Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary Increase

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number7Page2Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCphotographs, Caldwell County property record cards, and interviews with current and former residentsand knowledgeable property owners.Integrity StatementThe four buildings in the expansion area were constructed before 1959 and retain integrity of location,design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling, and association, thus contributing to the district’shistoric significance. The evaluations are based on age and degree of alteration. The Dayvault’s DrugStore façade remodeling, a common occurrence in commercial buildings, occurred within the district’speriod of significance and reflected the business’s ongoing success. The O. P. Lutz Furniture Companyand Lutz Hosiery Mill’s alterations have been more extensive, but were necessary to accommodate thebuilding’s changing function. In 1963, the Lutz family undertook a renovation that reflected the needsof their tenant, Roses Department Store. Updates included the installation of square panel sheathing onthe façade’s upper portion; grey, white, and yellow mosaic tiles on the storefront kneewall, the onestory connector’s façade, and the side entrance; and a flat-roofed metal canopy that sheltered bands ofaluminum-framed display windows and two double-leaf glass doors at the corner entrance. Thewindows on the side and rear elevations were infilled with brick. In the space between the furniturestore and the Center Theater to the west, open since 1951 when a fire destroyed the Dixie Home Storesgrocery, contractors erected concrete block north and west walls to support a steel truss roof systemand removed the 1939 building’s first-story west wall in order to expand Roses Department Store’ssquare footage.2 In 2012, the property owner removed the metal canopy and the façade’s second-storysheathing panels, exposing the intact original decorative brickwork and reopening the windows on theWest Avenue facade.Commercial Building122 South Boundary Street, circa 1948This austere two-story commercial building features a variegated brick running bond façade and six-toone common bond side and rear elevations. Metal casement windows illuminate the second floor: twoon the façade, two on the south elevation, and one at the rear elevation’s north end. The aluminumframed storefront encompasses plate-glass windows with a brick apron flanking a recessed entrance.Brick corbelling surmounts the storefront and terra cotta coping caps the roof parapet. The first floororiginally housed two businesses, but a plate-glass window replaced the south door when the currentowners combined the interior spaces. A shed roof above the narrow opening between 915 WestAvenue and 122 Boundary Street shelters a wood staircase leading to second floor entrances for both2Betty Hobbs Lutz, Herbert D. Lutz Jr.’s wife, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 3, 2012;Otis P. Lutz, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 4, 2012; Betty Sue Lutz Wilke, telephoneconversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 8, 2012.

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number7Page3Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCbuildings. A one-story metal canopy creates an outdoor storage area between 122 Boundary Street andthe Caldwell County Government Office building to the east.Frank W. Dayvault constructed this commercial building to serve dual purposes. He rented the firstfloor storefronts to a variety of tenants, while most of the second story served as the Dayvault’s DrugStore stock room. The second floor also contained the business’s restrooms and an employee lounge.3The Boundary Street building is not illustrated on the 1950 updates to the 1927 Sanborn map, but oralhistory and city directories indicate that it was erected around 1948. Mr. Dayvault’s daughter JoannaDayvault Jones recalls that the structure was in use by the time the family moved to their new home inOctober 1950. City directory research revealed that the street addresses for this area, including the oddand even numbered sides of the road, have changed, complicating early occupant identification. Thefirst listing for this section of Boundary Street’s east side appears in 1943 when the Lenoir RecreationCenter, a pool hall that was located in 915 West Avenue’s basement, has a 103 South Boundary Streetaddress. In 1948, the building that is now 122 South Boundary Street housed two storefront tenants:barber William A. Watson at 105 South Boundary Street and bicycle proprietor Carl Buchanan at 107.The lessees remained the same through 1951, when Marshall V. Setzer operated the barber shop. PoorBoy’s Meat Market occupied 105 ½ South Boundary Street in 1953 and remained there for severalyears.Dayvault’s Drug Store915 West Avenue, 1937, early 1950s storefrontDayvault’s Drug Store’s exterior retains original Commercial Style elements including the steppedparapet, brick diamond medallions, and rectangular brick panel outlined with a soldier course thatornament the one-story-on-basement building’s painted brick façade. The three-part early 1950sstorefront consists of aluminum-framed plate-glass display windows and single-leaf doors surroundedby rock-face Roman brick kneewalls and pilasters. A small cast-iron mortar and pestle ornaments thepilaster at the northwest corner, referencing the building’s original function.The side and rear elevations are executed in five-to-one common bond red brick. A painted sign nearthe west elevation’s north end comprises a central section that reads “This is Dayvault’s Drug Store,make it yours,” flanked by a painted pestle on the north side that states “prescriptions, sick-room3Prior to 122 Boundary Street’s construction, Mr. Dayvault stored his inventory in a small space at the north endof 915 West Avenue’s basement. A trap door under the drug store’s magazine section adjacent to the front display windowprovided the only access to the storage room. Joanna Dayvault Jones, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach,August 16, 2012; Frances Dayvault Morisey, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 14, 2012; Freddie H.Moore, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 15, 2012.

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number7Page4Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCneeds, patent medicines, gifts, stationary” and a matching south pestle that reads “fountain service,sandwiches, tobacco, leather goods, magazines.” Double-hung six-over-six sash wood windows withmetal security bars illuminate the basement and an auxiliary entrance provides access at the building’ssouthwest corner.O. P. Lutz Furniture Company - Lutz Hosiery Mill1001 West Avenue, 1939; 1963 façade improvements; 2012 renovation, Jessie Plaster, architectOtis Peeler Lutz commissioned the construction of an expansive two-story-on-basement brickcommercial building at West Avenue and Boundary Street’s southwest corner in 1939 to serve as afurniture store and hosiery mill. The corner building’s three floors functioned as furniture showrooms,while the one- and two-story rear sections housed hosiery manufacturing operations. The interior floorplan was historically open, facilitating its use as a furniture store and hosiery mill. A 1940s photographillustrates the showroom’s hardwood floors, finished walls, boxed posts, exposed ceiling beams, andthe counter and offices at the rear (south) end.4Mr. Lutz also erected a one-story edifice that stood between the furniture store and the Center Theaterto the west, occupied by the Dixie Home Stores grocery from the early 1940s through about 1951,when it was destroyed in a fire. The space remained vacant until 1963, when contractors erectedconcrete block north and west walls to support a steel truss roof system and removed the 1939building’s first-story west wall in order to expand the storefront’s square footage to accommodateRoses Department Store.5At the same time, the Lutz family, who had moved to Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, undertook anextensive façade modernization to reflect Roses Department Store’s corporate image. Updatescompleted before the March 1963 grand opening included installation of square panel sheathing on thefaçade’s upper portion; grey, white, and yellow mosaic tiles on the storefront kneewall, the one-storyconnector’s façade, and the side entrance; and a flat-roofed metal canopy that sheltered bands of4“Furniture Store in Lenoir Street Floor,” photo in the collection of Otis P. Lutz, Fort Mill, South Carolina.Betty Hobbs Lutz, Herbert D. Lutz Jr.’s wife, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 3, 2012;Otis P. Lutz, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 4, 2012; Betty Sue Lutz Wilke, telephoneconversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 8, 2012; Ernest H. Miller, Miller’s Lenoir City Directory, 1943-1944(Asheville: Commercial Service Company, November 1943), 288. The last city directory listing for Dixie Home Stores at205-207 West Avenue is 1950-1951. The address was listed as “vacant” from 1953 to 1956. The Jacksonville, Floridabased Winn and Lovett supermarket chain acquired 117 North and South Carolina Dixie Home grocery stores(headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina) in 1955, creating “Winn-Dixie Stores, Inc.” -dixie-stores-inc., accessed in August 2012.5

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number7Page5Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCaluminum-framed display windows and two double-leaf glass doors at corner entrance. The windowson the side and rear elevations were infilled with brick.6In 2012, contractors removed the metal canopy and the façade’s second-story sheathing panels,exposing the original decorative brickwork and window openings. Bricks laid at an angle createpilasters and a sawtooth cornice that ornament the three-bay façade, the corner bay, and the long eastelevation’s northernmost section. Black mastic on the exposed brick marks the location of the blackstructural glass veneer that surrounded two recessed entrances—one at the corner and one centered onthe West Avenue elevation—and the plate glass display windows that flanked them.Center Theater1011 West Avenue, 1941, Erle G. Stillwell, architectThis brick Art Moderne-style theater features a two-part stuccoed façade. The west section, above theoriginal marquee, has a stepped parapet and is scored and painted with a wide vertical black stripe atthe center and three thin vertical stripes—black at the center and red on the outside edges—to eitherside. The triangular marquee advertises the theater name in neon above the reader board’s neon bands.Dozens of bare light bulbs illuminate the recessed entrance, where three-double-leaf glass doorsprovide access to the interior. The ticket window is centered in the curved wall on the entrance’s westside, while a movie poster display case occupies the opposite matching curved wall. The terrazzoentrance floor displays an Art Moderne motif with a white field, a central red circle, and outlying redand black bands. The façade’s east section has a scored upper portion painted with a black-and-whitecheckerboard pattern above a panel created by two horizontal red lines at the first-story corniceheight.7 Two movie poster display cases flank a central window. The flat-roofed metal canopy thatsheltered the African American entrance on the west side elevation now spans the north end of thealley between the theater and the commercial building to its west. The side and rear elevations areunpainted red brick with buttresses capped with cast-stone and terra cotta coping topping the steppedparapet walls.6Betty Hobbs Lutz, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 3, 2012.Architect Erle Stillwell did not specify the existing paint scheme. The building’s façade was originally white perthe June 1940 working drawings titled “A Theatre for Lenoir Theatres Inc.” in the collection of the Henderson PublicLibrary and the descriptions in period newspaper accounts. Edwin Stafford remembers that the exterior was painted warmwhite with tan trim during his father’s tenure. “Most Modern Equipment and Materials Used Throughout the New CenterTheatre,” The Lenoir News-Topic, February 28, 1941; William Mitchell, Buildings as History: The Architecture of ErleStillwell: A Descriptive Catalogue of His Drawings in the Henderson County Public Library (Henderson: Friends of theHenderson County Public Library, 2006), 131; Edwin Stafford, telephone conversation with Heather Fearnbach, August 10,2012.7

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number7Page6Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCThe 855-seat theater interior is substantially intact, retaining original plaster walls, hardwood floors,and Art Moderne-style light fixtures throughout the lobby, auditorium, and balcony. Several wallsfeature curved corners, accentuating the streamlined aesthetic. A small closet on the lobby’s west sidehouses the metal letters used for the marquee. The balcony retains original seating and a projectionroom containing mid-twentieth-century equipment.The plan reflects the pervasive segregation of Southern public spaces during the Jim Crow era. Whitetheater-goers purchased tickets and entered the central foyer through the front doors. The auxiliaryAfrican American entrance opened into a small vestibule containing a ticket window and a staircasethat rose to the balcony. The original construction drawings specified a movable railing that separatedthe African American seats in the balcony’s western third from the rest of the space, as well as therestrooms at the section’s rear corner. A staircase on the building’s east side provided white patronswith balcony access.88Erle G. Stillwell, Inc. Architects, “A Theatre for Lenoir Theatres, Inc., Lenoir, N. C.,” Sheets 3 and 4, June 1,1940, original plans at the Erle G. Stillwell Collection at the Henderson County Public Library, digitized version online aspart of the University Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Documenting the American Southinitiative “Going to the Show,” http://docsouth.unc.edu/gtts/content/2826, accessed in August 2012.

NPS Form 10-900-a(8-86)OMB Approval No. 1024-0018United States Department of the InteriorNational Park ServiceNational Register of Historic PlacesContinuation SheetSection number8Page7Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary IncreaseCaldwell County, NCSection 8. Statement of SignificanceThe Lenoir Downtown Historic District Boundary Increase expands the boundaries of the 2007designated historic district to incorporate four contributing resources erected on three tax parcelsencompassing 0.64 acres between 1937 and 1948. Dayvault’s Drug Store, the O. P. Lutz FurnitureCompany and Lutz Hosiery Mill, and the Center Theater manifest Lenoir’s economic resurgence as thecountry recovered from the Great Depression. The 1941 Center Theater, designed by Hendersonvillearchitect Erle G. Stillwell, is architecturally important as an excellent example of the commercial ArtModerne style in Lenoir. The commercial building at 122 Boundary Street reflects the need for newstorefronts as the city grew during the post World War II era. The locally-significant LenoirDowntown Historic District Boundary Increase meets National Register Criteria A and C in the areasof Architecture, Commerce, and Entertainment/Recreation. The boundary increase’s period ofsignificance begins in 1937 with the Dayvault’s Drug Store’s construction and ends in 1959, the samedate as the original historic district.Commerce and Entertainment/Recreation ContextThe Chester and Lenoir Narrow Gauge Railroad, a 110-mile freight and passenger line originating inSouth Carolina, was completed in 1884, but it was not until the turn of the twentieth century thatLenoir’s residents initiated manufacturing endeavors on a large scale. Investors reorganized the city’sfirst furniture factory, the Lenoir Furniture Company, established in 1889, as Harper FurnitureCompany in 1899, presaging the municipality’s industrial boom that would last for decades. By 1913,Caldwell County entrepreneurs had opened seven factories that produced furnishings. T. J. Lutzoperated the Hudson Chair Company, W. J. Lenoir was Caldwell Furniture Company’s proprietor, G.F. Harper owned Harper Furniture Company, T. H. Berryhill established Kent Furniture Company, L.H. Tuttle Kent created Coffey Manufacturing Company, and R. B. Dula founded Lenoir ChairManufacturing Company. O. P. Lutz managed the Moore-Stone Chair Company, incorporated by F. P.Moore, J. Claude Moore, W. A. Shell, Joe C. Moore, and T. J. Stone in 1909 with 9,000 in capitalstock. The business’s seventy-five employees initially assembled solid oak chairs, many of which werepurchased by vendors in the northeastern United States, and later diversified to other furniture.99Nancy Alexander, Here Will I Dwell: The Story of Caldwell County (Salisbury, N. C.: Rowan Print Company,1956),

COMMERCE/TRADE: Business COMMERCE/TRADE: Business COMMERCE/TRADE: Specialty Store COMMERCE/TRADE: Specialty Store . Art Deco walls BRICK Art Moderne CONCRETE STUCCO roof ASPHALT RUBBER other . Caldwell County property record cards, and interviews with curren