The Irving Park Historic District is a national historic district in the city of Greensboro, in the state of North Carolina. The district consists of 164 contributing buildings, 5 contributing sites, 2 contributing structures, and 2 contributing objects, all of which are located in an upscale planned suburb of the Greensboro, NC metropolitan area.
The Greensboro Country Club served as the focal point of Irving Park’s development. The houses were primarily constructed between 1911 and 1930 and feature important instances of Colonial Revival, Tudor Revival, and Classical Revival-style architecture, as well as other architectural styles.
Among the notable structures are the first Robert Jesse Mebane House, the Cummins A. Mebane House, the Lynn Williamson House, the first J. Spencer Love House, the Aubrey L. Brooks House, the Carl I. Carlson House, the Van Wyck Williams House, the Lavlson L. Simmons House, the Albert J. Klutz House, the Irving Park Manor Apartments, the McAdoo-Sanders-Tatum House, the Alfred M.
Irving Park is a landmark in the state of North Carolina. It is the residence of United States Ambassadors, Senators, Representatives, philanthropists, and CEOs of Fortune 500 businesses, among others. It is the epicenter of power and influence in the city of Greensboro.
Apart from that, Irving Park is believed to be the state’s first example of a golf course that was integrated into a neighborhood plan, predating other developments such as Myers Park in Charlotte, Country Club Estates in Winston-Salem, and Hope Valley in Durham.
There are some of the best examples of 20th Century architecture in the state, designed by locally and nationally important architects such as Charles Barton Keen, Mott Schmidt, and Greensboro’s own Charles Hartmann and Edward Loewenstein, as well as other notable local and national architects. In 1992, it was included on the National Register of Historic Places, a recognition of its historical significance at the time.
Irving Park was founded on the premise that rural surroundings were superior to urban ones, which was later proven incorrect. This ideal delved into emerging ideals of recreation, density, zoning, exclusivity, nature, and aesthetics, all of which were included into the design. As a result, a planned, severely restricted, and beautifully manicured town was created, which became the model for suburban development in Greensboro for the following century. Aside from that, Irving Park was one of the first communities in the region to incorporate a recreational golf course into the master plan for the development of the community.