Work Life

East Boulevard is the closest thing Charlotte has to Rainbow Row

By Katie Toussaint

Updated October 16, 2019 3:01 AM

As much as South End, Ballantyne and uptown have succumbed to newer, taller buildings for businesses (and apartments), development hasn’t totally wiped out Charlotte’s sense of historical aesthetic. Sure, we don’t have a Rainbow Row of homes (pictured above) that originated in the 1700s like Charleston does.

But there is a surprisingly large number of local businesses embedded in homes that are nearly a century old. I first noticed this when I went to an event at Savvy + Co. Real Estate in Elizabeth.

The home that the offices now occupy was built in 1900 (pictured below). Savvy broker Lexie Longstreet purchased and restored elements of the space in 2007. “It is near and dear to our hearts to keep the historic buildings in use and as in tact as we can,” Longstreet said.

I quickly realized this trend of fitting offices into historic houses was evident in my own neighborhood, Dilworth/South End.

Ron and Nicole Sodoma just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the historic home they own for their Sodoma Law and Doma Vida Capital offices, called the Gaston Gilbert Galloway House, at 602 East Morehead Street. The house (pictured below), which was built in 1915, is described as “a significant local example of the Bungalow style with English Tudor motifs.”

The couple owns another historic home, the Walter Brem House, at 211 East Blvd. which is Sodoma Law‘s main office. That home was built in 1903. Standing at that white structure (below) and staring down the street, I realized East Boulevard just might be the closest thing Charlotte has to Rainbow Row.

It has history: The layout and construction of the Dilworth neighborhood was planned by Edward Dilworth Latta and his associates at Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company in the 1890s.

And it has its strip of color, from white, to mahogany, to peach, to green, to slate — the colors of an array of home-style structures that have been converted into businesses:

300 East Restaurant, 300 East Blvd.

Year Built: 1900

Office of Steven Meier Attorneys at Law, 307 East Blvd.

Year built: 1900

Copper Restaurant, 311 East Blvd.

Year built: 1908

Fun fact: this is the historic Mayer House, described by a nearby South End sign as being “a beautiful example of the Victorian-style housing that characterized this neighborhood in the early 1900s.”