Walter Alexander House
(ca. 1915)
Past residents of the Walter L. Alexander House include a successful hotelier, the namesake of a major Charlotte thoroughfare, and a retired U.S. Navy Rear Admiral.
523 Clement Ave, Charlotte, NC 28204
The Walter L. Alexander House is a scaled-down but refined version of the neighboring John Baxter Alexander House, an elegant variation of the bungalow. Built in 1915 for the son of Walter S. Alexander, one of Charlotte’s most prominent real estate developers in the early 1900s, the house was erected on a lot within an entire block purchased by Walter's uncle John Baxter Alexander in an effort to create an Alexander family compound.
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Native Charlottean Walter Lamar Alexander (1884-1925) attended North Carolina A&M College (now N.C. State University) and graduated from Davidson College in 1904. He married Ernestine Bridges of Wilmington, North Carolina. At the time he built the Clement Avenue home, Walter was working as a salesman for his father’s Southern Real Estate Loan and Trust Company. Within four years of completing the house, Walter and his family moved to Blowing Rock, North Carolina, where – as a successful land developer – he built the Mayview Manor Hotel, an opulent 138 room grand hotel overlooking the Johns River Gorge that hosted such notable guests as sharpshooter and Wild West Show star Annie Oakley, author Margaret Mitchell, and U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
Walter sold his Charlotte home in 1919 to William Cook Wilkinson, president of the Merchants and Farmers National Bank, and his wife Rosalie Booker Wilkinson. The Clement Avenue house remained the Wilkinson family home for nearly three decades. Wilkinson is perhaps best known for his work as head of the State Highway Commission for the 6th District as reflected by the fact that Wilkinson Boulevard – a 20-mile road built in 1926, considered as one of the best highways of that period – was named in his honor.
Rear Admiral Percy W. Foote (1879-1961) and his wife Genevieve purchased the Walter L. Alexander House in 1946. Born at Roaring River, North Carolina, Admiral Foote was the son of Confederate Army Major James H. Foote, a founder of Wake Forest College. Foote’s distinguished naval career included service as an aide to Secretary of the Navy (and North Carolina native) Josephus Daniels, and he received the Distinguished Service Cross (awarded by President Wilson) and the Order of the Crown (awarded by King Albert of Belgium). Upon retirement, Foote served as Commissioner of the Pennsylvania Motor Police Force before moving to North Carolina. The Alexander House had originally been a single-family residence but in 1947, three couples lived there with the Footes: Cyril and Eloise Jones, Russell and Virginia Smith, and Dr. Julian Neel and wife Phoebe. The house has since changed hands several times but remains the grandest residence dating from the 1910s in the streetcar suburb of Elizabeth.