Beautiful homes, lots of history in Raleigh's Blount Street Historic District

The idea for this post didn’t even occur to me until I was walking through the Blount Street Historic District en route to William Peace University in Raleigh on Sunday, May 17. 

That also was the point at which I learned there was a Blount Street Historic District. I’ve spent a lot of time since then learning more about it, as the history I’ve presented in this post hopefully proves.

While making my way north on Blount Street from the governor’s Executive Mansion (featured in a post here two days ago), I beheld quite a few beautiful and stately homes. And I kept snapping picture after picture that I had not planned to make beforehand. 

Based on the rough map of the district, provided at the district’s website (you can follow the link in the opening paragraph), the district runs from the governor’s official residence at Jones and Blount streets to Peace University, and it is not much wider than the homes on both sides of Blount. 

One such home is the Fannie E.S. Heck house (also referred to as the Heck-Andrews House), shown in the image leading off the post. Heck (1861-1915) was a writer, author and social activist who was elected president — on three separate occasions — of the Baptist Women’s Missionary Union, a charitable and service-oriented organization. 

The historical sign outside the home also states that she is a benefactor of Meredith College, a private liberal arts college for women and a coeducational graduate school in Raleigh. A more detailed history of Heck’s work is delineated if you follow the link in the first sentence of the previous paragraph. Another view of the home is shown in the photo below. 

The house’s Wikipedia entry says the house has a dramatic central tower capped with a convex mansard roof with a balustrade. The central part of the two and a half story, Second Empire style frame dwelling is enclosed with a concave mansard roof with patterned slate. It is a stunning work of architecture, the details of which I have not seen in a long time. Especially the upper sections, which the picture below best depicts.

Attorney Alexander Boyd Andrews Jr. purchased the house in 1916, and his heir sold it to Julia Russell in 1948. The State of North Carolina purchased it 1987 and sold it in 2016 to the North Carolina Association of Realtors, which occupies it today.

Blount Street was named for Thomas Blount, a prominent 18-century landowner, Revolutionary War lieutenant and adjutant general, merchant and U.S. congressman representing the Halifax district in North Carolina. He was one of nine state commissioners honored with a street name when Raleigh was established as the state capital in 1792.  

One other thing I learned while researching the district is that Blount is pronounced “BLUNT.”

At the bottom of this post, I threw in — if I can borrow from the old Monty Python’s Flying Circus comedy show — something completely different. 

To view a full gallery of the downtown area photos I shot on this day, follow the link in the sentence. 

Above: There isn’t too much information on the internet about the brick Andrews-London house at 301 N. Blount St. other than it dates to 1918 and that today it serves as office space for various enterprises.  

Above: The Italianate style Andrews-Duncan House at 407 N. Blount was built in 1874 for Alexander Boyd Andrews, a railroad executive and a Confederate captain in the 1st North Carolina Cavalry Regiment. Andrews’ architect was George S. Appleget, the same man who designed historic Estey Hall on the campus of Shaw University and the Heck-Andrews house (located next door) pictured in the lead-off photo. The house was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1972 and served for a period into the first decade of the new millennium as offices for North Carolina state government workers. It fell into disrepair until new owners renovated it, and today it serves as a private residence. 

Above and below: Two views of the Lewis-Smith House at 515 N. Blount. It is a rare surviving example of Greek Revival style frame architecture in downtown Raleigh. Built around 1855, it features a two-tiered pedimented entrance portico with paired Doric columns on the first level and well-detailed Ionic columns on the second. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The mansion was originally constructed for Dr. Augustus M. Lewis on North Wilmington Street. To save it from demolition during state government complex developments in the early 1970s, the entire building was physically moved to its current location. Dr. Charles Lee Smith, a distinguished educator, historian and publisher, purchased the estate in 1912. After buying the home, Smith expanded the property by adding projecting side bays and conservatory sunrooms. He resided there until his death in 1951.

Above: This Queen Anne style house at 549 N. Blount St. was built in 1898 and contains about 4,430 square feet inside. It has been historically used as a private residence, but in later years it has been used as office space by entities such as the nearby Holy Trinity Anglican Church.  

Above: This building at 530 N. Blount, at its intersection with William Drummond Way, is home to the North Carolina Independent College and Universities. The statewide network represents and advocates for 36 private, non-profit liberal arts and research institutions in North Carolina. They include major research institutions like Duke and Wake Forest universities; liberal arts schools such as Elon University and Davidson College; Historically Black Colleges and Universities such as Shaw University in Raleigh and Bennett College in Greensboro; and women's colleges such as Meredith College in Raleigh and Salem College in Winston-Salem.

Above: The Leonidas L. Polk House at 537 N. Blount was built in 1891 on North Person Street in Raleigh, shortly before the death of its namesake, who was North Carolina's first commissioner of agriculture and a key founder of North Carolina State University. Polk served in the North Carolina House of Representatives and served with the Confederate Army in the Civil War, after which he founded the town of Polkton in Anson County and started a weekly newspaper there called the Ansonian. A distant cousin of President James K. Polk, he was appointed to the agriculture commissioner position in 1877 and served for three years. Afterward, he rose to prominence in the National Farmers Alliance, a powerful agrarian adovocacy organization, eventually serving as vice president and president. The Alliance helped lead to the establishment of the political Populist Party, and it is said that the party might have nominated L.L. Polk for president in 1892 if he had not died unexpectedly in June of that year. The home remained in the Polk family until the mid-1960s, when the state acquired it and moved it to the rear of 612 N. Blount. It was restored and moved again, to its current location, in November 2000 and is used today by the Leonidas LaFayette Polk Foundation as a Polk Museum. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1977.    

Above: “The 1893 House” is a restored Neoclassical Revival property that dates to 1893 and was completely revitalized in 2023–24 to blend historical character with modern luxury.

Above: The Capehart-Crocker Queen Anne style structure at 424 N. Blount was built in 1898 and today is home to the North Carolina Ethics Commission. The house originally sat at 403 N. Wilmington Street but was uprooted and moved to its current location in 1979 to make way for development of the State Government Mall. It is named for its first residents, Lucy Capehart, the daughter of former State Attorney General Bartholomew Moore, and her husband, B.A. Capehart, and the second occupant, Sheriff H.H. Crocker. The State of North Carolina acquired it in 1971, and it has been used for government offices ever since. 

 

Above: This building at 201 N. Person St. is the headquarters of the North Carolina Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association but was once the home of flutist and composer Lamar Stringfield, a Raleigh native who in 1932 founded and was first conductor of the North Carolina Symphony. His boyhood home is three blocks east of here. He left the North Carolina Symphony to become assistant conductor at Radio City Music Hall in New York City for the 1938-39 season. He was with the Knoxville Symphony from 1946-47 and served two stints as music director of the Charlotte (N.C.) Symphony (1945-1946 and 1948-49). 

 

Above: The Lewis-Joyner House at 304 E. Jones St., which sits just southeast of the Executive Mansion where sitting governors reside, today is home to the law offices of Newman and Newman PLLC. It is in the historic Oakwood Neighborhood, just outside the boundaries of the Blount Street Historic District. It dates to 1878 and was one of 11 homes built by Julius Lewis & Co. in the neighborhood. Lewis & Co. started as a hardware and building and supply company in 1865. James Yadkin Joyner lived here throughout his influential tenure as North Carolina Superintendent of Public Instruction, which lasted from 1902 to 1919.

Above is the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, also known as the State Library. It is at 109 E. Jones St. Below are the headquarters of the North Carolina Medical Society at 222 N. Person St. 

Above and remaining photos below: Seaboard Station is a radical departure from the historic district presented above. But the new, mixed-use district is in downtown Raleigh just west of PeaceUniversity. Named for the historic Seaboard Air Line Railroad depot that originally stood there, it is a sprawling, modern destination featuring hundreds of apartments, boutique shops, trendy restaurants, and a hotel, the Hyatt House Downtown. The site features three distinct luxury apartment buildings — The Signal, The Point and The Miles. 

Downtown park honors spirit of the African American struggle for freedom

When it comes to Freedom Park in downtown Raleigh, my camera and I can’t seem to win. 

The park comprises an acre and almost a full half-block bounded by Jones, Lane and Wilmington streets and flanked to the west by the North Carolina legislative building, on the east by the Executive Mansion (governor’s official residence) and on the south by the State Archives Building.

The park’s website (follow link in lead paragraph) says the park’s purpose is to provide “a deep reverence for the unyielding spirit of the African American struggle for freedom.” Furthermore, the website says, the park “stands as a timeless tribute to the universal ideals of liberty, resilience and equality.”

When I did my lengthy downtown walk-through shoot in March 2023, the park was under construction. I took a few construction pictures, but I left the site disappointed in my timing, largely because I don’t get to downtown very often. Freedom Park opened officially in August of that year, just five months after I’d been there. 

So when I did my recent downtown shoot on May 17, I figured I’d finally be able to do a photo profile of the park. Alas, access to significant portions of it was roped off with yellow construction tape. 

Apparently there is nothing major to worry about, but the tape is used to restrict access to certain areas when landscaping or new plantings are going in. The park is managed by the North Carolina African American Heritage Commission. 

In the center of the park stands a 45-foot Beacon of Freedom, which lights at dusk each evening. The park also includes 20 “Voices of Freedom” — powerful words of North Carolina African Americans — inscribed in the rust-colored low-rise walls. My photos in this post provide evidence of a few of those.

Fortunately, I obtained permission to use the first photo below, a drone shot of a large portion of the park, from award-winning architectural photographer Keith Isaacs, whose photos of the park adorn the Freedom Park website. The remaining images below Keith’s are mine from May 17.

To view a full gallery of images from my shoot, follow the link in this sentence. 

Coming tomorrow: Homes, buildings in Downtown Raleigh’s Blount Street Historic District

Where North Carolina governor lives, and where lieutenant governor works

In my May 17 shoot in downtown Raleigh, I was disappointed — but not entirely surprised — when I reached the square block encompassing the Executive Mansion and official residence of the North Carolina governor and saw the multitude of photographic impediments that stood before me.

It is a gated and fully fence-in property, so all of the photos you see in this post were shot between vertical black metal posts that made up the fencing. The best clear shot I could get of the mansion, built in 1891, was the photo you see leading off this post. 

The front of the house, which you see in the above picture, faces west, and from this point I began a clockwise circling of the block, heading north, then east and south before concluding with a turn north to return to the front. 

The next best shots will be in the first few pictures below. The first two are from the same vantage point, the south side of the dwelling; the difference is simply focal range. The second pulls back a bit to include some more foreground. 

The incumbent governor, by the way, is Josh Stein, a Democrat. It was nice that just a block north of this is a home housing the official office of the lieutenant governor. The incumbent is Rachel Hunt, also a Democrat.

I didn’t let the limitations of the shoot at the Executive Mansion deter me from capturing some landscape shots, and the mansion property has very nice gardens, trees ... and tons of tall bushes on its east side. 

I’ll present my shots of the lieutenant governor’s official residence below those of the governor in this post. Both residences are within the Blount Street Historic District and easy walking distance from the State Legislative Building.

The Hawkins-Hartness House that serves as the lieutenant governor’s office was constructed as a private residence in 1881 and is not gated. The State of North Carolina acquired the property in 1969, and it has served as the lieutenant governor’s office since 1988. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

In North Carolina, governor and lieutenant governor candidates do not run as a ticket; voters cast separate ballots for each of those offices. So it is possible for incumbents in the state’s top two offices to be from different political parties, which was the case during both of previous Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s two terms.

To view a full gallery of images taken at the two locations, follow the link in this sentence.  

LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR’S OFFICIAL RESIDENCE

Coming tomorrow: North Carolina Freedom Park