Neighborhoods

 

Charlottes Streetcar Suburbs: Welcome to the Neighborhood!

Old Charlotte is part of Charlotte’s original landscape. These communities date back to the turn of the century and have a range of housing that features older bungalows, mansions, and many newly constructed homes. Here you will find some of Charlotte’s most charming, historical, and eclectic streets and neighborhoods. These include Myers Park, Elizabeth, Eastover, Chantilly, and Dilworth among others. I am proud to say that I consider myself to be an expert on the following Charlotte neighborhoods.

Myers Park

Myers Park is located along the eastern edge of the community, just off of Providence Road. It differentiates itself from other sections of Old Charlotte in its layout. The neighborhood was designed with curving streets, to flow with the natural landscape. The towering oaks that line the quaint streets of Myers Park originally came from the New Jersey farm of tobacco tycoon James B. Duke.

This neighborhood has a long history of being very popular with buyers. The homes are generally large, stately, and very well-maintained. Prices in Myers Park range from about $500,000 up to $3 million.

Dilworth

 “Thin people grow fat at Dilworth. The fresh air and general surroundings are so healthy they can’t help it.” – Edward Dilworth Latta

Mr. Latta was not only responsible for this well know description of the community he established in 1890, he is also greatly responsible for the visionary planning that made Dilworth possible. A particular example was his contracting with the Edison Electric Company to install Charlotte’s first trolley system.

The cities first streetcar suburb is known for its renovated craftsman style bungalows, churches, and beautiful tree lined streets. East Boulevard forms the neighborhood’s spine, offering restaurant, shops, and office space within walking distance of its homes.

Southpark

SouthPark is a large neighborhood and edge city in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA. Its name is derived from the upscale SouthPark Mall, which opened on February 12, 1970. At nearly 1.8 million square feet, SouthPark Mall is the largest shopping mall in Charlotte and all of North Carolina.

The area is geographically centered at the intersection of Fairview Road and Sharon Road in the south central sector of the city, about six miles south of Uptown Charlotte. In addition to being home to the mall, SouthPark is also a residential area and one of the largest business districts in Charlotte and the state of North Carolina, with an estimated 40,000 employees. Some place SouthPark akin to Atlanta’s Perimeter Center district. The land situated around the mall was originally owned by the Rev. Billy Graham’s parents.

Eastover

The Eastover neighborhood was begun in 1927 by Charlotte’s E. C. Griffith Company. Its earliest curving drives were the work of Earle Sumner Draper, perhaps the premier urban planner in the Southeastern United States in the early twentieth century. From its founding to the present day, Eastover has been the home of many of the financiers, cotton brokers, lawyers, and other leaders who have directed the growth of Charlotte and the surrounding Piedmont industrial area.

Eastover is located southeast of the center city, across Providence Road from the earlier prestigious neighborhood of Myers Park. Eastover occupies a very gently rolling hillside which slopes down to Briar Creek. Except for the city’s Mint Museum of Art, the Eastover Elementary School, a pair of multi-family buildings, and a single church, the neighborhood consists almost entirely of large single-family residences, some 550 in number. Though the fine dwellings that once lined Providence Road itself have given way to commercial development since World War II, the rest of the neighborhood retains its well-kept residential character.

Cherokee Road forms the neighborhood’s backbone, a gently undulating curve that sweeps out from Laurel Avenue near Providence Road and eventually curves back to Providence several blocks south. Cherokee Road, parallel Colville Road, and intersecting Eastover Road are the sites of the neighborhood’s largest early residences. Secondary streets — Biltmore, Scotland, and the first block of Hempstead, among others — are lined with two-story upper-middle income dwellings on slightly smaller lots.

The early architecture of the Eastover neighborhood is overwhelmingly red-brick Georgian revival, with scattered examples of Tudor Revival. Unbuilt sites remained in the neighborhood into the 1980s, slowly filling with houses similar to the earlier residences, though a few examples of modern architecture can be found. Newer blocks of the development, including Twiford Place and parts of Museum Drive and Hempstead Place, are lined with substantial one-story Ranch style houses and one-and-a-half and two-story traditional dwellings.

The development of Eastover can be traced to four separate yet interrelated phases of growth. Beginning in 1927, the E. C. Griffith Company developed land to the north of present-day Eastover Drive, which included portions of Cherokee and Colville roads and Fenton and Hempstead places. This was the original Eastover subdivision. In the 1940s and steadily continuing into the 1950s and 1960s, the area to the south of Eastover Drive, including the remaining blocks of Cherokee and Colville roads and Hempstead Place, and the newly platted Cherokee Place and Lewellyn Place, was developed by the Griffith Company as an extension of the Eastover subdivision. 

Contemporary with the earliest Griffith development in Eastover was the growth of Pharrsdale. Identified on a 1929 map as the “subdivision of property of Miss Sarah Pharr,” Pharrsdale was developed by Lex Marsh, Jr. The design, by Earle Sumner Draper, continued Colville and Cherokee roads to Providence Road, and added Scotland Avenue and Biltmore Drive.

Between Cherokee and Providence roads is a series of straight streets lined with smaller bungalows and cottages for middle-income buyers. Each of these streets — Avondale Avenue, Cottage Place, Middleton Drive, Perrin Place, Huntley Place and Bolling Road — occupies a long, narrow strip of land that was originally a tenant farm. Each one of these streets was developed individually; Cottage Place, the oldest, predates Griffith’s Eastover and was platted in 1921.