28 Cascade Avenue, Frederick Fries and Bleeker Estelle Reid Bahnson House, 1914

A large stuccoed Tudor Revival style frame house with a one-story porch on the west wing, a porte cochère on the east wing, and a steep-gabled entrance porch. The design features typical Tudor style half-timbering and steeply pitched gables. It also features a front gabled projecting bay, sets of paired windows, and a slate roof. At the rear is a covered walkway leading to a large two-car garage. Building permits indicate that Bahnsen hired Fogle Brothers to do "general interior remodeling" in 1934. Bleeker Reid Bahnson, an award-winning horticulturist, designed the landscape plan.

By 1915 Bahnsen (1876-1944) and his wife Bleeker had moved here from Salem, where he had grown up in a prominent Moravian family. An engineer, he began collaborating in 1905 with his uncle, John William Fries, in experimental and development work on humidifiers. He, his brother A. H. Bahnson Sr., and James A. Gray acquired the rights to John W. Fries's humidifier in 1915 and quickly founded the Normalair Company. The brothers eventually acquired James Gray’s interest, and by 1929 the firm had become the Bahnsen Company.

Bahnson founded the Southern Steel Stamping Company (in today’s Sunnyside historic district) to make furniture hardware in 1929 as well. In 1940, Fred sold his interest in the Bahnson Company to his brother in order to focus on his Southern Steel Stamping Company. During his career, Bahnsen acquired several patents in humidification and in furniture hardware design. At his death he was president of Southern Steel Stamping Company and a consulting engineer for the Bahnsen Company.

In 1970, the North Carolina School of the Arts Foundation acquired the property from Bleeker Bahnson’s estate to serve as its chancellor’s residence. The home retained that function until 2006 when the State of NC sold the house to David S. and Brantly B. Shapiro.

28 Cascade Avenue Outbuilding, 1936 (contributing)

A large hipped-roofed building with three hipped dormers, a brick chimney, and two wide auto bays. Slate roof. Built as a garage and servants quarters in 1936 by Frank L. Blum Construction, it was later converted to an apartment.

Tudor Revival style (1880 -1940) – A revival of English Tudor architecture (1485-1558) that includes: a steeply pitched roof, usually gabled; one or more prominent front-facing gables; tall, narrow windows, usually with multi-pane glazing and in groupings; massive brick chimneys, often crowned with decorative chimney pots; an entrance that includes a round or Tudor arch; and half-timbering. The style is actually taken from a variety of English architectural styles to include: Elizabethan, Jacobean, simple medieval houses and rural cottages, and might include British Arts and Crafts details.