104 Cascade Avenue, Henry Elias and Rosa Mickey Fries House, 1914

A large hipped-roof brick Neoclassical Revival style house with a full-height gable-on-hip portico. The paired fluted Doric columns with matching pilasters shelter the double-leaf entrance which is framed by a leaded-glass fanlight and sidelights. The cantilevered balcony on the 2nd floor sits on substantial brackets and features a decorative balustrade. Shaped rafter ends decorate the deep eaves including the weatherboarded side addition. The structure sits on a granite foundation with granite steps and sidewalls, and a granite retaining wall survives on Doune Street. (All rusticated granite.) The interior features significant woodwork. (It is said that a window in the library was copied from a building constructed at Westminster Abbey in 1912 for the coronation of King George V.) Constructed by Fogle Brothers Company.

The Frieses lived on Main Street near Belews Creek Street (an area greatly impacted by interstate 40 - now Salem Parkway) until moving in 1914 to this Cascade Street residence. Sadly, their only daughter Anna Marguerite died of scarlet fever in 1916. Rosa died in 1938 and in 1945, Henry sold the residence to William J. Fishel who had the house partitioned into six apartments the next year. The property was rented as individual apartments until 1995, when it was purchased by Paul and Diedre McGann, who rehabilitated it back to a single-family residence.

Henry E. Fries (1857-1949) was a prominent Salem industrialist who managed his family holdings which included the Arista and Wachovia Mills. He also chartered the Fries Manufacturing and Power Company in 1891, and had the Idol’s Hydroelectric Generating Station constructed on the Yadkin River near Clemmons, NC in 1898. The 1913 city directory lists his occupations as general manager of the Winston-Salem Power Co.; president of the Forsyth Manufacturing Co.; president of the WS Southbound Railway; vice-president of Forsyth Furniture Co.; vice-president of Forsyth Iron Bed Co.; vice-president of the Journal Publishing Co.; and vice-president of Wachovia Mills.

He served three terms as mayor of Salem, was a member of the County Board of Education, and a trustee of Slater Industrial and Normal School (now WSSU) for 53 years. He helped establish the NC College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts (now NCSU in Raleigh) and was the driving force behind the NC Industrial Exposition in Raleigh in 1884. Of major importance was his ownership of the Winston-Salem Railway and Electric Company (1891) that eventually became the WS Street Railway Company (1899), whose tracks ran for several blocks on Cascade Avenue. He had a significant role in the development of the Washington Park, Wachovia Development/Belview, and Sunnyside/ Central Terrace neighborhoods. (https://www.ncpedia.org/biography/fries-henry-elias)

Doric Columns – A very plain, straightforward design, simpler than the later Ionic and Corinthian column styles. A Doric column is also thicker and heavier than an Ionic or Corinthian column. Often used with a simple circular capital.