In Greensboro, there’s a lonely sign situated at 602 West Friendly Avenue that reads “The Ireland House.” WFDD listener Melvyn Brown walks or drives by it most days, and he's had questions about it for a long time.
“What was Ireland House? What happened to Ireland House? Why hasn’t anything been done with the lot with this vacant abandoned sign?”
For this installment of Carolina Curious, WFDD's Eddie Garcia combed through archival records to find some answers.
The house was built by Charles Ireland in 1904. It had multiple stories and 23 rooms, including a ballroom which was used for entertaining and community events.
Ireland was a businessman from Virginia who moved to Greensboro in the late 1800s. He held leadership roles with Greensboro College, Bennett College and L. Richardson Memorial Hospital, which served Black patients during the Jim Crow era.
Glenn Perkins is curator of community history at Greensboro History Museum. He says the home was an “amazing exclamation point of a house.” Now the lot is practically empty, except for remnants of the porch foundation.
“They were part of the unique look of that house,” Perkins says. “It had this marvelous kind of stone work in it, and this real kind of expressive gabled top that was so high up off the ground. Just all this quirky, decorative exuberance, I think, for a house that must have really opened eyes.”
Over time, the house lost some of its former grandeur until Ann and Randel Roberts purchased it in the 70s. They restored Ireland House, and it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The home was active again, used for events, and housed the city’s Women’s Resource Center in 1995.
But in February 1996, an electrical fire destroyed the house; all of the Roberts’ work went up in flames.
The Greensboro Fire Department highlights the blaze as a significant event in an online timeline of its history, noting: “A fire at the historic Ireland House, completed in 1904, destroyed its interior. The house was built by a wealthy Greensboro family who exerted great influence in the community during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.”
Perkins says it was a major loss for the city. “It’s sort one of these grandiose houses that really talked about a certain level of aspiration that Greensboro and its people had at the turn of the century,” he says.
A News & Record article from 1998 indicates that after years of trying to save the structure, the Roberts ended their struggle. Insurance payouts totaled $400,000, and it was going to take at least $1 million to restore the home.
So, it was bulldozed.
Tax and deed records show that the Roberts still own the property. A recent post on Reddit, seemingly from Ann Roberts, shares a troubled tale related to the fire, insurance claims and further complications. The post ends with characterizing the day the remains were bulldozed as being “even sadder than the day of the fire.”
All that’s left of Ireland House is some rubble, and that lonely sign.