Goodnight Raleigh | a look at the art, architecture, history, and people of the city at night

Hillsborough Street from the Wilmont

by Devin McKim in Cityscape on 03/16/2009
8 Comments

[UPDATE]

The Wilmont declared ‘Unfit for human habitation’. Read more here.

8 Comments:

keys
03/16/2009

Cool! I lived at Wilmont, first in the B section (no balcony) then in the A section (with balcony!) back in the early 80’s. Hubby and I even held our wedding in the living room of the second apartment! But I don’t think I ever thought to take a photo from the balcony, and I definitely didn’t have the technology to take a nighttime photo.

Could you possibly take a second photo, looking up Hillsborough in the other direction?

Devin
03/16/2009

yeah I’ll try to remember to do it next time i’m over there… which apartment were you married in? this was from a-5

oakcity
03/16/2009

A-7 represent!!!!

keys
03/16/2009

Going into A, is A-5 be on the left side of the building? If I remember correctly, and I didn’t go try to research this :-) , we were in B-3 and then A-4. A-4 being the “wedding chapel” apartment. LOL!

So, if it was B-3 and A-4, when we moved from B to A it was so funny having to walk down two stories, go outside, come inside, and then walk up two stories, when (if we could have gotten away with it) all we had to do was cut a hole through the wall and shove our stuff through to the other apartment. :-D

I really did like that building.

keys
03/16/2009

p.s. Thanks for the update with the link to last year’s post about The Wilmont! I had not seen that.

RaleighRob
03/20/2009

Neat photo. The Wilmont is a cool old apartment building. I kinda wish it was cleaned up a bit though…as well as most of that stretch of Hillsborough.

keys
03/23/2009

Hubby and I checked it out yesterday and yes, the old apartments were B-3 and A-4. It is definitely a cool old apartment building. The apartment was nice and big, the kitchen had a pantry, the floors were hardwood, the windows had nice big sills. We didn’t have air conditioning (I’ve noticed window units in some of the apartments now) but always got a great breeze in through the front window (balcony). Though at the time there was a donut shop where SubConscious is now and that was a bit of a temptation. That and Reader’s Corner! :-)

Oh, if I had a million dollars (or more) I’d love to buy out the place and try to restore it to some of its former glory. This is from the 1992 Raleigh Comprehensive Architectural Survey

http://www.raleighcitymuseum.org/arch_survey/Phase2/survey.shtml

“In the late 1920s, the most westerly apartment building was the Wilmont Apartments at 3200 Hillsborough Street, a four-story, brick, U-shaped, flat-roofed structure that housed twenty-four one-and two-bedroom apartments. The Wilmont was the first of its type constructed west of the North Carolina State College campus and south of the newly created suburb, Wilmont, from which it derives its name. Some of the occupants were white collar workers and employed downtown who relied upon private automobiles and public transportation for conveyance to and from their jobs. Others were associated with nearby State College and Meredith College.”

Thanks again for posting the photo, and for all the comments posted. It was a fun trip down memory lane for me.

shedmist
04/26/2009

Wilmont is being condemned as of Friday!