The Uptown Suburbs Historic
District is significant under National Register Criterion A for community
development and planning. The
early-twentieth century suburbs include High Point’s first streetcar suburb,
Johnson Place (1907), whose grid plan ran parallel to the streetcar 
line and
attracted prominent business owners and upper-level managers. The popularity of the development
prompted the development of Roland Park (1912) and The Parkway (1915) on
adjacent land west of Main Street.
Both developments employed long blocks with few intersections, 
broad streets, and wide lots to attract upper-income residents. The Sheraton Hill development (1916) to
the south featured smaller lots closer to the city center attractive to
middle-income residents. The
Emerywood development (1922-1946) to the north was designed by Earle Sumner Draper
and utilized wide, curvilinear streets with deep lots and irregular
intersections to contribute to the park-like feel of the neighborhood. In High Point, the Emerywood
development is matched only by the 1926 Sherrod Park development, a
middle-class neighborhood with curvilinear streets and planned
greenspaces. The five platted
developments within the Uptown Suburbs Historic District illustrate a shift
away from city center neighborhoods to the grid-plan subdivisions bordering the
streetcar line and eventually to the curvilinear suburbs common in the
automobile era.
The Uptown Suburbs Historic
District is also significant under National Register Criterion C for
architecture, for the wide variety of architectural styles represented by the
residences, apartment buildings, and churches in the district. The most
prevalent styles found in the district include Transitional Queen Anne-style
homes, Craftsman-style bungalows, Tudor Revival- and Colonial Revival-style
houses, Period Cottages, and mid-century Minimal Traditional-style and
Ranch-form houses. Less common
styles employed in the district include the Prairie, Neoclassical Revival,
Gothic Revival, Renaissance Revival, French Eclectic, Spanish Eclectic, Art
Moderne, and Art Deco styles.
The Uptown Suburbs Historic
District encompasses approximately sixty city blocks or portions thereof
extending roughly from West Ray Avenue north to West Lexington Avenue and from
Johnson Street west to Westchester Drive. The majority of the 540 primary
contributing buildings are houses with several apartment buildings and churches
present within the boundary, all erected during the period of significance from
1907 to 1963. The period of
significance extends from the platting of the Johnson Place development in 1907
to 1963 when the majority of the building was complete. House construction
continued at a steady pace of four to five new houses a year until 1963, after
which home construction decreased significantly with only four new homes
constructed from 1964 to 1975.
Exceptional significance is not being claimed for 1963 as the five
Colonial Revival style, Contemporary, and Ranch houses are a continuation of
earlier architectural trends.
The Uptown Suburbs Historic District was listed to the National Register of Historic Places on January 9, 2013.
