The three-story ca. 1920 King James Apartments in Asheville's Chestnut Hill Historic District was rehabilitated for continued commercial and residential uses with three commercial spaces on the street and ten apartments on the upper levels at a construction cost of $2,835,300.

The King James Apartments before and after rehabilitation

The 1905 Henry G. Whitfield House in Durham's Burch Avenue Historic District was converted from two apartments back to its original single-family use as a rental residence with a construction cost of $133,100.

The Henry G. Whitfield House before and after rehabilitation

The ca. 1925 house at 1120 Waughtown Street in Winston-Salem's Waughtown-Belview Historic District was rehabilitated for continued single-family use as a rental residence with a construction cost of $19,500.

1120 Waughtown Street after rehabilitation

The 1903 Sewell-Duguid House in the Wilmington Historic District was rehabilitated for continued single-family use as a rental residence with a construction cost of $65,000.

The Sewell-Duguid House before and after rehabilitation

The 1901 Hambley-Wallace House, a Chateauesque-style mansion in the Salisbury Historic District, was rehabilitated for use as a special events facility with a construction cost of $2,000,000.

The Hambley-Wallace House before and after rehabilitation

The Art Deco-style Neaves Building was constructed in 1937 as the State Theater in Elkin. It was subdivided for office use in the 1970s and was recently rehabilitated for continued office use with a construction cost of $398,100.

The Neaves Building after rehabilitation

Pineview Plantation, located in the small community of Roxobel (Bertie County), has been owned by the same family since construction in 1838.  This property was individually listed in the National Register in 1982. In addition to substantial rehabilitation work on the farmhouse, several of the historic outbuildings, including the smokehouse and office, were successfully stabilized and restored. The project also entailed the introduction of energy saving technology, including geothermal heating and cooling.

Pineview Office before rehabilitation

The Pineview Office (left) and the Pineview Plantation (right) after rehabilitation

Bill Garrett

Photographer Bill Garrett, a member of the HPO staff, traveled to Currituck County October 1-3 to photograph historic resources on Knotts Island, in Corolla, and on the Currituck mainland; he will make one more visit for this project. Bill often takes the "glamour" shots for architectural survey publications produced after countywide

architectural surveys have been completed. These beautiful publications go on to grace the coffee tables of many historic preservationists and proud residents of the survey area.

View of the Whalehead Club from the Currituck Lighthouse

Poyner's Store in Moyock

Bill has been a photographer since 1978 and a member of the HPO staff for 18 years. Bill began his professional career with the U.S. Navy as a photographer for five years active duty, one year active reserve, and five years inactive reserve. During his time with the HPO, he has produced images for seven county survey publications, the three North Carolina guidebooks, several magazine covers, and quite a few issues of Carolina Comments. Bill also operates the HPO photography lab and assists State Archives with their digitization efforts.

Matt Harrup

The Eastern Office has a new intern for the fall semester.  Matt Harrup is a student at East Carolina University and will graduate with a Master's degree in Public History in December 2012.  Matt completed his undergraduate studies at Lee University in Tennessee. He is interested in landscape preservation and is researching tar kilns in eastern North Carolina for his thesis. Matt was born in Alexandria, Va., but calls Brussels, Belgium home. He will be assisting the Eastern Office staff by conducting research on the Perry Stables building in Windsor, Bertie County, in order to place the building on the National Register of Historic Places. Matt is accompanying staff on field visits and attended the National Register Advisory Committee meeting in Raleigh in October.

The Hoyle House porch before restoration

Gaston County's oldest extant residence, the historic Hoyle House, will welcome visitors this fall with another phase of its restoration completed.  The west porch has been rehabilitated and restored to its late nineteenth-century appearance with a Historic Preservation Fund pass-through grant from the State Historic Preservation Office and a local match from its owners, the nonprofit educational organization Hoyle Historic Homestead, Inc.

The Hoyle House porch during the  restoration process

During the summer, a contractor removed a porch that was added to the house in the 1930s. Using documentary photos and advice from HPO senior restoration specialist Paul Fomberg, an 1895 porch floor system and masonry support were reconstructed. Basement access was evaluated and access into the basement was incorporated by inserting a door into the new porch floor.  A ramp to the new porch now enables visitors with disabilities access to the house's interior.

The Hoyle House, a National Register-listed property as well as a locally designated landmark, overlooks the Catawba River near Dallas in Gaston County and dates to at least the late eighteenth century.  It is possible, as related by local and family tradition, that part of the house was built as early as the mid-eighteenth century. The two-story weatherboarded house exhibits German-American construction features.

The Hoyle House is open to the public for special events throughout the year.  For more information, visit the house's website.

Henry River company store

On October 18^th, Western Office staff members Annie McDonald and Jennifer Cathey joined representatives from the Historic Burke Foundation (HBF), former residents of Henry River Mill Village, and the current property owner of the mill village and his realtor to discuss the process for listing the 55-acre property on the National Register of Historic Places and the potential for a prospective purchaser to then use the rehabilitation tax credits. 

Constructed between 1902 and 1905 for textile production, the site is Burke County's only planned mill village and retains approximately twenty of the original thirty-five dwellings as well as the company store.  Adjacent and nearby parcels contain the cotton warehouse, dam, and mill site as well as owners'/managers' houses. The mill ceased operations in 1970 and the worker housing and store were transferred to a single owner shortly thereafter. The mill burned in 1977.

A video tour of the Henry River Village

The two parcels containing the majority of the historic resources have been for sale for five to ten years. Though there have been numerous interested parties, no rehabilitation plans have ever come to fruition.  As a result, the last thirty years have seen the gradual deterioration of the structures and, most recently, use of the site for the filming of The Hunger Games and the destruction of one of the dwellings for the movie's special effects. This first movie of the popular trilogy has brought much attention to Henry River from across the country and around the world.  While it has heightened public awareness of and visitation to the site, this visibility also has corresponding risks that are intensified by the fact that the site is currently vacant.

Worker housing on the west side of Henry River Road

It was in this climate that former residents of the mill village, concerned about the potential for demolition or other loss of the historic resources, approached the Historic Burke Foundation (HBF) about preserving the site. Having grown up in the village from the 1940s through the 1960s, they have a personal connection to the community and hoped that HBF could provide some support and assistance to their efforts.  HBF then contacted DCR's Western Office to see what support the State Historic Preservation Office might be able to provide. 

Preservation Specialist Annie McDonald attended a meeting on September 15 with the interested parties and the property owner to begin exploring possible options for preservation. The former residents, having formed a loosely organized Henry River Preservation Committee under the umbrella of HBF, expressed interest in obtaining National Register status for the property to aid in marketing it for rehabilitation.

Worker housing on the east side of Henry River Road

A month later, the group reconvened at the Henry River Mill Village with HPO representatives McDonald and Cathey to investigate the existing condition of the resources and discuss the National Register listing process and the applicability of the various rehabilitation tax credits. The current owner expressed interest in the potential for combining the 20% commercial rehabilitation tax credit along with the 40% state mill credit. Though he is not in a position to rehabilitate the property, he understood the value of the tax credits in marketing it. Eligibility for the state mill credit is determined in consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office. HPO staff will continue to work with the owner and interested parties to determine if this significant incentive may be utilized for redevelopment of the site.

Recently the subject of a Master's Thesis by a student at Columbia University, Henry River Mill Village was placed on North Carolina's National Register Study List in 1973. Except for the loss of the mill, the site is remarkably intact.  With guidance from HPO staff, HBF and the preservation committee will be moving forward with a National Register nomination in the coming months. Wade Shepherd, who purchased the parcel containing  the store and residential portion of the mill village in the mid-1970s, supports the potential National Register listing.

Progress Report Released on the NCDCR Queen Anne's Revenge Shipwreck Project

 

The N.C. Office of State Archaeology - Underwater Archaeology Branch has released a progress report for work at the Queen Anne's Revenge site and in the QAR lab between July and September 2012. Click here to read the report.

NCDOT Completes 3^rd Year of Programmatic Agreement for Minor Transportation Projects

The State Historic Preservation Office (HPO) reviewed the third annual report under the Programmatic Agreement (PA) between the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), and HPO for minor projects. The agreement, designed to streamline project planning, delegates FHWA's responsibility for the review of minor transportation projects to NCDOT's cultural resources staff and allows it to complete the Section 106 process up to a finding of adverse effect, at which point FHWA or the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) resumes the consultation process as the responsible federal agency.

North Carolina was recently added to the national Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's Section 106 Success Stories list for the fruitful Montford Point / Camp Lejeune consultation between HPO and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Click here for more information.

The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP) is seeking examples of successful Section 106 cases that illustrate the impact the Section 106 process has had on historic preservation throughout its history.  For more information regarding the nomination of a project click here.

The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources has a blog for that!  Researcher Ansley Wegner writes of her travels and shares her knowledge of historic events that took place throughout the state in her blog North Carolina Time Traveler. Bloggers also share North Carolina history in the blog Adventures in North Carolina Culture, which highlights opportunities across the state to experience North Carolina history at special events, historic sites, and museums. Both are official blogs of the department.

While tramping through such historic church cemeteries as Thyatira Presbyterian in Rowan County, Steele Creek Presbyterian in Charlotte, and Waxhaw Presbyterian in Lancaster County, S.C., folklorist Daniel Patterson began to notice a certain gravestone style rich in artistic design, poetic inscription, and professional detail. The carver didn't sign the stones, but Patterson sensed they came from a single source.

Andrew Bigham's headstone. Photograph courtesy of the Charlotte Observer online.

Through painstaking research, he traced the markers back to a shop near Charlotte run by members of the Bigham family in the 18th century. By the late 1970s, Patterson's hobby had turned into a passion.

Decades of intensive field work and digging into archives and little-used manuscripts have produced a book that not only examines the unique Bigham headstones made before and after the American Revolution, but a vanished pioneer culture.  Published this month by UNC Press, The True Image: Gravestone Art and the Culture of Scotch Irish Settlers in the Pennsylvania and Carolina Backcountry is a story that encompasses how people lived during the violent times of the Revolution and their political and religious battles and provides new insights into slavery.

Click here for more information.

The North Carolina State Capitol, designated a National Historic Landmark in November 1973.

According to Secretary Salazar, "By designating these sites as national landmarks, we help meet the goals of President Obama's America's Great Outdoors Initiative to establish a conservation ethic for the 21st century and reconnect people, especially young people, to our nation's historic, cultural, and natural heritage."

Click here for descriptions of the newly designated properties. 

The Federal Highway Administration has released official guidance on the new Transportation Alternatives (TA) program, which replaces the former Transportation Enhancements program (TE). The guidance can be found here.  

The Preservation Green Lab of the National Trust for Historic Preservation recently released Saving Windows, Saving Money: Evaluating the Energy Performance of Window Retrofit and Replacement. The study compares retrofit and replacement options for older wood windows and finds retrofit measures can achieve performance results comparable to new replacement windows.