Paula White fell in love with her Colonial-revival house in Fisher Park the first time she saw it. In fact, she had her Realtor make an offer before she even left the property. It’s not surprising, then, that when a fire nearly destroyed her home 25 years later, White decided to rebuild.

Four years since completion, the home now stands as a testament to one woman’s determination — not only in the tireless restoration that has transformed the house to its former glory, but also in the steps she took to document its history and architecture to have it declared a Guilford County Historic Landmark. 

Mike Cowhig, a Greensboro city planner, helped point White in the right direction. “He knows the regulations and historic guidelines like the back of his hand,” she says. Cowhig introduced White to Diana Young, a researcher from Salisbury who meticulously documented the unusual amount of architectural detail in the house. Cowhig also recommended New Age Builders — a firm that specializes in historic restoration with experience in dealing with fire damage — to assist with White’s project.

One of the many things White occupied her time with during the restoration was collecting period chandeliers from tag sales and auctions. Today, the collection hangs in the house, shedding light on a rich mix of Italianate and Greek-revival details that include elaborate plaster medallions on the ceiling above them.

One architectural detail that repeats throughout the house is its columns, Corinthian and fluted, large and small, from the dramatic front parlor to a slender arched alcove in the master bedroom to diminutive pairs that flank over-mantel plasterwork and appliquéd angels above the fireplaces.

Three of those fireplaces are found in the home’s open-spaced ‘ell’ — which includes the front parlor, sitting parlor, and dining room — and were never meant to burn wood at all. Instead, at a moment in architectural history when burning wood became unpopular, the original builders forced hot steam up from radiators installed beneath the fireboxes.
Other original house elements that survived the fire include a colorful three-panel stained-glass window above the chair rail in the dining room, as well as sinks and fixtures in the upstairs guests’ bathrooms.

The changes White made to the house over the years were in the spirit of updating the home to contemporary ways of living. From adding a side door off the driveway for more convenient access to the kitchen, to expanding the footprint of that kitchen into what was once a latticed screened-in porch to now include an adjoining keeping room. The original servants’ back staircase connects these updated spaces to several guest rooms on the second floor — each one dedicated to a member of White’s immediate family.

“When this house was built, it was considered way out of town,” she says. Today, the 18-room house with its strange two-story arched portico sits squarely in the middle of historic Fisher Park.

One of the highlights of last fall’s Greensboro Symphony Guild’s Tour of Homes, the house recently welcomed guests again when White hosted a birthday celebration for Cowhig’s wife, Denise, as an expression of her deepest gratitude. 

“I had over 150 people in here,” says White, standing in the middle of the home’s spacious ell. “This house was made for entertaining.”