Saved Property
919 Spring Garden Street
College Hill Historic District
The Carrie and Charles Angle House, 1907
“The Colonial Revival style features of this early twentieth-century include a wraparound porch with paired columns on paneled piers; windows with multi-paned, diamond-shaped upper sash; and a second-story, center-bay deck.
— College Hill National Register nomination
This prominent College Hill home was saved after a devastating fire in 2011 nearly led to its demolition. The 1907 house is located at the corner of Spring Garden and Joyner streets, one block from UNCG. The home had been divided into apartments for about 25 years when it burned. Although the entire house damaged, the fire was primarily contained in an addition at the back of the house, which was removed in the restoration.
The Angle House was saved by an unprecedented collaboration led by the City of Greensboro, the Preservation Greensboro Development Fund and the College Hill Neighborhood Association. The home’s previous owner, the nearby College Place United Methodist Church, had planned to tear it down if a buyer couldn’t be found, but extended its deadline and its patience to allow time for the rescue effort to be completed.
Saving the house required amending the city’s rules on Municipal Service District funds, the special tax paid by property owners in the College Hill Historic District. The change allows MSD funds to be used to buy historic-district properties such as this one for renovation. City Council member Zack Matheny and Mayor Nancy Vaughan were instrumental in winning City Council approval for the change.
With $25,000 in MSD funds and $25,000 from the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission, the city bought the house from the church and turned it over to the Development Fund to sell. Finding a buyer with the requisite resources and interest in preservation was no small feat. Judge Richard Stone and Susan Stone rewarded everyone’s work and patience with their vision and commitment to restoring the home.
A large group of people and organizations made this effort successful — Matheny and Vaughan, Dawn Cheney and her colleagues on the Greensboro Redevelopment Commission, Mike Cowhig and Stefan-Leih Geary of the Historic District Program, attorney Marsh Prause and the board of the Development Fund, the Rev. Dr. Jason Harvey and College Place UMC, Steve Johnson of A408 Studio (architect and contractor), Ann Bowers and the Historic Preservation Commission, James Keith and the College Hill Neighborhood Association, and the State Historic Preservation Office all made essential contributions.
The home now has a preservation easement held by the Development Fund that will, among other things, prohibit its use as a multi-family dwelling.
The house is an American Foursquare with Colonial Revival features. The original owners were Charles Joel Angle (1866-1942) and Carrie Lee Finney Angle (1869-1942), listed at the address in the 1907 city directory (the address originally was 997 Spring Garden). They lived in the house the rest of their lives. Charles was the manager of the Broad River Lumber Company and later worked as a contractor.
Their daughter, Mary Ruth Angle (1895-1983), lived with them and inherited the house. She was a graduate of the State Normal and Industrial College (now UNCG) and worked as a school librarian. She lived in the house until she sold it in 1976 to the Rev. Joseph W. Flora (1925-1998) and Mary Watson Flora (1931-2016). Rev. Flora was the Presbyterian campus minister at UNCG. They were the first of a succession of absentee owners. It was divided into apartments after the Floras sold it in 1983.