Walter Brem House
(ca. 1903)
One of Charlotte’s first Colonial Revival style residences was home to insurance executive Walter Brem and motion picture pioneer Regger Craver.
211 East Blvd, Charlotte, NC 28203
One of the earliest houses in Dilworth, developed by Edward Dilworth Latta’s Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company as the city’s first streetcar suburb, the Walter Brem House is also one of Charlotte’s first and grandest examples of the Colonial Revival style of architecture. Charlotte native and successful businessman Walter Brem (1849-1925) hired Charles Christian Hook (1870-1938) to design the house for his wife Hannah Caldwell Brem (1851-1931) and their three minor children (the eldest, Mina Caldwell Brem Mayer, married Robert A. Mayer in 1903 and lived on East Boulevard, just a few doors down from her parents). Born in Morganton, Hannah Brem was the daughter of North Carolina Governor Todd Robinson Caldwell.
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Walter Brem started his business career as co-owner of a hardware store at the corner of Trade and Tryon Streets, but later partnered with George S. Stephens to transition to the insurance business. In 1902, George Stephens married Sophie Myers, daughter of John Springs Myers, and began developing his father-in-law's 1,200-acre farm into the Myers Park subdivision, leaving Walter Brem as the head of Walter Brem and Sons, general agents for the Traveler's Insurance Company, for the remainder of his business career. In 1912, the Brems bought a smaller Queen Anne style house a block to the east of their home at 211 East Boulevard, which they sold in 1914 to Regger D. Craver (1878-1928).
Regger Craver was a pioneer in the motion picture business in the Carolinas. At one time, he was one of the largest individual theater owners in the South with numerous movie houses across the Carolinas and Virginia. In Charlotte, he operated the old Broadway theaters on East Trade and West Trade Streets and later the Broadway theater on South Tryon. He and his wife, the former Bessie Jenkins of Gastonia, raised their four sons on East Boulevard. Following Regger’s death in 1928 and the onset of the Depression, Bessie could not maintain the house, losing it in foreclosure. In 1936, Mae King Blume – the proprietor of the Piedmont Hotel, Queen City Hotel, Frances Hotel, Windsor Hotel, Southern Hotel, and Franklin Hotel, as well as manager of the New Albert Hotel – purchased the Brem House and converted it into the Colonial Apartments, where she lived for more than fifty years.
Charlotte’s first fulltime professional architect, C. C. Hook graduated from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, before moving to Charlotte in 1890. He is remembered as one of North Carolina’s most prolific early twentieth-century architects and his design projects span the state. His Charlotte commissions included Charlotte City Hall, the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse, Fire Station No. 6, the Carolina Theater, the Charlotte Women’s Club, and such notable private residences as the Duke Mansion, the VanLandingham Estate, and the William Henry Belk House. Hook also designed numerous collegiate buildings across the state, including at UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. State University, St. Mary’s College, Queens College, and Duke University.