(Reprinted from March 7, 2018, which means some of the tenants may have moved or taken a different name.)
Sometimes you can uncover a lot of history by tracing the ownership and associated stories connected to just one building. It helps that Wake Forest has a long tradition of reusing, converting and renovating existing buildings. It also means that current owners and tenants are sometimes amazed or appalled by what they uncover when a water line leaks or the sewer backs up.
This week we will look at what is called the Ford building on South White Street because it was built in 1927 as the first – and only – Ford dealership in downtown or the whole town. Today it houses the N.C. Society of Surveyors, Cawthorne Moss & Panciera, a land survey company, and Black & White Coffee.
When it was built it had a showroom in front, a parts department behind the showroom and a garage that kept growing as owners added on to it twice until it almost reached Brooks Street. During its years as a dealership, cars entered and left the garage by a ramp on the north side of the showroom which is now concealed by a gate and patio.
The name of the original owner is a bit hazy. It probably was Ray Harris, who was confined to a wheelchair. John Rich, a local attorney and historian, said Harris was a party to a murder years ago. Harris had a falling out with John Baker, a local man who had “a reputation for fighting and drinking” and generally being a hard case. Baker told people he was going to kill Harris, and one day he walked into the dealership. Harris pulled out a gun and shot Baker, killing him. Baker was carrying a gun, Rich said, but he had not made any threats or pulled out the gun that day. Harris was never indicted and the matter died.
Henry L. Miller, who had worked for Harris as a mechanic, bought the dealership and the building from Harris in 1940 and kept the building until 1975, although he sold the dealership after a few years. Miller came to town from Texas with nothing in his pockets and went on to become a leading business man, mayor, and advocate for books and the local library.
Carlton Chappell, one of the later dealership owners, said Miller sold it first to two men, Ralph Cruser and someone named Tyner, who soon left town. Cruser sold Fords for a few years before selling out to a man named Sullivan. Sullivan was only in business for a few months before he sold the dealership to the Strickland brothers from over at Falls. The Stricklands sold it to Collis Lewis, and Lewis in turn sold it to Chappell, who moved the dealership to the corner of South Main (U.S. 1-A) and Capital Boulevard (then just U.S. 1) in 1969. Chappell later sold the dealership to Bob Bostrom. The site is still owned by Bostrom but occupied by Chris Leith’s Kia dealership.
After Chappell moved the car dealership out of downtown, Miller leased the building and large parking lot to George Mackie Jr., who produced fiberglass boats and portable toilets until the business went bankrupt.
Miller sold the building in 1975 to Greg Bujewski, who operated an antique business in the front of the building. Bujewski also owned Wooten’s Homotel on South Main Street, now the Franklin’s Inn.
Later in that decade, Sanford Bailey and law partners John Rich and James Warren assumed the note Bujewski had from Miller and renovated what had been the showroom into offices for the Rich & Warren law practice.
About 1982, Rich and Warren began renovating the garage space. They cut it up into offices and leased it to Post Software International, a small computer and cash register company that continued to expand into more of the garage until it moved to a new building on U.S. 1 just across the county line in 1986. (Personal note: I had left the Wake Weekly and took a job as receptionist. Because there was no way to transfer calls or notify someone to pick up, I lost about 10 pounds running through the halls to find the three partners. I almost lost my mind trying to stop rainwater from running down the old ramp to the garage, under the door and into the carpets we were installing. Somehow that task came with the receptionist position.)
When Rich and Warren dissolved their partnership, Warren bought the building and moved his law practice into the space vacated by PSI. Hartsfield & Nash insurance agency moved into the front office and remained there until 1999. For a while, Martin Nassif’s accounting office shared space with Hartsfield & Nash.
The engineering firm of Appian occupied the front open space after 1999, followed by Works of Clay, a do-it-yourself pottery studio, which moved to The Factory in 2005, making room for The Well coffee house, which later moved to South Main Street house and then went bankrupt.
In the back, CAD Futures Corporation, which specialized in high-end computer design for customers across the world, occupied the office and warehouse space and the used the dock until Rod Bannerman bought the building in 2000, completely renovated the offices in the former garage, moved his construction company office there and rented out the rest. Bannerman sold out to Mike Moss and Jason Panciera in 2008.
Cawthorne Moss & Panciera, a surveying firm, moved into the middle of the building and have been there since 2008 .
Currently the front offices (showroom) are occupied by the North Carolina Society of Surveyors who moved there in 2009.
(If readers can remember any other companies or offices that have called the Ford Building home, please tell the editor at cwpelosi@aol.com or 919-556-3409.)
