renovation

Renovation in East Wilson.

I mentioned here the recent renovation of houses on East Green Street, a phenomenon that actually extends throughout East Wilson. Some are on the market for sale; others are upgraded rental properties. A notable few:

  • 602 East Green Street

The Isaac and Estelle Shade house has received a sparkling reboot, inside and out. 

One of the oldest surviving on this stretch of East Nash Street, this house suffered fire and the ravages of decades of neglect. I’m sorry to see some of its original features — two chimneys, columnar porch posts, and oversized windows — go, but happy that this nearly 110 year-old house has been saved. It’s most closely identified with the family of Willie G. and Ada Harris Reid.

  • 1006 Washington Street

The owners of this house have pulled out the dark screens hiding the porch and have begun an exterior paint job.

  • 505 South Pender Street 

This little endway house is finally ready for occupancy. Long unoccupied except by squatters, this house was stripped to the studs for renovation. I’m interested to see what the current market is for one-bedroom shotguns without parking, especially at the listed rental price. Kudos for the improvement though. 

A view through the front door goes straight through to the back, illustrating the origin of the sobriquet “shotgun house.”

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, September 2021.

Green Street updates.

On a recent visit to Wilson, I noticed clean-up and renovation underway at several houses in East Wilson Historic District, including:

The Charles and Ella Tate Gay house was built about 1913. Its entire exterior has been renovated. (I wish they’d kept the porch posts.)

It’s not clear to me what is happening at the Nathan Haskins house, also built about 1913. It has been missing a porch post for years and remains boarded up, but its yard is regularly and thoroughly maintained.

The Isaac and Emma Green Shade house, one of two Tudor Revival cottages built in the 1930s on this stretch of East Green, has undergone a lovely external transformation. I hope it’s got an updated interior to match!

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, June 2021.

505 South Pender Street, revisited.

A year ago, Black Wide-Awake featured the abandoned endway house at the corner of South Pender and Hines Streets.

September 2020 finds the hundred-year-old house under complete renovation.

The interior has been gutted to the studs, but the house will essentially retain its original floor plan — an entry door opening directly into a front room, then a middle room, then at rear a kitchen and bath. (The bathroom was originally a back porch and would have been enclosed in the 1950s or ’60s.)

The house was once heated by an oil stove that vented through a chimney.

The house sits on new concrete block pillars, but a skirt of some sort will likely be added to enclose the crawlspace.

Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, September 2020.

120 North Pender Street, revisited.

Two large pines have been cut down in the front yard of 120 North Pender, the Georgia Crockett Aiken house, revealing the dwelling’s full and impressive mass. The day I took this photograph, I met G., the architect who purchased and is renovating the house, uprooting weeds along the fence in her side yard.

Photograph by Lisa Y. Henderson, October 2018.