolina General Assembly voted in 1849 to form a new county, Forsyth, out of part of Stokes County. With the new county came the need for a new county seat, and in 1851 the Moravians sold 51-1/4 acres approximately 500 yards north of Salem on which to build the town of Winston.[1]
The town of Winston was established with a Courthouse square and a grid pattern of streets surrounding it. The town of Salem and the Forsyth County Commissioners had agreed that the streets of the new town should be continuations of the Salem streets and that the Courthouse should be erected at the highest point on the main street.[2] Seventy-two lots were drawn off, and with the exception of the Courthouse lot, they were sold at public auction in May and June, 1849. The new Courthouse was completed in 1850, and several commercial buildings and residences were built in Winston by 1851.[3]
After the Civil War, in the last third of the nineteenth century, both Winston and Salem expanded their industrial pursuits and Winston experienced phenomenal growth. Between 1870 and 1880 Winston's population increased from 443 to 4,194.[4] After the Northwest North Carolina Railroad connection was completed from Greensboro to Winston in 1873, Winston really thrived. Richard Joshua Reynolds came to Winston and opened his first tobacco factory in 1875, and in 1879 the First National Bank of Salem was rechartered as Wachovia National Bank and moved its offices to Winston. In 1885 the first Board of Trade (later the Chamber of Commerce) was organized and in 1889 another important rail connection, the Roanoke and Southern, was realized.[5]
It is obvious that with such rapid growth in Winston (and Salem) that the building industry prospered. In 1882 Dr. Edward Rondthaler, a Moravian bishop, stated that Winston and Salem were growing closer together and that the building of both was largely attributable to both the Fogle Brothers and Miller Brothers Lumber Companies.
"Winston and Salem are so situated that their prosperity is inseparable; as much so as is the sunlight which shines on them both. We are reminded of this fact by the freight returns of the joint Railroad Depot, amounting in the past year to about 25 million pounds, and making it one of the most important in the state; by the building operations of Messrs. Fogle and Messrs. Miller which have to a great extent built the newer parts of both places; and by the successful business undertakings of Salem people across the almost imaginary line dividing the two places."[6]
In 1885 the Union Republican newspaper reported that the building boom that year had equaled any past year in Winston's history and that the total value of the new buildings that year was at least $200,000.[7] In the 1880s many prominent businessmen and industrialists, including James A. Gray of Wachovia Bank, tobacco manufacturers W.A. Whitaker and R.J. Reynolds, Robert Glenn (governor of North Carolina, 1905-1909), attorney Eugene Gray, and others built houses along Cherry Street and Fourth and Fifth Streets. The West End Graded School opened its doors in September, 1884, at the corner of West Fourth and Broad Streets.[8] Winston was expanding to the west and northwest.
The 1890s were years of even further growth and development in Winston. The population reached 14,000 in 1890 — an over 100% increase in ten years. Winston's grid of streets now extended from First Street north to Seventh and from Hickory Street west to Summit Street. Most of the tobacco and textile factories were located east of Elm Street (now Marshall) and south of Fifth Street, and Winston's finest residential section continued to move west along Fourth, Fifth, Broad and Summit streets. The Winston-Salem City Directory for 1891/1892 described the city as having taxable property of about $5,000,000, electric lights, an electric street railway, water works, two fire companies, and "factories, stores and residences...being completed at the rate of three per week, and this is far short of the demand."[9] It also described a $100,000 hotel "under contract." In the 1890s at least seven development companies were formed to capitalize on the great building boom.[10] One of these was the West End Hotel and Land Company — the developer of the $100,000 resort hotel mentioned in the City Directory and the residential area surrounding it.
The West End Hotel and Land Company of Winston held its organizational meeting on May 29, 1890 to plan"...the erection of a hotel, first class in all its appointments and with every modern improvement — one of the institutions we most need."[11] The company elected William A. Whitaker, a tobacco manufacturer, as president, and the directors included same of Winston's and North Carolina's greatest industrialists such as R.J. Reynolds (tobacco), P.H. Hanes (tobacco), James A. Gray (Wachovia Bank), and J.J. Fries (Fries Manufacturing and Power). The company represented a "paid up capital of $300,000," and on July 2, 1890 it purchased approximately 180 acres northwest of Winston from Henry W. Fries for $134,142.40.[12] The land had belonged to Johann Christian Wilhelm Fries, Henry's father and J.W. Fries' grandfather.[13] By August, 1890, Jacob Lott Ludlow, a resident of Summit Street in the West End area and Winston's first city engineer, had laid out the curving streets of the West End Hotel and Land Company's resort and residential development in sharp contrast to the grid plan of earlier years.[14] (Section 1 of the development included the area known today as "Crystal Towers," Section 2 included the area around the hotel site and the area known today as "West End South.")
Jacob Lott Ludlow was a native of Spring Lake, New Jersey, who received both his Bachelors (1885) and Masters degrees (1890) in civil engineering from Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. After an extensive prospecting tour throughout the West and South, Ludlow arrived in North Carolina in 1886, and he established a general engineering practice in Winston-Salem. In 1887 Ludlow built his house on the southwest corner of Fifth and Summit streets in the fashionable western section of the city — on the eastern edge of the new development of the West End Hotel and Land Company. Ludlow established himself as a consulting civil engineer in municipal, sanitary and hydraulic problems, and he was called upon in an advisory capacity or to design and supervise water supply and sewerage systems in a number of towns and cities in the South. From February 1889 until February 1892 he served as Winston's first city engineer and during this time the first efforts were made in Winston toward establishing a comprehensive sewerage system and paving the streets.[15]
In 1890, during his tenure as city engineer, Ludlow received his Masters degree in civil engineering from Lafayette College.[16] It may certainly be speculated that while he was taking this course of study in the northeast he became familiar with the work of Frederick Law Olmstead and when asked in 1890 to design the development of the West End Hotel and Land Company he did so using the picturesque concept of suburban planning promoted by Olmstead. Ludlow sited the Zinzendorf Hotel to take advantage of one of the highest elevations in the city, and he also laid out residential lots on the surrounding hills along curvilinear streets and boulevards which suited the topography and created a visually idyllic setting interspersed with parks. "Little Louise Park" was planned northeast of West End Boulevard's intersection with Spring Street in Section 1 and was named for Ludlow's daughter, Louise; Grace Court was designed in front of the Zinzendorf Hotel and named for Grace Whitaker, daughter of William A. Whitaker, president of the West End Hotel and Land Company, and Springs Park was situated in the ravine between West End Boulevard and present-day Broad Street.[17] The street pattern of the West End development was executed according to plan except for the deletion of Fries-Dun Circle between Summit Street (now Manly) and West End Boulevard, and Park Avenue, which appears to have followed closely the path of Broad Street today. In Ludlow's plan West End Boulevard meandered from Spruce Street on the east to circle around Piedmont Avenue on the south. (Part of the original West End Boulevard has been renamed Fourth Street) The only rectilinear blocks in the entire area included two blocks bounded by Jersey, Carolina, Clover and Pilot View streets.[18] The importance of Ludlow's plan and the West End's development was graphically illustrated when the Bird's Eye View map of Winston-Salem published in 1891 featured the West End in its foreground, in sharp contrast to the rectilinear block patterns of Winston and Salem. Even more emphasis was placed on the Zinzendorf Hotel's importance since it was shown prominently in the central foreground of the 1891 map, even though it would not be completed until May, 1892.
The ground breaking for the Hotel Zinzendorf took place in April, 1891, but the hotel did not open for business until May 9, 1892. The Richmond and Danville Railroad began selling summer resort excursion tickets to Winston, and by May 26 the streetcar line had been extended to the hotel.[19] The local Union Republican extolled the Zinzendorf in a May 26 front-page article which read:
"It is situated 1100 feet above sea — on a hill from which the land seems to flow down to the valleys which lie around it...on the warmest days it is fanned by whatever breeze may move the leaves. It is surrounded by porches 18 feet wide keeping always a most grateful shade...It has elevators, electric lights, hot and cold public and private baths on every floor. Electric bells, most approved fire escapes and apparatus...The waters, the air, and charming scenes are all at Winston-Salem. The delightful creature comforts are at THE ZINZENDORF."[20]
1892 was a successful summer at the Zinzendorf, but the fall brought disaster. Headlines in the Salem People's Press on December 1, 1892 read: "FIRE! FIRE! The Beautiful Hotel Zinzendorf Utterly Destroyed."[21] The fire began on the western side of the building in the boiler and laundry rooms and quickly spread to the dining hall; it was fanned by a northerly wind. Everyone escaped injury, but the large crowd which had gathered to watch the flames was driven back to Summit Street because of the intense heat generated by the wood-shingled structure. Fire engines from Winston and Salem sped to the conflagration only to discover that there was no water with which to combat the flames. Within an hour, the hotel was a smoldering ruin and Winston's dream of becoming a resort community went with it. By February, 1893, the "idea (was) generally conceded that a large and modernly arranged hotel building should be erected in or near the business center of the city" and "an architect is preparing plans" for a new hotel at the corner of Main and Second Streets.[22]
Even before the Zinzendorf Hotel disaster the West End Hotel and Land Company had sold some of the residential lots laid out by Ludlow, but after the fire the development became exclusively residential. Fourth and Fifth Streets west of the commercial area and Summit and Broad Streets already featured the commodious houses of prominent citizens including Robert Glenn (governor of North Carolina from 1905 to 1907) and R.J. Reynolds, and the streetcar had been extended along Fourth Street to its western terminus at the Zinzendorf Hotel. Just outside the eastern boundary of the new West End development, clustered around the corner of Summit and Fifth streets, were the houses of J.L. Ludlow (434 Summit St.), R.E. Dalton (431 Summit St./870 W. Fifth St.), B.J. Sheppard (420 Summit St.), and Jacquelin P. Taylor (236 West End Blvd.). J.L. Ludlow's house was built in 1887 by Fogle Brothers Lumber Company, a prominent local construction firm, and it is a frame, late Victorian house of Queen Anne style influence.[23] R.E. Dalton, a local tobacco manufacturer, built his substantial brick late Victorian dwelling in 1890. It, too, was constructed by Fogle Brothers.[24] In 1892 B.J. Sheppard, a leaf dealer and later a veneer manufacturer, purchased his lot next to J.L. Ludlow and built his brick, eclectic structure shortly thereafter. It is one of the most unusual houses in the city with its parapeted roofline and finials.[25] The West End Hotel and Land Company's residential development was a logical extension of this fashionable part of Winston leading West from Broad Street. In fact, an extension of Summit Street was included in the new West End development.
One of the earliest residents in the new West End development area was Edgar Vaughn, a prosperous grocer who purchased his lot at the corner of Forsyth and West End Boulevard (now Fourth Street) (1129 W. Fourth St.) from the West End Hotel and Land Company in July, 1892, and built a frame Queen Anne style residence. Vaughn paid $1,620 for the lot and his deed and others like it stipulated that "the said grantee...shall not within five years from the date hereof erect...on the said land...any building or buildings actually costing less separately than the sum of $1,000 (necessary outbuildings...excepted)."[26] The restrictions outlined in Edgar Vaughn's deed were not unusual for late nineteenth century streetcar suburbs in North Carolina, or in other states, for that matter.
The suburban ideal, as it developed in America after the mid-nineteenth century, was based on social status, wealth and a desire to return to nature away from the unpleasant aspects of the industry and commerce of the center city. The streetcar as a mode of transportation (and later the automobile) made it possible for people to live further away from their places of work and to live in idyllic settings which still gave access to their factories and other commercial pursuits. The major characteristics of these early suburbs, as promoted on the national level by Alexander Jackson Davis, Frederic Law Olmstead, and others, included picturesque natural settings, parks, social and economic homogeneity, diverse house styles, and modern improvements such as streetcar lines, electric lights, and water and sewer systems.[27]
While suburban developments and streetcar suburbs were a common theme in North Carolina's towns and cities during the late nineteenth century, the West End was one of the earliest of these developments and it was the first picturesque suburb in the state to be developed according to its original design. The Montford neighborhood in the mountainous city of Asheville is similar to the West End, but its first developer, the Asheville Loan, Construction and Improvement Company, was not successful in its efforts to develop Montford on a plan commissioned from Nier and Hartford, engineers in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The Asheville Loan, Construction and Improvement Company was chartered in 1889, but the plan by Nier and Hartford is undated. In 1894 the Montford area was sold to George Pack, a prominent Asheville developer, who used the plan in a modified way.[28] Fisher Park [see Fisher Park Historic District], a streetcar suburb in Greensboro, also was promoted as early as 1889, but it was not developed from a picturesque suburban plan — its streets were laid out in a grid pattern. In 1901, however, Basil J. Fisher, the developer, further promoted the area by donating a tract of land as a city park to create a more idyllic setting.[29] Charlotte's first streetcar suburb, Dilworth, began selling lots in 1891, and it also featured a grid arrangement of streets with a park in the center and a wide boulevard near the perimeter. [30] Many of these early streetcar suburbs, including the West End, continued to thrive and develop into the era of the automobile.
By 1899 most of the lots in the West End Hotel and Land Company's development had been sold and the Company was trying to "wind up its affairs and discontinue business."[31] On May 1, 1899, attorney J.C. Buxton, representing the West End Hotel and Land Company, appeared before the Winston Board of Aldermen and requested the city "to take the necessary steps to adopt the streets within the corporate limits that had been built and kept up at the expense of the Company heretofore." He stated that the company would furnish the gravel to place all the streets in good condition.[32] Many of the lots in the West End development were purchased as speculative investments, and residential development before 1900 was sporadically placed around Section 1 (now known as Crystal Towers) and in the area of West End Boulevard (now Fourth Street). While it is unclear exactly when the West End development actually was included in Winston's town limits, it probably was made part of the town around 1900 since building in the new development soared after that year and by 1909 the city was paving Fourth Street in the area. Around the time of the consolidation of Winston and Salem in 1913 an extensive paving program was undertaken which included the West End area.[33]
Between 1900 and 1917 building in the West End and the rest of Winston and Salem escalated as the towns entered an era of prosperity unequalled by any other before it. The spirit of growth was so pervasive that the motto of Winston-Salem during the early years of the 1900s was "50-15," or 50,000 inhabitants by 1915.[34] In 1900 the combined population of Winston and Salem was 13,650, and by 1910 it had risen to 22,700. By 1916 it had increased to 31,155 — a 38% increase since 1910, more than any other city in North Carolina.[35] In 1913, "after a decisive vote of the people)" Winston and Salem were officially consolidated under the name Winston-Salem.[36] Winston-Salem's business and industrial base continued to grow and expand, enabling the growth of the city to continue. In 1900 P.H. and J.W. Hanes had sold their tobacco company to R.J. Reynolds and the brothers separately entered the textile business — P.H. Hanes began a knitting company and J.W. Hanes organized a hosiery business. By 1916 Winston-Salem lead the South in the manufacture of knit goods.[37] In 1913 R.J. Reynolds expanded and revolutionized its product line with the introduction of Camel cigarettes; by 1916 Winston-Salem also lead the world in the manufacture of plug tobacco. There was a $66,857,000 increase in the value of factory products between 1900 and 1918, and by 1917 Winston-Salem had the largest weekly payroll between Richmond and Atlanta. Between 1910 and 1917 the yearly average of the amount expended in the erection of new buildings in Winston-Salem exceeded $1,000,000.[38] Prosperity reigned between 1900 and 1917 and the West End became Winston's showplace for domestic architecture on a grandiose scale.
The majority of residents who built in the West End in the early years of the twentieth century were upper and upper middle class families who could afford to build substantial houses. Many of them chose the imposing Colonial Revival and Neo-Classical Revival styles. The Colonial Revival style was popular throughout the country during the first half of the twentieth century and it exhibited a renewed interest in Georgian and Federal style detailing. The Neo-Classical Revival style also was popular during the period from about 1900 to 1920 and it emphasized full-height porticos with elaborate, correct columns. Among the earliest and most notable examples were the houses of William B. Taylor (915 W. Fourth St.), a tobacco manufacturer, and John Coleman (533 Summit St.), an independent tobacconist, both of whom built high-style Colonial Revival residences around 1900.[39] In addition, John W. Hanes, a hosiery manufacturer, Cicero Tise (952 W. Fourth St.), a real estate entrepreneur, Carrie Rosenbacher (848 W. Fifth St.), a clothing store matriarch, and others built imposing Neo-Classical Revival residences between 1903 and 1909. In 1915 P.H. Hanes, one of the nation's largest knitwear manufacturers, built his Tudor Revival-style house at 1200 Glade Street.[40] In the West End Historic District, 33% (202) of the buildings were constructed between 1900 and 1917, and 34% (206) were built between 1918 and 1929.
The years between 1918 and 1929 continued Winston-Salem's phenomenal growth, and the West End, as a premier neighborhood, continued to reflect the city's booming economy. In 1919 P.H. Hanes donated a large tract of land (designated as "lawn" on J.L. Ludlow's 1890 West End plat) on the northwestern edge of the West End neighborhood which became Hanes Park with its beautifully landscaped stone entrance with flower beds and an avenue of maple trees.[41] By 1920 Winston-Salem's population had swelled to 48,395, and it became the largest city in the state — a distinction it held until 1930. In 1920 the city stood second only to Baltimore in a federal index of industrial cities in the South, and by 1924 it was the world's largest producer of men's knit underwear, the South's largest producer of knit goods, and its largest producer of wagons. In 1923-24 Winston-Salem paid more than one-half of all federal taxes paid in North Carolina. By 1928 the value of building permits issued attained a peak of $8,531,028.[42] In the years between 1918 and 1929 the West End neighborhood filled in with an assortment of later Colonial Revival-style homes, Craftsman style residences, fashionable apartment buildings and a few churches.
The West End continued to attract upper and upper middle class Winston-Salem families as residents through the 1920s. A few examples included Robert S. and Ida Galloway (817 West End Blvd.), Mrs. Bessie Gray Plumly (821 West End Blvd.) and Charles M. Thomas (1300 Brookstown Avenue), all of whom built large Colonial Revival style residences in the neighborhood around 1920.[43] Robert S. Galloway was the president of Smith-Phillips Lumber Company, and his wife was the former Ida Miller, daughter of Frank Miller, one of the early real estate entrepreneurs in the city.[44] Bessie Gray Plumly, the widow of Charles E. Plumly, was also the daughter of James A. Gray, one of the most prominent businessmen in Winston-Salem.[45] Charles M. Thomas was the proprietor of C.M. Thomas Company, president of American Oil Company and secretary of the Orinoco Sand Company.[46] In addition to these outstanding examples of the Colonial Revival style, the Craftsman style of architecture also was well represented in the West End through the 1920s, One of the best examples of the style was constructed by Ray B. and Bertha Leinbach Diehl in 1926 at 701 Manly Street, Diehl was an accountant and Bertha was the sister of Clarence Leinbach, vice-president of Wachovia Bank.[47] The house is dramatically sited on a steep incline with granite steps leading up to the granite front porch.
With the addition of fashionable apartment buildings in the late 1920s, including the Summit Apartments (608 Summit St.), Gray Court Apartments (450 N. Broad St.) and the Gladstone Apartments (1301 Brookstown Avenue), the West End no longer was exclusively a single-family residential neighborhood. In 1925 George W. Coan, Jr., president of the Morris Plan Industrial Bank, purchased property on Summit Street on which to build the Summit Apartments.[48] The late nineteenth century Liipfert House (618 Jersey Avenue) which had stood on the property was moved down the hill behind it to Jersey Avenue.[49] In 1928 Charles F. Benbow purchased the ca.1883 Eugene E. Gray House at the corner of Fifth and Broad Streets and built the Gray Court Apartments on the site. Gray lived in the house until at least 1925.[50] The Gray Court Apartments is the largest such complex in the West End. Also around 1929 the Gladstone Apartments were built on the corner of Brookstown and Jersey Avenues.[51]
In addition to apartment buildings, the late 1920s saw the rise of several impressive church buildings in the West End neighborhood. The West End already included churches such as West End Methodist Church on the southwest corner of Fourth and Brookstown and St. Leo's Catholic Church on the northwest corner of Fourth and Brookstown, but in the late 1920s several congregations moved from the central business area to build substantial new structures in the West End. These included St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street), Augsburg Lutheran Church (845 West Fifth Street), the Friends Meeting House (502 N. Broad Street), and the First Church of Christ, Scientist (north corner Brookstown Avenue & Fifth Street).
During the peak development years in the West End from the 1890s through the 1920s, when some of the finest domestic and ecclesiastical architecture in North Carolina's piedmont section was built in the neighborhood, many of the buildings represented the work of locally and regionally prominent architects. This was an era when the architectural profession was assuming new prominence in the state and when architects' involvement in the design of residential projects in mainstream national styles was at an all-time high. Architects who are known to have worked in the West End include Hill Linthicum, Blauvelt and Gates, J.S. Zimmerman, C. Gilbert Humphreys, Willard Northup, Leet O'Brien, Harold Macklin, Hall Crews, and Ralph Adams Cram.
The 1892 Queen Anne residence of Edgar Vaughn (1129 W. Fourth St.) was designed by Hill Linthicum, and the Pegram-Apperson House at 622 Summit Street also is attributed to Linthicum.[52] Hill Linthicum (1860-1919) was born in Virginia, attended Danville (Va.) Military Academy and studied architecture in Baltimore, Maryland. About 1883 he joined his father who had begun an architectural practice in Durham, North Carolina.[53] He is listed, however, in the Winston City Directory for 1891-1892, and he practiced in Winston until at least 1896.[54] He spent the majority of his career in Durham and died there in 1919.[55]
The William B. Taylor House (915 W. Fourth St.), one of the finest Colonial Revival mansions in the West End Historic District, was designed by the Greensboro firm of Blauvelt and Gates in 1900.[56] It is the only building in the West End known to have been designed by these architects, and little is known of either Blauvelt or Gates. The Architects' Directory for 1903 and 1904 lists an M. Bleauvelt (sic) as an architect in Winston, but Gates is not listed at all, and the Winston City Directory for those years does not list either Blauvelt or Bleauvelt. Gates is listed in the Greensboro Directory for 1901 but Blauvelt is not.[57]
James C. Dodson, a leaf buyer for R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., purchased a lot on Summit Street in 1911 and commissioned architect J.S. Zimmerman to design a Colonial Revival residence for him (633 Summit Street)[58]. It is the only building in the West End known to have been designed by Zimmerman, who had an architectural office in Winston from 1906 until around 1912 when he moved to Salisbury. After 1913-1914 nothing is known of him, and the major work for which he is remembered is the North Carolina Building at the Jamestown Tercentennial Exposition in Hampton Roads, Virginia, in 1907.[59]
An architect known to have designed at least five houses in the West End Historic District is C. Gilbert Humphreys. Humphreys was born in London, graduated from Cornell University, studied art in Paris, and then returned to New York to work with architects George B. Post and Bradford L. Gilbert. He worked in New York until 1914 when he came to Winston-Salem. Humphreys designed the Colonial Revival/Craftsman style residence of J.J. Gentry (661 N. Spring St.), on Spring Street, as well as the West End homes of Dr. Wingate M. Johnson (405 Summit St.), Norman Stockton (1149 W. Fourth St.), Thomas Maslin (1100 W. Fourth St.), and Mrs. Marion C. Thompson (1220 Glade St.).[60] In addition, the Colonial Revival residence of C.M. Thomas (1300 Brookstown Avenue) features the overhanging eaves and fine interior detailing characteristic of Humphreys' work and may have been designed by him.
Two houses in the neighborhood are known to have been designed by Willard Northup and Leet O'Brien — the Robert S. Galloway House in 1918 (817 West End Boulevard) and the Bessie Gray Plumly House in 1921 (821 West End Blvd.), both located on West End Boulevard.[61] The firm of Northup and O'Brien also designed the 1927 Friends Meeting House at 502 N. Broad Street.[62] Willard Northup (1882-1942) was a native of Hancock, Michigan, who moved to Asheville, North Carolina, as a child. He received his architectural degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Northup came to Winston around 1906, and in 1913 he was joined in his practice by Leet O'Brien. Northup served as president of the North Carolina State Board of Architectural Examiners and became a Fellow in the American Institute of Architects. Both he and Leet O'Brien designed many commercial and residential buildings in Winston-Salem as well as across the state. Leet O'Brien (1891-1963) was a native of Winston-Salem who received his architectural training at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. He served for two terms as the President of the North Carolina chapter of the American Institute of Architects.[63]
Harold Macklin (1885-1948), a contemporary of Northup and O'Brien, came to Winston-Salem in 1919 and established an architectural practice. He was born in Portland, England, and studied in London. The buildings known to have been designed by Macklin in the West End include the Matton-Carmichael House (705 Manly Street) and the YWCA (1201 Glade Street). Macklin's most prominent work in the neighborhood, however, was St. Paul's Episcopal Church (520 Summit Street) where he worked as the local architect on the project with Ralph Adams Cram.[64]
St. Paul's Episcopal Church is one of the most outstanding Gothic Revival structures in the region. It is magnificently sited on a high elevation overlooking the city and was designed by Boston architect Ralph Adams Cram.
The first service was held in the structure in 1929. Cram has been called "America's leading exponent of the Gothic Revival," and he is also well-known for his work at St. John the Divine in New York City and the rebuilding of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Jacobs and Young, contractors for St. Paul's, also had built St. John's the Divine, and the intricate interior woodwork of St. Paul's was crafted by the Smith and Rummery Company of Portland, Maine. The son of a Unitarian clergyman, Cram was born at Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, in 1863. He formed a partnership at age 24 with Charles Wentworth to practice architecture in Boston, and in 1891 Bertram Goodhue became a third partner in the firm. After Wentworth's death Frank Ferguson became a partner and the name changed to Cram, Goodhue, and Ferguson. The firm operated under that name until 1910 when Goodhue withdrew to establish his own office in New York, and thereafter it operated as Cram and Ferguson. Ralph Adams Cram died in 1942.[65]
Architect Hall Crews designed Augsburg Lutheran Church, another large church in the West End, in 1926. Located at 845 W. Fifth Street near Summit Street, the church is a fortress-like structure constructed of stone from Bald Mountain Quarry. Crews, a native of Forsyth County, studied architecture at Columbia University and joined a New York firm. He became a registered architect in North Carolina in 1923.[66]
Between 1930 and 1945 major suburban development in Winston-Salem and the West End came almost to a standstill.[67] A few automobile suburbs had developed in the 1920s such as West Highlands, Buena Vista, and Reynolda Park, and some West End residents had moved to these areas. For the most part, however, the West End remained a stable neighborhood of families who had invested in the area. After World War II, building in Winston-Salem began to boom again. In 1948 the Board of Aldermen voted to expand the city limits for the first time since 1927, annexing Buena Vista, Ardmore, and other sections.[68] Building picked up again in the West End, but this time it was modest post-war housing and commercial buildings, and it seemed that the West End's era as Winston-Salem's fashionable neighborhood was over. The West End was dealt a severe blow when in 1948 its zoning category was classified as R-1 — high density apartments and office buildings.[69] Many of the West End's large single family residences were poorly adapted to multi-family apartments, and some of the houses were torn down to make way for commercial buildings. The former West End School on Fourth Street was demolished to make way for a large Sears and Roebuck store, and across the street the home of North Carolina Governor Robert Glenn came down to be replaced by Modern Chevrolet. On West Fifth Street the former home of R.J. Reynolds was demolished in the early 1950s and the Forsyth County Library took its place.[70]
The West End experienced a serious decline in the years between 1948 and 1968, when the West End Neighborhood Association was formed. The Association was formed in part to protest an apartment building at the intersection of Manly and Summit Streets (Summit Square Apartments, 651 Summit St.). Scathingly called the "Summit Street Motel," the proposed apartment building was so outrageously out of character with the surrounding houses that residents organized to protest the structure. While it was not successful in its efforts to stop the apartment building, the neighborhood association succeeded in having the West End back-zoned to R-2, and it has remained a strong advocate for the preservation of the West End.[71] Fortunately, even through the declining years, the West End managed to retain its dignity and its integrity of both building stock and landscape features. There are intrusions in the neighborhood today, but it still remains a richly varied tapestry of terraced lawns, flights of stone steps, curving avenues, manicured parks and outstanding architecture. The West End is undoubtedly one of the finest turn-of-the-century neighborhoods remaining in North Carolina, and its addition to the National Register of Historic Places should help insure its continuing prominence.
Endnotes
References
"Bird's-Eye View of the Twin Cities, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1891." Madison, Wisconsin: Ruger and Stone.
Bishir, Catherine W. and Earley, Lawrence S. Editors. Early Twentieth Century Suburbs in North Carolina. Raleigh: North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, 1985.
Branson, Rev. L. ed. Branson's North Carolina Business Directories, 1872 and 1896. Raleigh: J.A. Jones.
Byrd, Elizabeth Gabriel. Ed. St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 1876-1976. Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1976.
Forsyth County Register of Deeds. Deed Books. Hall of Justice, Winston-Salem.
Forsyth County Register of Deeds. Plats of the West End Hotel and Land Company. Hall of Justice, Winston-Salem.
Forsyth County Tax Office. Tax Records. Old Courthouse, Winston-Salem.
Fries, Adelaide; Wright, Stuart Thurmond; and Hendricks, J. Edwin. Forsyth, The History of a County on the March. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1976.
Hill, Jane S. "A Short History of the West End." 1975. (Typewritten)
Hood, Davyd Foard. "The Kenneth L. Howard House." National Register Nomination. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1982.
Martin, Nancy Stockton. "Changing Times." ca. 1980. (Typewritten)
Neilson, Robert W. "History of Government, City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, The All American City, 1766-Bicentennial-1966." (Unpublished report, 1966).
Phillips, Laura A. W. "Col. Jacob Lott Ludlow House." National Register Nomination. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1982.
Southern, Michael. Historic Montford. Asheville: Preservation Society of Asheville and Buncombe County, 1985.
Taylor, Gwynne S. From Frontier to Factory, An Architectural History of Forsyth County. Winston-Salem: City-County Planning Board, 1982.
The Architects' Directory. New York and Chicago: William T. Comstock, 1903.
The Union Republican (Winston-Salem), May 29, 1980.
Weaver, C.E. ed. Winston-Salem, City of Industry. Winston-Salem: Winston Printing Company, 1918.
Winston-Salem City Directories, 1886-1945.
Winston-Salem Friends Meeting. "History of Winston-Salem Friends Meeting." (Pamphlet, 1962).
Winston-Salem Section, North Carolina Chapter, American Institute of Architects. Architectural Guide, Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Winston-Salem: R.J. Reynolds Industries, 1978.
Withey, Henry F. and Withey, Elsie Rathburn. Biographical Dictionary of American Architects (deceased). Los Angeles: Hennessey and Ingalls, Inc., 1970.
Young, Terrell. "A History of West End." (Typewritten)
‡ Laura A. W. Phillips & Gwynne S. Taylor, consultants, West End Historic District, Winston-Salem, Forsyth County, NC, nomination document, 1986, National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Nearby Neighborhoods
Street Names
1st Street West • 4th Street West • 5th Street West • 6th Street West • 8th Street West • Broad Street North • Brookstown Avenue • Burke Street • Buxton Street • Carolina Avenue • Chatham Road • Clover Street • Crafton Street • Forsyth Street • Glade Street • Jarvis Street • Jersey Avenue • Manly Street • Piedmont Avenue • Pilot View Street • Spring Street North • Summit Street • Sunset Drive North • Sunset Drive South • Taylor Street • West End Boulevard