By David Perlmutt
dperlmutt@charlotteobserver.com

Johnson C. Smith University President Dr. Ron Carter in front of the historic George Davis House on Campus St. near JCSU on October 4, 2011. Johnson C. Smith and the Historic Landmarks Commission are likely joining up to restore the George Davis, a precious landmark for Charlotte's black community near JCSU. The house will be an anchor to a new Foster Village Network Center that will guide teenagers aging out of foster care through a private high school that JCSU plans to start and, if they are successful, offering them four years at JSCU. Diedra Laird - dlaird@charlotteobserver.com

For decades, the imposing brick house has stood empty a block from Johnson C. Smith University, rotting and sagging from neglect.

Now there appears to be new and important life for the George Davis house – one of Charlotte’s most significant African American landmarks.

Johnson C. Smith, with the help of a likely loan from the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, is set to restore the run-down, two-story house that Davis, JCSU’s first black professor, started building in 1891.

The restored structure will anchor a new program at JCSU to help steer teenagers who at 18 have aged out of foster care through the educational system and into college.

As part of the university’s efforts to revitalize Beatties Ford Road, the school will announce its plans Thursday for the Foster Village Network Center during a groundbreaking ceremony for the Davis house restoration.

“We must pay attention to this sector of our youth who have been completely disenfranchised from life,” said JCSU President Ron Carter, a foster father of four over the years. “They’re a growing population not only in Charlotte, but across the country. If we don’t provide them with the information on networking services – and help guide them through the educational system – they’re not going to make it through the pipeline.”

Built Rosenwald schools

Detail of the historic George Davis House on Campus St. near JCSU on October 4, 2011, showing some of the signs of age. Diedra Laird - dlaird@charlotteobserver.com

Davis lived in the Queen Anne-style, 3,064-square-foot house with its stately wrap-around porch for nearly 55 years with wife, Marie G. Davis, a beloved Charlotte public school principal and teacher.

He’d arrived at Biddle University (JCSU’s first name) in 1885 to teach science and sociology. Until then, all the professors and administrators had been white.

Five years later, he bought land along Dixon and Campus streets, just across Beatties Ford Road from the main JCSU entrance, and began building his house and a series of rentals along Campus Street. He expanded the house in the early 1900s and covered it in brick in the 1920s.

Davis resigned as dean of the faculty in 1920 to become the state’s agent for the Rosenwald Fund, the group financed by Sears Roebuck executive Julius Rosenwald to build black schools. His work led to the construction of 813 mostly rural Rosenwald schools across North Carolina, 26 in Mecklenburg County.

He retired in 1935 and moved to Greensboro in 1946. Nine years later, he sold the house to JCSU.

“George Davis and his wife were heroes in this community,” said UNC Charlotte historian Dan Morrill, the landmarks commission’s consulting director.

“The restoration of that house would be a monumental moment in the history of preservation in this county.”

$800,000 restoration

After the Davises left, the house boarded professors for years. But the past 30 years, it’s been vacant, dodging efforts to condemn and demolish it.

The university boarded up windows, built a fence to keep out vandals, and let the house sit while it searched for money to restore it. Neighbors, historians and local preservationists have worked for years to save the house because of the Davises’ significance and the house’s symbiotic relationship to the university and Biddleville, the surrounding neighborhood.

A city effort to demolish the house last year set Carter’s vision for the Foster Village in motion.

Last week, the landmarks commission’s projects committee voted to recommend to the full commission that it loan JCSU restoration money. The commission will vote on the loan Monday, but is expected to approve it.

Under the deal, JCSU will deed the house to the commission, which will restore it to stringent historical standards. The commission will sell back the restored house at the amount of the loan, giving the university several years to repay.

Restoration costs have been estimated at $800,000, said Gerald Hector, JCSU’s vice president for business and finance. The school has raised about $300,000 for the project, Hector said.

The house will hold administrative offices and conference rooms for Foster Village, two years in the making. JCSU plans to open a private high school by 2013, starting with existing space on campus.

Twenty Foster Village students would be enrolled in that high school, starting in the 9th grade, and into JCSU if they succeed academically, Carter said.

The university hopes to restore a nearby church and offer room and board to Foster Village students who have no where else to go.

“It is a comprehensive program,” he said. “We think we can help them lead responsible lives. These kids have an entrepreneurial spirit. That comes from having to survive and understand the system.”

A toast to Davis house

Last week, as Carter had his photo snapped in front of the Davis house, Charlotte lawyer Charles Jones pulled up in his pickup truck.

Jones, who lives a block away, has been a stalwart in efforts to save the house.

A civil rights warrior, Jones is a 1958 JCSU graduate. His father and three uncles were Biddle University graduates.

Many times, he threatened to stand in front of the bulldozers.

Tuesday, he hugged Carter.

“You don’t know what this means to an old 74-year-old man,” Jones said, tears in his eyes. “If we had been stupid enough to destroy this important piece of history, then shame on us.”

The two had talked for months about having a drink together.

“We’ll do it on the steps of the Davis house,” Jones suggested. “It is an appropriate way to sip bourbon and toast a new life for the Davis house and a man who did so much to educate children.”

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