The H.J. Brown Coffin House Building was the early twentieth-century headquarters for a local business established in 1836. Originally a cabinet shop and later a maker of coffins, it evolved into an undertaking and mortuary company that eventually became Brown-Wynne Funeral Home. It is Raleigh’s oldest continuously operating business. The Classical Revival style exhibited by the 1907 headquarters building was typical of the early twentieth century—the columns, corner quoins, and bracketed cornice all promoted the idea of a solid, stable business operating within. By the 1970s, the company had moved out. To refresh the old building, a new Brutalist skin was applied, covering all Classical Revival detailing. A 2013 remodel uncovered the original edifice and restored the architectural detail, painstakingly replicating the cornice and the iron-flecked bricks.
Date: 1907, ca. 1920
]]>Leonard Medical Hospital was erected in 1912 to support the neighboring Leonard Medical School in the education of black physicians at Shaw University. The hospital initially opened in an 1885 frame building behind the medical school. It provided much-needed health care for Raleigh’s black community, which generally could not get treatment at Rex Hospital during the segregated period of Raleigh’s history.
Chatham County native Gaston Alonzo Edwards was the architect. Edwards was North Carolina’s first professionally registered black architect. He also designed the 1907 Masonic Temple Building at 427 S. Blount Street and oversaw the 1909 rebuilding of the St. Paul’s A.M.E. Church at 402 W. Edenton Street. Leonard Hospital closed in 1914 and has been converted into a classroom building known as Tyler Hall.
]]>George Matsumoto, a professor of architecture at NC State's School of Design, incorporated several of Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian house ideas in his design for the Ritcher House: passive climate control, aesthetic use of common building materials, and interior spaces intended for contemporary living. The house was much acclaimed in the early 1950s, and was prominently featured in several national magazines of the period. Private residence.
Date: 1950
]]>The J. S. Dorton Arena features parabolic design that boldly combined architecture and engineering, earning the building its reputation as an exceptionally significant design. Polish architect Matthew Nowicki, who conceived the structural idea for the building, died in a plane crash before construction finished. Raleigh architect William Henley Deitrick oversaw the completion of the paraboleum and made minor changes to the fenestration. The building provides a concert hall and exhibition space for the state fair.
Date: 1952
]]>Fire severely damaged the original 1895 building, which housed a nurse training center. Under the direction of Rev. Henry Beard Delany, the first African American Episcopal bishop in North Carolina, students quarried the stone and started the current building in 1905.
]]>This fine carousel, produced by Gustav A. Dentzel's Pennsylvania Carousel Company, originally operated at Bloomsbury Park; it was moved to Pullen Park in 1915. The carousel animals are thought to be the work of Salvatore Cernigliaro, master carver of Dentzel's company. Operated by the City of Raleigh Parks and Recreation Department.
Date: Before 1912
]]>This Gothic Revival brick church was built by a congregation founded in 1873. It is located in the Method community, a post-Civil War freedman’s village since enveloped by Raleigh's growth. The stylish exuberance of its brick detailing is unusual for rural African American church buildings, and stands as a symbol of this proud community’s aspirations. The building is well-preserved and retains original features on the exterior, including its corner tower, pointed-arch (lancet) doorways and stained-glass windows, sawtooth and rowlock belt courses, and diamond-shaped stone lozenges decorating the façade buttresses.
Date: 1923
]]>The City of Raleigh erected this octagonal brick tower to house its water supply in 1887; the structure included an attached two-story office building. Prominent Raleigh architect William Henley Dietrick removed the defunct tank in 1938 and converted the tower and building for his own office use, marking Raleigh's first adaptive use of a historic property. Dietrick eventually protected the structure with covenants and donated it to the N.C. Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, which used the structure for its headquarters office. It continues to serve office uses.
Date: 1887
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