L. M. Thompson (August, 1884-June 17, 1935), a native of Michigan variously identified as a naval architect, architect, and engineer, established himself as Sanford’s hometown architect and designed several of the town’s most prominent buildings of its 1920s growth era. During that period Sanford employed various out-of-town architects to plan key buildings, but Thompson was evidently the town’s only locally based architect and had a larger body of work in town than any other architect. A number of his buildings were executed by local builders A. L. Boykin and Joe W. Stout. Highlighting the importance of brick manufacturing to the local economy, Thompson’s designs featured striking brickwork, frequently displaying picturesque Gothic Revival and Tudor Revival styles. This account comes primarily from J. Daniel Pezzoni, The History and Architecture of Lee County, North Carolina (1995).

Little is known of Thompson’s early life and career or when or why he came to Sanford. A son of Louis Ten Eyck Thompson and Lucy Hall Thompson of South Haven, Van Buren, Michigan, he studied engineering at the University of Michigan in 1905. In 1918, when he filled out a draft registration card in Burgaw, Pender County, N. C., Laurence Macy Thompson was listed as a resident of that county and was identified as a “naval architect,” married to Margaret L. Thompson, and employed by the Missouri Valley Bridge and Iron Company of Quantico, Prince William, Virginia. He is reported to have begun work in Sanford in the 1910s as a designer with the Sanford Sash and Blind Company. The 1921 yearbook of the University of Michigan, which listed Thompson among the school’s “non-graduates,” noted that he was living at 112 Green Street in Sanford and employed as an engineer and contractor. Like many men in the building trades in this period, he parlayed his skills into a role as an architect.

He evidently saw Sanford as a promising community, where by the 1920s industries and commerce were thriving with good rail connections and the construction of the major north-south highway U. S. 1 through town, Thompson gained commissions for some of the community’s most notable downtown buildings. These included the Masonic Temple (1924-1925); the Carolina Hotel (1927-1928); and the Stroud-Hubbard Building (1928), the latter notable for its brick façade and bold Tudor and Gothic-inspired terra cotta accents. He planned two prestigious local churches, likewise of brick: St. Thomas Episcopal Church (1928-1931) in a compact rendition of the Gothic Revival style, and a post-fire remodeling (1927) of First Presbyterian Church in a double-towered edifice. He may have designed the Moore Union Christian Church (1927) in the Buckhorn Falls vicinity.

Thompson also designed several residences, many of which featured the picturesque Tudor Revival style in brick and half-timbering. Thompson drew upon (and possibly contributed to) published sources for house designs. The Edward C. , Jr., and Ethel A. Heins House (1928), built by A. L. Boykin, is a fully realized version of the style identified as resembling “The Devonshire” house design #T-103 published by the Common Brick Manufacturers of America. He employed many of the same motifs in his own residence, the L. M. and Margaret Thompson House of 1929.

The United States Census of 1930 listed Thompson as a structural engineer and head of a household in Sanford that included his wife Margaret and her mother, Ada L. Cooms, the latter two natives of Virginia. Thompson’s work after 1930 is not known; he, like many in the building business, may have turned to other pursuits following the Crash of 1929. Thompson’s death certificate of 1935 states that he was an architect and died in Newport News, Virginia. He was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Norfolk, Virginia. His widow, Margaret (1884-1979), continued to reside in the family home on Bickett Road in Sanford for many years. She too was interred in the Cedar Grove Cemetery in Norfolk.