Pine Tops, For the Discriminating Motorist, Raleigh, N.C.
For Fastback Friday this week, we stop in at the Pine Tops tourist home. The Spanish Colonial styled residence still stands on Wake Forest Rd. in Raleigh, although the view is now almost completely obscured by, well, pine trees.
Saturday Morning Reached Home [?] Thurs night. Had 4 nice pleasant days. Reached Washington at little before 3pm Wed. We made Aberdeen Md Wed night. Its real cool. Yesterday & today raining. Better not hurry north as its cold. Rowena Gardner, Somers Conn
Maybe Rowena and her husband had been visiting ‘Blanche’ in Florida, and sent this card to her on their way back to Connecticut. It was mailed April 13, 1935, but as there is no town indicated in the postmark, I can only suppose that they stayed over at Pine Tops during their trip .
Of Homes and Tourist Homes
Pine Tops was one of several Raleigh ‘tourist homes’ that once lined Wake Forest Rd. during the 1930s and ’40s. In 1926 Wake Forest Rd. had been designated U.S. Route 1 as the principal north-south highway artery through Raleigh. That designation enticed many private homeowners to open up their residences to the motoring public. We would call these ‘tourist homes’ a ‘bed and breakfast’ today.
The Spanish Colonial house at 1419 Wake Forest Rd. was built around 1928. By 1929, Elihu DeWitt Green and his wife Mary lived there. Elihu owned Green’s Radiator Shop downtown.
In 1935, during the Depression, the Greens opened up their home to paying guests. Mary Green ran the Pinetops Tourist Home, and Elihu continued to operate the radiator service shop.
The Green’s tourist home venture did not last long, however. In 1937 Robert Barkley, a conductor with Seaboard Airline Railway, was the new owner, and ‘Pine Tops’ reverted to private residential use. Now, I don’t know what happened to the Greens, but after 1937, Elihu and Mary, Green’s Radiator Shop, and the Pine Tops Tourist Home simply disappeared from the local public record.
The Gas Station Connection
Raleigh is speckled with a few Spanish Colonial style residences to this day; but when I think ‘Spanish Colonial’ in Raleigh, I think filling stations. Below are photos of  three that were erected during the era when Pine Tops was built.
State Archives of North Carolina photo
I have yet to figure out where the Sinclair station seen above was built, but apparently it was located on the US 1/64 route through town. The Esso station seen below still stands on Person St., and I have heard that it is currently being repurposed as a taqueria.
The station below is located a few blocks north of the Esso station seen above. Word has it a neighborhood bar is in the works for this one.
State Archives of North Carolina photo
Can any of our Goodnight Raleigh readers identify other Spanish Colonial style service stations still standing in Raleigh?
Our Flashback Friday postcard this week was published by Dexter Post Card Corp. of Pearl River, NY. This company may have been associated with Dexter Press, a well-known publisher of postcards, located in nearby Nyack, NY.
Dexter Press 1934-1980 West Nyack, NY Printer of a wide variety of postcards subjects as linens and photochromes. Thomas A. Dexter was the inventor of gang printing. The Company merged with MWM Color Press in 1980 to become MWM Dexter, and they moved to Aurora, MO
“Flashback Friday†is a weekly feature of Goodnight, Raleigh! in which we showcase vintage postcards depicting our historic capital city. We hope you enjoy this week end treat!
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08/23/2013
How about Fairview and Oberlin R.B.? Now a cleaners.
Did the Jaber’s not later live at Pine Tops? The Jaber’s that ran the store across the street. I seem to remember hearing that years ago. I always enjoyed going to Jaber’s…nice folks.
08/23/2013
Looks like the address for Pine Tops might now be 1427 Wake Forest.
08/23/2013
I love the US 1 and US 64 shield signs.
08/23/2013
Re: the mystery location of the Sinclair station – Considering that this had to be on a part of US 1//64 before they split, and with the build-up around it, my bet is that it was in Cary on Chatham St. According to this page: http://www.wakecountyroads.com/us64.html
“U.S. 64 was originally routed with U.S. 1 along Old Apex Road and Chatham Street through Cary and into Raleigh. The two routes split in west Raleigh, where U.S. 1 followed Hillsborough Street and U.S. 64 ran along Western Boulevard. U.S. 64 went through downtown Raleigh on the one-way pairs of South and Lenoir streets, then continued north on East Street to New Bern Avenue, which it followed to the east out of town.”
08/23/2013
Great article, Raleigh Boy! Love the Pine Tops! Another interesting feature of the house is that it is built of Falls Leucogneiss, a rare and very hard stone found only in a strip from Henderson to Lake Wheeler. It formed the falls that is now the Falls Lake dam. Several buildings in Raleigh are faced in it: Christ Church, Broughton High School, Mitch’s Tavern, etc.
08/23/2013
Elihu DeWitt Green was born in Florida on 21 March 1898. He married Mary Ann Reddish in about 1922. They had one child, a son, Douglas. In 1940 the family was living in Burlington, NC where Elihu died in 1988. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Raleigh.
08/23/2013
Just a WAG, but there was a Sinclair Super Service location at the intersection of Dawson and Hargett streets in 1935.
08/26/2013
I wonder if the Import Performance Building near the Western Blvd and Hillsborough St. split used to be that style of gas station.
http://services.wakegov.com/realestate/Photo.asp?id=0063434&stype=addr&stnum=5618&stname=Hillsborough&locidList=&spg=1&cd=01&loc=5618++HILLSBOROUGH+ST&des=LOSTARRITT+PROP&pin=0784214278
08/27/2013
Al: Yes,the old filling station at the corner of Oberlin and Fairview was the old Budleigh Service Station. It remained in operation until the late 1980s or so — probably the last service station in Raleigh dating to the 1930s to close.
The Jabers operated a small grocery and service station across Wake Forest Rd. from Pine Tops. They lived in the large two-story frame house adjacent to their store. The site is now that large open field between the Holiness Church and the Shell station.
Nick: You are correct about the address change — due to infill along that side of Wake Forest Rd. over the years.
Jeremy: Over the weekend I was able to peg the site of the ‘mystery’ Sinclair station. A visual clue was the big chunk of granite curbing seen at street side, which is typical curbing of the central Raleigh street system. Another clue was the US 1/64 route sign out front. I consulted a 1944 Wake County road map and found that US 1 and US 64 merged just north of Apex. The route proceeded northward through Cary, where it picked up US 70. From there the highway continued parallell to the railroad tracks to the Hillsboro St/Western Blvd split, where US 1/64 then followed Hillsboro St. into town, and Western carried US 70. US 1/64 ran along Hillsboro, around the Capitol, then split at the Person St./New Bern Ave. intersection, where US 1 continued north along the Person St./Wake Forest Rd. corridor, and US 64 went east along New Bern.
As for the Sinclair station — I used the visual clues cited above, city directories and the Sanborn Insurance Maps to determine its location. Murray’s Filling Station opened at the NW corner of Hillsboro/Dawson in 1938. The large house seen behind the station was moved to the back of the lot and turned to face Dawson St. By 1945, when the photo was taken, the Sinclair station was known as the Auto Palace Service Station. The site is an empty gravel lot next door to the Clarion Hotel today.
Mr Brown: Thanks for the geology lesson!
RN51: Thanks for doing the genealogy research on Elihu and Mary!
PVS: The core of that building appears to have all the basic hallmarks of the Person Street filling station, despite many alterations and enlargements made over the decades.
Later this week I will post additional historic photos of Raleigh’s Spanish Colonial style service stations on the Goodnight Raleigh facebook page. So be sure to check it out!
08/29/2013
Who is more thorough than Raleigh Boy??
I will patiently await a response. But it won’t be forthcoming.
08/29/2013
There is no further response. RB’s the ultimate.
08/29/2013
Ben and HWG — you are too kind!
05/26/2014
While going through some old photos of my grandparents I found a photo of the Sinclair station. It appears the large house the little girl is standing in front of is on the opposite side of the street from the station (even though it looks like it is next to it. I don’t have a name on the child.
05/26/2014
Link to picture mentioned above …
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204005292515222&set=a.2268488794287.137007.1310580816&type=1&theater