Sold: A ‘Near Perfect’ Piece of Old Salem in Greensboro’s Irving Park, $730,000

Posted on by David Arneke

709 Blair Street
The Tom and Sara Sears House

  • Sold for $730,000 on March 15, 2021 (listed at $800,000)
  • 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,974 square feet (per county), 0.73 acre
  • Price/square foot: $184
  • Built in 1979
  • Listed November 18, 2020
  • Last sale: The house has been owned by the sellers since it was built.
  • Neighborhood: Irving Park
  • Note: The house is a meticulous copy of the John Vogler House in Old Salem, built in 1819.
  • The house was built by Tom and Sara Sears, two of the Triad’s most accomplished preservationists and antique collectors (Antiques magazine says they’ve assembled “one of North Carolina’s finest collections of southern antiques.”). Both have served on the boards of Old Salem and the Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts in Winston-Salem. Tom also has served as Old Salem’s director of grounds and buildings, a member of the Greensboro Historic Preservation Commission and on the executive council of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers.
    • Seasons magazine: “With master builder D.C. Patton from Burlington and woodworker Roger Harvell from Greensboro (who once worked for famed designer Otto Zenke) — not to mention a lot of their own sweat equity — the Searses raised a near perfect replica of the Vogler House … . It included five fireplaces and eventually a copy of Old Salem’s bake house for a tool shed, plus a replica of the Moravian firehouse on the square for a garage.”
    • John Vogler House, Old Salem NRHP nomination: “A prominent architectural statement was made when silversmith John Vogler built his 1819 two-story Federal style brick house on Main Street at the southwest corner of Salem Square, which departed from traditional Germanic/Moravian architecture. An early advocate of industrialization, Vogler’s hand was in the mix of the Salem grist mill in 1819, the Salem Cotton Mill in 1836, and the industrial activities that followed. However, even with its refinement and stylishness, the house contained Vogler’s shop, and he did not separate his work and living space until 1846. The house was given to Old Salem in 1952 by Vogler descendants and is an exhibit building.”