NC Architects and Builders is a growing system. We will post this entry as soon as it is ready.
| Birthplace: | New Jersey, USA |
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| Title: | Battery Park Hotel, Asheville, Buncombe County, NC (A718-8M) |
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Masa, George. "Battery Park Hotel, Asheville, Buncombe County, NC (A718-8M)" , NC Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, NC
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William Lee Stoddart (1868-1940) was a prolific architect in New York City whose multi-state practice popularized Beaux Arts style hotels in the early 20th century. His typical designs were of brick with classical cast stone detailing. His work covered many eastern states, including North Carolina, where he designed several hotels and other tall buildings that followed popular national models. In some cities, Stoddart's buildings fit into a developing urban streetscape, while in some smaller communities, his modern hotels represented new urban progress and commercial advancement as well as a new marker in the skyline.
Born in Tenafly, New Jersey, Stoddart studied architecture at Columbia University and apprenticed to two architects in Atlanta. After leaving Atlanta, he worked for New York architect George B. Post from 1895 to 1905, when he established his own practice in New York. Although he designed several banks and corporate buildings, Stoddart is best known for his large hotels and apartment houses in the eastern United States including the Lord Baltimore Hotel in Baltimore, the Charleston Hotel in Charleston, South Carolina, and the opulent Ponce de Leon Apartments in Atlanta.
Stoddart gained commissions in North Carolina as its small cities blossomed in the 1910s and 1920s, each one generating a demand for quality hotels to attract business travelers and symbolize urban status. His projects reached from Elizabeth City in the east to Asheville in the west, and some were the tallest buildings in their communities at the time. His first known project in the state was the O. Henry Hotel (1918-1919) in Greensboro, named for O. Henry, the pen name of Greensboro's famous native son, William Sidney Porter. Stoddart sent his employee, the young New York architect Charles C. Hartmann, to supervise the job along with his Sheraton Hotel in High Point. (After impressing local businessmen, Hartmann subsequently moved to Greensboro and established a large practice of his own.)
Stoddart's hotels took key places in many of the state's growing cities and towns. The Sir Walter Hotel in Raleigh, showing the architect's typical red brick with Georgian Revival detailing, was the capital's premier hotel and for many years was known as the "third house" of the state legislature because of legislators' use of it during their sessions. Stoddart's Battery Park Hotel in Asheville was built by entrepreneur E. W. Grove as part of a major redevelopment project (1923-1924); Thomas Wolfe, who was living in Asheville at the time, expressed his views on Stoddart's design in his novel Look Homeward, Angel when he dismissed the architect as "some gigantic biscuit-cutter." The Nissen Building in Winston-Salem, Stoddart's only known twin-tower building in North Carolina, was one of his few non-hotel buildings in the state, an office building for a local manufacturing family. At eighteen stories, it was briefly the tallest building in the state. In smaller communities, Stoddart's buildings were among the largest ever built there, as is the case with the 9-story Virginia Dare Hotel in Elizabeth City, still the community's tallest building. Stoddart's work in the state evidently ended around the Great Depression. With a few notable exceptions, his buildings still stand as downtown landmarks.
Stoddart was among the first men licensed to practice architecture in North Carolina. His license certificate, issued in 1915, was #39 in the official registration book of the North Carolina Board of Architecture.
Author: Angie Clifton. Contributing Author: Marvin C. Housworth. Update: Adam Ronan.
Published 2009
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| Location: | Asheville, Buncombe County |
| Street Address: | Battle Square, Asheville, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Title: | Battery Park Hotel, Asheville, Buncombe County, NC (A718-8M) |
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Masa, George. "Battery Park Hotel, Asheville, Buncombe County, NC (A718-8M)" , NC Collection, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, NC
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| Location: | Concord, Cabarrus County |
| Street Address: | 2-14 Union St. North, Concord, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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Construction of the dual purpose building, which cost more than $400,000 to erect, was covered in the local Concord Times of May 7, 1925 and February 8, May 31, June 10, June 14, and June 17, 1926. A design for the Concord National Bank and Hotel was also prepared by architect Christopher Gadsden Sayre, as noted in the American Art Annual, Vol. 21. |
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| Location: | Winston-Salem, Forsyth County |
| Street Address: | 314 W. 4th St., Winston-Salem, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Location: | Greensboro, Guilford County |
| Street Address: | 101 Bellemeade St. at N. Elm St., Greensboro, NC |
| Status: | No longer standing |
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| Title: | The O. Henry, Greensboro's (N.C.) New Seven Hundred and Fifty |
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"The O. Henry, Greensboro's (N.C.) New Seven Hundred and Fifty" Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Postcards, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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| Location: | High Point, Guilford County |
| Street Address: | 400 N. Main St., High Point, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Location: | Charlotte, Mecklenburg County |
| Street Address: | 327 W. Trade St., Charlotte, NC |
| Status: | No longer standing |
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| Title: | Hotel Charlotte, Charlotte, N.C. |
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"Hotel Charlotte, Charlotte, N.C." Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Postcards, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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| Location: | Charlotte, Mecklenburg County |
| Street Address: | 212 S. Tryon St., Charlotte, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Location: | Charlotte, Mecklenburg County |
| Street Address: | 100-102 W. Trade St., Charlotte, NC |
| Status: | No longer standing |
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The 12-story skyscraper was the first steel-framed skyscraper in North Carolina and an icon of Charlotte's urban ambitions. Originally known as the Realty Building, it was renamed in 1922 for the Independence Bank that occupied it. In 1928, New York architect William Lee Stoddart added two more stories. It was imploded in 1981 amid strong controversy. |
| Title: | Independence Building, Charlotte, N.C. |
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"Independence Building, Charlotte, N.C." Durwood Barbour Collection of North Carolina Postcards (P077), North Carolina Postcards, North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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| Location: | Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County |
| Street Address: | 507-509 E. Main St., Elizabeth City, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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The Virginia Dare Hotel is pictured on the left. |
| Title: | Elevation, Christ Episcopal Church, Parish House and Virginia Dare Hotel, Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, North Carolina |
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"Elevation, Christ Episcopal Church, Parish House and Virginia Dare Hotel, Elizabeth City, Pasquotank County, North Carolina" State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), Built Heritage of North Carolina: Historic Architecture in the Old North State, North Carolina State University. Libraries. Special Collections Research Center
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| Location: | Raleigh, Wake County |
| Street Address: | 400 Fayetteville St., Raleigh, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Location: | Goldsboro, Wayne County |
| Street Address: | 100-104 S. Center St., Goldsboro, NC |
| Status: | Standing |
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| Location: | Asheville, Buncombe County |
| Street Address: | Haywood St., Asheville, NC |
| Status: | Altered |
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| Location: | Winston-Salem, Forsyth County |
| Street Address: | W. 5th St., Winston-Salem, NC |
| Status: | No longer standing |
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