North Carolina

Architect Edward Loewenstein moved to Greensboro in 1945, after marrying Frances Stern, the daughter of a prominent Greensboro family. He established a design practice and then partnered with Robert A. Atkinson Jr. in 1953, becoming a local leader of modernist design. Over three decades, Loewenstein and Atkinson completed 1,600 commissions, including Loewenstein’s own residence, a masterpiece of modern architecture set in a two-acre wooded suburban lot approximately three miles north of downtown Greensboro.

The Reynolda House Museum of American Art was originally the estate of Richard Joshua (R.J.) and Katharine Reynolds, a prominent tobacco-industry family. The Reynolds worked with Philadelphia architect Charles Barton Keen and landscape architect Thomas Sears to design the 1,067-acre property. Located approximately 3.5 miles northwest of downtown Winston-Salem, 600 acres of the estate are now occupied by Wake Forest University.

Mendenhall House is one of the best examples of early-nineteenth-century Quaker architecture in the South. Located in Jamestown, Mendenhall House and its outbuildings show the influence of Quaker architectural preferences brought from Pennsylvania.

Blandwood Mansion is believed to be the oldest extant example of the Italian Villa Style as promoted by American architect Alexander Jackson (A.J.) Davis. Built on what was originally a rural site outside of Greensboro, the mansion now faces north onto West Washington Street, four blocks west of the central business district. It is Greensboro’s oldest building on its original foundations.

Ocracoke Lighthouse is the oldest functioning lighthouse in North Carolina and the second oldest lighthouse in the United States still in continuous service.

St. John in the Wilderness is an English country chapel with the siting and appeal of a Tuscan hilltop church. In the early 1800s it was common for affluent families from Charleston, South Carolina, to take refuge from the heat in the mountains of North Carolina. They established a regular summer colony here in the area that they called “the Wilderness.” Prominent among this group were Charles and Susan Baring, who erected a private chapel on their estate.

The Jefferson Standard Building is one of the most prominent commercial landmarks in Greensboro, and one of the few pre–Depression-era skyscrapers in North Carolina.

The former F.W. Woolworth Department Store, now the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, was the site of the 1960 Greensboro sit-ins, a series of nonviolent protests that were among the most influential events in the civil rights movement. Located on a prominent corner in Greensboro, on South Elm and Sycamore (now West February 1 Place) streets, the Art Deco building was social hub for white citizens. Although African Americans were permitted to shop in the store, they were not allowed at the store’s lunch counter.

The Rock Springs Camp Meeting Ground is the state’s oldest and largest camp meeting grounds. It dates to 1794, when Methodist preacher Daniel Asbury initiated meetings in Terrell, North Carolina, as part of the Second Great Awakening, a series of Protestant religious revivals that saw the growth of evangelical sects in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Camp grounds were the site of such religious meetings when evangelical churches were few, ministers were itinerant, and congregants lived at some distance from one another.

Located in mountainous McDowell County, the Carson House is one of the area’s most impressive nineteenth-century houses. What was originally a modest mountain cabin grew into a Greek Revival structure as the Carson family became wealthy through land speculation in the western part of the state. Colonel John Carson was a Scots-Irish immigrant and a pioneer in the upper Catawba Valley. He became a representative to the Fayetteville Convention of 1789, where the U.S. Constitution was ratified by North Carolina. Three of Carson’s twelve children grew to become active in political affairs.