Just a little history: The partial history of one WF building

(This was written in 2011 when I was trying – and failing – to write histories of downtown buildings for a self-guided brochure that was never completed so it is not truly up-to-date.)

I do have a pretty complete history of one building that was associated with Henry Love Miller, a Texan who came to town, worked and saved money, became a businessman, the mayor, the head of the town library board and one of the most respected and loved people in Wake Forest.

Although he at various times owned several buildings in town, one closely associated with Miller was what we now refer to as the Ford Building on South White Street.

Today it houses the N.C. Society of Surveyors and Cawthorne Moss & Panciera, a land survey company.

It was built, however, in 1927 as the first and only Ford dealership in town. 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 reached almost down to Brooks Street. During its years as a dealership, cars entered and left the garage by a ramp on the north side of the showroom. It 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.

Miller, who had worked for Harris, bought the dealership and the building in 1940 and kept the building until 1975 although he sold the dealership after a few years.

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 then 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 and more of the garage until it moved in 1986 to a new building on U.S. 1 just across the county line.

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, the do-it-yourself pottery studio, which moved to The Factory in 2005, making room for The Well coffee house, which later moved to a 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 used the dock until Rod Bannerman bought the building in 2000, completely renovated the offices in the former garage, moved his construction building office there and rented out the rest. Bannerman sold out to Mike Moss and Jason Panciera in 2008.

Try getting all that into a brochure that has to include all the other South White Street buildings as well as those on other nearby streets.

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