Burett Henry Stephens (May 19, 1878 [or 1874]-July 24, 1956) was a Canadian-born architect who worked for a time in Chicago before becoming a leading architect in Wilmington during the early to mid-20th century. His architectural practice produced a number of notable buildings in Wilmington, New Bern, and beyond. His best known work is probably the early 20th century Carolina Heights suburb in Wilmington, including some of the grand mansions that line the 1700 block of Market Street. Although he worked in a variety of styles, a feature of many of his buildings was the use of unusually robust and often simplified classical details, including pilasters, pillars, and columns. Many of his residential designs show an influence from the Prairie style. This account of his career and the list of projects derive mainly from newspaper research by William Reaves and the author and from family records in the possession of Stephens’s grandson, architect Paul F. Stephens. Copies of Reaves’s transcripts of newspaper articles are held in the Charlotte V. Brown (Wainwright) Collection. (See Note below on spellings of Stephens’s first name.)

B. H. Stephens, a native of Ottawa, was born to Isaac Henry and Teresa T. Stephens. He studied at Chicago University and Armour Institute and was licensed to practice architecture by the Illinois State Board in 1897. In 1899 he married Mabel I. Smith. He worked for a time for the prominent architectural firms of D. H. Burnham and Company of Chicago, and Sheppley, Rutan and Coolidge of Boston, and was also employed by American Bridge Company of Chicago, and for the Swift and Company industrial plants (Wilmington Morning Star, July 10, 1913, and November 30, 1907).

It was in connection with the Swift Company that Stephens came to Wilmington in 1905, where he became “supervisory architect and consulting engineer” for the immense Swift and Company fertilizer factory to be built by the Northeast Cape Fear River two miles above Wilmington. In December 1904 or January 1905, it was announced that the $70,000 carpentry contract for the factory had been awarded to a contractor from Hickory identified as “J. E. Elliott” but probably J. D. Elliott (Salisbury Watchman, January 3, 1905). Delays ensued, however, and not until December 20, 1905 did the Wilmington Morning Star report that contracts were being let for the facility to be built by a Chicago contractor. The newspaper reported that “Talk of the giant enterprise was revived upon the arrival Monday of Mr. Burett H. Stephens, a prominent architect and consulting engineer of Chicago, who comes to Wilmington to supervise the construction of the big factory, which will be built at a cost of $250,000. Mr. Stephens and assistants have opened offices in Room 401, Southern Building, and will be here until the new plant is completed about the first of April.” The project boosted the local economy by employing from 300 to 400 men. The plans, “as drawn by Mr. Stephens,” were “in the hands of contractors all over the country,” and construction work was to begin on February 1st. The new plant was located on the site of an old lumber plant that had burned. Stephens needed “several hundred laborers” for the clearance and construction work. A detailed description of the fertilizer factory and its future operations followed. Wilmington newspapers continued to report on the progress of the project to its completion in 1907.

Meanwhile, Stephens had made a good impression and good contacts in Wilmington. The Wilmington Morning Star of January 6, 1906, reported that his friends were introducing him “about The Orton [hotel] lobby last night as the ‘new railway king of America.’” He was cited as “a gentleman of most engaging manners and attractive personality” as well as “a man of great inventive genius.” The account explained that when Stephens was recruiting large numbers of workmen to level the site and haul away the “stuff,” local men had teamed up to raise the cost of workers. In response, Stephens stated, “I’ll build me a railroad to move the stuff,” and did so, with donkeys to “furnish the motive power.” Thus did local leaders dub him the “railroad king” for his ability to outmaneuver local labor costs.

Stephens settled in Wilmington, opened an office in the Southern Building and, according to the Wilmington Morning Star of November 30, 1907, planned to continue the connection with Swift and Company and to do “any outside work that may be offered.” The _Star _welcomed his decision to stay in the city: “He will be an honor to the profession in Wilmington and a most agreeable resident for the city.” Stephens was advertising his services as architect and consulting engineer in Wilmington newspapers by 1908. After his wife, Mabel, died, he remarried, first to Lillian Horne, a native of Wilmington, and later to Anna Virginia Pierson, who survived him.

For a few years Stephens worked with railroad heiress Mary Bridgers in planning her elite suburb, Carolina Heights, which began development in 1906-1907, with the first lots sold in 1908. Stephens also designed and built individual buildings there and elsewhere. The daughter of railroad president Rufus R. Bridgers, Miss Bridges took on an unusual role for a woman of her era as a real estate developer: she bought extensive acreage east of downtown and put her money to work in creating an elite suburb of the type becoming popular in other cities. Served by both a streetcar line and automobiles and located on a relatively elevated site east of 17th Street and north of Market Street, the grid-plan suburb reflected Miss Bridgers’s desire to create a suitable environment for prominent community members as well as a setting for the Christian Science Church she supported, which was built in 1907.

According to the Carolina Heights National Register of Historic Places nomination, in early 1908 Mary Bridgers made an arrangement with Stephens in which he became managing engineer as well as architect and builder for the development. In contrast with the often mixed uses and residency patterns of the 19th century in Wilmington, she followed an emerging national trend in which the lots were sold with economic and racial restrictions. Moreover, in keeping with Miss Bridgers’s views no ardent spirits were to be sold on the premises.

A feature article in the Wilmington Morning Star of November 8, 1908, touted the project, showing a large drawing of the suburb “now in progress” and providing a description of its improvements, modern conveniences, and handsome architecture. The most imposing residences were those along the prestigious 1700 block of Market Street. The article listed several citizens who were building or planning handsome residents there and on nearby streets. The accompanying drawing illustrated buildings that may have been completed by that time or may have been only in the planning stages. As development progressed, the houses in the suburb showed a diversity of styles, including the Colonial Revival and variations on the Prairie Style, which Stephens, fresh from Chicago, is believed to have introduced to Wilmington.

Reflecting his role as builder as well as architect, Stephens organized the Stephens Construction Company, chiefly to build houses in the new suburb. The firm also extended its reach to undertake house contracts in Raleigh, at least one of which was under construction in June, 1909 (Wilmington Morning Star, June 10, 1909). Before long, however, Stephens’s company encountered financial problems. The Raleigh News and Observer of September 12, 1909 reported that the Stephens Contracting (sic) Company had failed, leaving some fifteen contracts in Raleigh and fifteen more in Wilmington unfulfilled. The locations of the Raleigh projects “in course of erection” reflected the city’s early suburban expansion west and north and included four houses in the new Boylan Heights suburb, two a few blocks west on Park Avenue, two on West Morgan Street, two on North Wilmington Street, and one in the Glenwood neighborhood. The newspaper article also listed clients with whom the firm had contracts: Walter Woolcott, J. A. Scott, W. R. Smith, J. E. O’Donnell, C. R. Briggs, R. D. W. Connor, Mrs. Bennett Smedes, Mrs. Carrie Dargan, and the Grimes Realty Company; the Mrs. Bennett Smedes House and the Walter Woollcott House have been identified as still standing. Stephens departed Raleigh for Wilmington and was hospitalized after suffering from a “severe nervous collapse” (Wilmington Morning Star, September 15, 1909).

Despite the failure of his construction company, Stephens continued his prolific career as an architect and soon engaged in new projects, such as the design of the Seamen’s Friend Society annex on Dock Street in Wilmington (Wilmington Dispatch, February 10, 1910). He also formed a relationship with theater developers Foxy Howard and Percy Wells and designed a series of early movie and vaudeville theaters with splendid facades rich with eclectic ornament.

Stephens’s patron, Mary Bridgers, died on November 10, 1910 after being injured in a fall while visiting her unfinished mansion at 1710 Market Street. Her nephew and others continued the development of Carolina Heights, but evidently Stephens was no longer involved. Architect James F. Gause and others designed subsequent houses in the suburb.

In 1912, a development company opened a Wilmington suburb called Sunset Park southwest of Greenfield Lake, for which Stephens planned some of the initial houses; as the growing shipyard employment required additional housing, simpler houses were constructed there. The Wilmington Morning Star of July 10, 1913, praised Stephens’s contribution to the community: “No one has taken a more active part in this modernization of the city than has Mr. Burett H. Stephens.” His office, according to the Star, had “many handsome drawings of buildings designed by him adorning the walls.” Draftsmen in his office were F. P. Harrell and James B. Lynch, the latter of whom would become a prominent Wilmington architect.

During the same decade, Stephens also gained commissions beyond Wilmington. He designed two important and highly visible buildings in New Bern: People’s Bank (1913) and St. Luke’s Hospital (1914-1915), modern facilities in the neoclassical modes of the era. Like many architects of his day, Stephens planned numerous public schools during the boom in school construction in the 1910s. These were located both in Wilmington and in other communities; in addition to those noted in the building list, he planned schools in Creswell, Williamston, and elsewhere. His College Street Elementary School (1911) in Clinton is the only example known to survive.

Stephens moved frequently over the next several years. His World War I draft registration form showed him living in Charlotte. According to his summary of his career, he served as a captain in the “Engineer Section Officers Reserve Corps of the Army. The Charlotte News of February 28, 1919, noted that he was planning to open an architectural engineering office in that city. Stephens was back in Wilmington in 1920, moved to Chicago in the 1920s, and then returned to Wilmington, where he was listed as an architect in the 1932 city directory. His summary of his career (Burett H. Stephens, “Principal,” ca.1954) stated that he moved his office from Wilmington to New Bern in 1933. One obituary said that he practiced in Chicago until 1930 and in 1932 bought the Inlet Inn in Beaufort, which he made his home.

Like many architects, Stephens gained commissions from the Public Works Administration. During World War II he was employed by the city of New Bern and was involved in public housing projects. In the late 1940s Burett Stephens joined forces with his son, Robert Stephens (NC Architect, 1956) and continued to practice with him in New Bern. A member of the American Institute of Architects, B. H. Stephens served as secretary-treasurer of the Eastern N. C. Council of Architects, a regional group of the North Carolina AIA. He was also active in Masonry, the Shrine, the Elks, the AIA, the Society of American Military Engineers, and other organizations.

Burett H. Stephens died in Beaufort, N. C., and was buried in New Bern’s Cedar Grove Cemetery. His obituary appeared in the Wilmington Morning Star of July 26, 1956. His son, Robert H. Stephens, later joined by Robert’s son, Paul F. Stephens, continued the architectural practice in New Bern for several years. A discussion of the postwar work of the Stephens firm will constitute a subsequent entry for this website.

Note: Stephens’s newspaper advertisements for several years used both Burett H. and Burrett H. Stephens, and newspaper articles used both spellings. His draft registration form, grave marker, death record, and most census records use Burett. Burett is used herein except within quotations of the period. He frequently went by his initials, B. H., especially later in life. B. H. Stephens’s death certificate gives his birth year as 1874, but most other sources including his gravestone give 1878.

Burett H. Stephens, “Principal,” unpublished typescript, ca. 1954, private collection.

B. H. Stephens file, Charlotte V. Brown (Wainwright) Collection, Special Collections, North Carolina State University Libraries.

Catherine W. Bishir and Michael T. Southern, A Guide to the Historic Architecture of Eastern North Carolina (1996).

Susan Taylor Block, Cape Fear Lost (1999).

Peter B. Sandbeck, The Historic Architecture of New Bern and Craven County, North Carolina (1988).

Beverly Tetterton, Wilmington: Lost But Not Forgotten (2005).

Tony P. Wrenn, Wilmington, North Carolina: An Architectural and Historical Portrait (1984).