Historic Charlotte, taking a lead from the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has decided to create a list of Mecklenburg County’s most at risk historic places.

Reprinted from
The Column, Spring 2009

We hope that this list will serve as an alarm to raise awareness of the serious threats facing our architectural and historic assets. In addition, we aim to use this list as an effective tool to increase the appreciation for the wide variety of historic places on hand, as well as achieving the result of actual restoration and reuse of these buildings. We would love to see any and all of these buildings restored so that one day they would be eligible for a Historic Charlotte Preservation Award!

This list is by no means complete; please help us. Nominations can be sent to This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it Please include the name, address, historic significance and age of the building or site.

The George E. Davis House (ca.1895)

The Davis House is at risk, as the photograph illustrates. Renewed efforts to save this house are under way. (Please contact Charles Jones at 704.375.8204 for more information about the Davis House.)

Dr. Davis was an important figure in three respects: he was the first black professor at Johnson C. Smith University, and, as Dean of the Faculty, a major shaper of education at that institution; he built a number of houses near his own as rental housing, thus molding the character of this part of the Biddleville neighborhood; and he was a North Carolina state agent for the Rosenwald Fund, and in that capacity had a direct hand in raising more than a half-million dollars for many of the black schools (including Billingsville) built in the state which were partially financed through the fund.

The Smith House in Fourth Ward (ca.1924)

The special significance of the Charles H. and Bess Smith House rests primarily upon its architectural importance and upon its role in documenting the evolution of the residential built environment of Center City Charlotte. The house is currently empty.

Martin E. Boyer, Jr. (1893–1970), who prepared plans for this Spanish Colonial Revival style house in 1923, was a nephew of well-known architect James McMichael. The initial owners were Charles H. Smith and his wife Bess, who moved into their new home in 1924 from elsewhere in Center City Charlotte. Charles Smith was president and manager of Blake Drugstore at nearby Trade and Tryon Streets, locally known as the Square. Boyer was born in Glen Wilton, Virginia, and reared in Charlotte. Like his uncle, for whom he worked during his early professional career, Boyer was steeped in the vocabulary of derivative design that increasingly dominated American architectural theory in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Boyer attended Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie-Mellon University) in Pittsburgh, where he was trained in the Beaux Arts tradition. Boyer practiced architecture in Charlotte for more than 50 years and mostly designed homes for wealthy patrons.

Thrift Depot of the Piedmont & Northern Railroad Company (ca.1912)

Charles Christian (C.C.) Hook and his partner, W. G. Rogers, designed three types of P&N stations — passenger stations, freight stations, and combined passenger and freight stations. They were constructed in 1912–13 on a 98-mile run from Spartanburg to Greenwood, S.C. and a 21-mile line from Charlotte to Gastonia. Passenger service ended in 1951.

This depot is the last of its kind and sorely in need of preservation and restoration. The Historic Landmarks Commission has been interested in purchasing the station for many years, but its current owner has not been willing to part with the station. To visit the station, go out Freedom Drive past I-85 to Paw Creek, turn left on the Old Mount Holly Road and look for the brick railroad station on your right. It's a lonely sentinel of the past now surrounded by massive fuel tanks and overgrown shrubbery.

The Wiliam Treloar House (ca.1887)

The legacy of William Treloar to Charlotte's First Ward is the home he built for his family at the southeastern corner of Brevard and Seventh Streets. It is a distinct reflection of the prosperity and expansiveness of the life of the English native and shows as well the taste and style of a very rare large house surviving from the 1880s in the area.

The Treloar House is one of only two surviving examples of "row house" architecture in Charlotte's central city and one of the few remnants of the days when Brevard Street was a highly respected residential street. Built in 1887 of brick, wood, and stone, the Treloar House is a rectangular building with a steep-sided mansard roof with small decorative gables. Beautiful decorative slate roofing is found on the majority of the mansard roof. The shallow sloped top portion is not intended to be seen; therefore, less expensive roofing material is found on that portion. The gables are complete with pendanted collar braces and decorated collar beams.

The dual-residential nature of the original building was emphasized in the building's front façade. Rusticated stone blocks were placed vertically in the brick pilasters on both ends of the façade. Another pilaster with identical stone block decoration was located directly in the middle of the façade, dividing it visually into two units. The stone blocks, plus the appearance of two identical houses placed side by side gave the house a very strong vertical feeling, which was a common Victorian feature. The upper level windows of the front façade reflect Renaissance Revival styles. There exist four symmetrically placed windows on the second floor; two windows are placed on each side of the center pilaster. They are tall and thin double-hung windows with simple sills and elaborate cast iron Italianate window heads. A wooden second-level rectangular bay window is located underneath each gable closest to the back end of the house. Each bay window has Stick Style trim with X-braces plus diagonal and vertical siding, and three windows, one facing the front and one facing each side. They are arched windows made of wood with glass in the upper half only.

Though modified somewhat over the years, the Treloar House remains an unusual and stately presence in a part of town that has noth- ing like it in the immediate area, which is now being redeveloped. It is a distinct reminder of an era now long past by a hundred years, but it should continue to be a vital part of First Ward in the city, linking future development with a sense of where we have been.

East Boulevard as a Residential Street

East Boulevard was historically one of the premier residential streets of Dilworth, the first streetcar suburb in Charlotte, and the boulevard remains the spine of both the local and National Register historic districts that encompass much of Dilworth. Streetcars once ran down the broad, tree-lined boulevard, along which some of the finest houses, small-scale apartment houses, and churches were built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Today, many of these one- and two-story buildings, sited on large, tree-shaded lawns, remain as testaments to East Boulevard having once been a fashionable address for Charlotte's business leaders. Although now used primarily for commercial purposes, the historic houses along East Boulevard, with their residential character, scale, and setbacks, remain substantially intact but could be threatened by redevelopment.

Diane Althouse is executive director of Historic Charlotte, Inc.

Photographs courtesy of Historic Landmarks Commission and Historic Charlotte, Inc. Learn more at HistoricCharlotte.org.