Krispy Kreme Steps Into History

Good fences make good neighbors. That is, if the fence doesn’t cross an alley or otherwise change the character of the neighborhood. So decrees the Historic Resources Commission of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. The Commission oversees the city’s many quaint neighborhoods, among them the West End Historic District, my home.

Many of the houses in the West End, on one edge of downtown, tower above the street. They have a regal aura, even though they’re not what one would think of as mansions. Queen Anne, Neoclassical, Colonial Revival, and Craftsman architectural styles compete for visitors’ attention, and a mix of retirees, young families, and singles roam the streets, mostly by day, but occasionally at night. And on West End’s eastern border with the city, you’ll find unique restaurants, used bookstores, antique shops, and juice/alcohol bars—unique, because they’re independently owned, unlike the chains that dominate much of the rest of the city.

Think of this as a dispatch from an “embedded reporter.” In this case, I write from the front lines of the seemingly endless tug-of-war between neighborhood and City Hall. While most of my neighbors own homes, I rent an apartment, which makes some of the “historic district issues” inconsequential to me personally but highly fascinating intellectually. So I offer my “renter’s perspective” as a member of the West End Association’s neighborhood board. You see, this is no conventional war—rather than a conflict between community and developer, this war pits various interpretations of “historic” against one another. It is a war over the future of our neighborhood.

A West End property owner must complete a “Certificate of Appropriateness” for everything from a new fence to the elimination of a single tree. Essentially, anything visible from the street falls under the jurisdiction of the Historic Resources Commission. Its twelve members—among whom there are architects, planners, and historic property owners—can reject any application if they believe that the change would reduce the historic character of the home or building.

The prospect of that much red tape so upset some residents of the Westerwood neighborhood in nearby Greensboro that they became embroiled in debate over whether or not to become a “historic district.” When I covered that conflict as a reporter for the local NPR station, I interviewed a Westerwood resident named Ben Hawkins. When the idea surfaced, Hawkins painted his modest two-story house a loud purple color. “I’m a veteran,” he explained in an initially calm voice that slowly rose with each sentence. “I fought for the rights of people. I’m just not going to give up my homeowner’s rights freely. They’ll have to take them from me.”

It wasn’t that Hawkins wanted to erect a nightclub on his property or build several more stories. The issue for him was who decides the meaning of “historic” and who controls a homeowner’s property. “If the neighborhood votes for historical, Ben Hawkins will be for historical!” he shouted into my microphone from his front lawn. “I don’t want the Westerwood Association and the supreme City Council telling me I have to be historical!”

Hawkins and his allies eventually won the debate after two exhausting city council meetings. Council members, voting 5-4, clashed over whether residents’ wishes or the city’s interests should play the most important role in the designation of historic district status. By the end of the debate, it wasn’t entirely clear how much difference there was between the two sides—everyone seemed to think they had the city’s best interests in mind, and everyone seemed to like the idea of historic preservation.

Few people would dispute the appeal of both living and hanging out in an historic district. It’s quiet, but you can walk to shops, bars and restaurants, all of whose exterior appearance blends in well with the rest of the homes. And you sense that the place has some meaning—the neighborhood grew out of people’s desire to create a special place, a place with a history, to remember a time when it was possible to live downtown, feel safe, and know your neighbors.

The trouble is figuring out how to use the neighborhood’s appeal to improve it in a way that conforms with the desire to keep it more or less the same, or the same-looking. Case in point, Winston-Salem based Krispy Kreme Doughnuts has announced plans to move its headquarters to the West End’s doorstep. They want to put in more pedestrian shopping, a multiplex movie theatre, and other entertainment—and they’re calling the whole thing “Unity Place.” The headquarters itself will resemble a New England boarding school on the outside, a design that would at least blend with the rest of the West End. But the complex won’t officially be part of the West End, and so the architects have essentially free reign and could very easily create an area that bears little resemblance to its historic neighbor.

While the exact design of Krispy Kreme’s new home and surroundings may not be set, it’s certain that more people will come through the West End, and downtown will probably become much more trendy. The city is also betting on rising values and has helped recruit developers to build ritzy condos around “Unity Place.” But the question remains: does the end justify the means? Does the general goal of increasing property values and attracting more people to downtown justify potentially dramatic alterations to the city’s architectural character?

Across the country, conflicts over historic preservation and rehabilitations of original downtowns abound. It seems clear that the “historic district” concept is here to stay, in part because urban planners across the country have seen what a bit of nostalgia can do to attract visitors. It’s not unlike the surge in “heritage tourism”—when people travel, they often want to see a place where their ancestors may have walked or lived.

So it isn’t the value of a city’s history that’s really at issue. It’s how one maximizes that value—and what ends one should pursue to do it. It may be that one can revitalize downtown and preserve it all at once, but that’s a balancing act that will likely take some time to perfect.