Historic Higgs and Moye Houses offer stark contrast

By Silas Albright, Correspondent, The Daily Reflector

The extravagant architectural heritage of the South is alive and well in Greenville — in two distinctly different stages.

Guests of the Pitt County Historical Society’s annual Thanksgiving Tea toured the deteriorating J.W. Higgs House with staff of nonprofit Preservation North Carolina before making a short trip to the meticulously restored and decorated Jesse R. Moye House, now known as The Music House owned by John O’Brien, Sunday afternoon.

Visitors saw the disrepair and intact features at the Higgs House before being shown the possibilities of grandeur that a restoration project can lead to at The Music House.

The Greenville City Council voted to demolish the Higgs House at 1112 Dickinson Avenue in January. The Historic Preservation Commission issued a 365-day delay of demolition March 26 to allow Preservation NC to find new investment in the property. Fewer than half of those 365 days remain.

The 4,811-square-foot Higgs House and its 0.82 acre lot are listed for $142,500 by Preservation NC.

“It’s fantastic to come into (The Music House) and to see the (Higgs House) and to compare and contrast,” Preservation NC President and CEO Benjamin Briggs said. “It’s nice to see (The Music House) so well-cared for and in beautiful condition and to see the opportunity that the Higgs House might present.”

Guests were welcomed to tour the Higgs House at 2 p.m. before heading to The Music House, 408 W. Fifth St., at 3 p.m. for a tour, the Thanksgiving Tea refreshments, an informational panel and the opportunity to visit with O’Brien.

“We are so appreciative of the work that (Preservation NC does) to keep local real property intact and keep communities interesting and pure,” Pitt County Historical Society President Emma Hodson said. “We’re lucky to be in this historic (Music House) which has been lovingly refurbished and we hope someone will also save the Higgs House.”

O’Brien, who has loved historic homes since growing up in an 1870s house his parents restored, purchased the Moye House in 1995 and began the restoration project.

“I did know that it would always be more money and more of a challenge than you expect, and it was, but I tell people I feel lucky to have it most of the time — almost all the time I do,” O’Brien said. “It’s been my hobby like my whole life, a lot of my summers and all the time. People ask when I finished it. Well, it’s never done, but I am pretty close to sort of just being in the maintenance. It’s never an investment to make financial gains but it’s a huge investment in your quality of life.”
Preservation NC Eastern Regional Office Director Maggie Gregg, a J.H. Rose High School graduate, first helped the nonprofit become involved with the Higgs House after her mother texted her a link to coverage from The Daily Reflector.

Gregg encouraged the audience to advocate for preservation and to reach out to Preservation NC with any leads on other local properties or owners they could help.

“Speaking to your elected officials and telling them that you want to see that historic fabric remain in Greenville, that’s an added voice to our voice that’s saying this is important to the region and to the community and that’s certainly a huge effort that you can make on our behalf,” Gregg said.

Briggs said Preservation NC has received interest in the property and highlighted its location, walkable to downtown and East Carolina University.

“It’s a dream house,” Briggs said. “People just see all kinds of different ideas for this property, which is really neat. Everybody recognizes the neighborhood. Dickinson Avenue in the front is an area in transition now, and the construction has not been a friend of ours in marketing the house because it’s even hard to get to and hard to visualize how traffic and everything looks on the street. But we’re hoping that as that settles down, this could be a real keystone to begin to set a new benchmark for this neighborhood on how it moves forward. It’s so convenient to 10th Street. It’s a right turn into this property off of 10th and a right turn out to go to ECU, so it’s very well located. There’s so many opportunities here. It’s just a shame that it would ever be torn down.”

According to Preservation NC’s web listing of the Higgs House, local landmark designation provides a 50 percent property tax deferral with a required yearly application process.

The listing also states that the house will “require complete and sensitive rehabilitation, including a new roof, replacement of systems and restoration of important architectural features,” and that buyers “will need to work collaboratively with Preservation North Carolina, the City of Greenville staff, and the Historic Preservation Commission on restoration to ensure significant progress is made before the demolition delay deadline.”