New Listing: 1405 Fairmont Street, a 1930 Gem Hidden Away in West Market Terrace, $350,000

Update: The house sold for $342,750 on February 12, 2021.

The William and Irma Kampschmidt House is an interesting example of the architectural diversity of West Greensboro’s early years. West Market Terrace and adjoining neighborhood Westerwood were built out largely in the 1920s and ’30s, a time when home-buyers valued distinctiveness and style. The Kampschmidt House has both.

A brick, double-gabled bungalow, it sits at 1405 Fairmont Street, two blocks removed from busy West Friendly Avenue and just a couple blocks from Lake Daniel Park. There’s not another house like it in the neighborhood (or probably the rest of Greensboro). West Market Terrace is largely boxed in by the park and Josephine Boyd Street, which eliminates its streets’ use as cut-through drag strips. It’s a quiet corner of Greensboro but still close to UNCG and downtown.

The house has five bedrooms, surprising for a house no bigger than it is, and two bathrooms in 2,328 square feet. It was built in 1930, and it has the kind of details you would expect in a house of its time — a breakfast nook and built-in cabinets and shelves, for example. There’s a fish pond in the backyard. The price is $350,000, $150 per square foot. That’s pretty much the going rate for well maintained or restored homes in the string of older neighborhoods stretching west from Westerwood out to Hamilton Lakes.

William and Irma

The Kampschmidts owned the house from 1930 to 1967. If they were alive and in their prime today, they wouldn’t be doing what they were 90 years ago. Mrs. Kampschmidt was the manager of a millinery store (called the Dragon Shop, for some reason). Despite the best efforts of Alma Adams and other stylish ladies, millinery, for the most part, remains a thing of the past.

The Rev. William Kampschmidt was a teacher at Immanuel Lutheran College. Immanuel Lutheran was a residential high school, junior college and seminary for African Americans from 1905 to 1961. Its campus was at the corner of East Market and Lutheran streets (Lutheran Street no longer exists; could it be Benbow Street now?); it has become part of the adjacent N.C. A&T State University. One of its most famous graduates was actor Greg Morris of the original Mission Impossible TV series. (Click here or here for more about Immanuel Lutheran.)

1405 Fairmont Street
The William and Irma Kampschmidt House