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The Ludases, Marty and Debbie, are nice
people, but they have been disappointing
some others since they bought the
building which used to house The Corner
ice cream store.
“We’ve broken people’s
hearts because we told them it was not
going to be an ice cream shop,” Debbie
said this week.
The couple completed the
deal with owner Harriett Dodd Barlowe on
Jan. 9, buying both the brick building
on the corner of North Main Street and
North Avenue and the gray Victorian
house behind it on North Avenue.
What do the Ludases have?
For one thing, a slice of Wake Forest
history in two buildings that have been
in the Powers-Dodd family for 130 years.
Dr. John Benjamin Powers was
a Wake Forest College graduate, a
physician who built the Victorian house
in 1876. He was married to Harriett
Brewer, the granddaughter of the first
college president, Samuel Wait, and the
daughter of John Brewer, who built the
log cabin in 1840 that is the first
floor of the house with the second-story
front porch.
They had four children. One
was John Benjamin Powers Jr., who was a
physician like his father and taught in
the medical school of the college.
Francine would marry a Mr. Dodd and
inherit the house on her mother’s death.
As an adult, Bruce Powers
would operate the drug store his father
built in the 1880s on Wait Avenue. The
drug store building now houses Bimulous
Beads and Dancing Trees. At about the
same time Dr. Powers built the drug
store, the Wake Forest Hotel was built
next door, a frame building with
double-A roofs. Wait Avenue then crossed
the railroad tracks just north of the
passenger station for the Seaboard
Coastline.
In 1897, Dr. John B. Powers
Sr. built the brick building next to the
house as a general store, one of two in
town at the time, the other being the
Purefoy and Reid store.
The Dodd family continued to
live in the house until 1995, after
which it was rented and continues to be
rented to students at Southeastern
Baptist Theological Seminary.
The brick building has a
much more varied history. It was Mrs.
Newsome’s boarding house in the 1930s,
the Alpha Kappa Pi fraternity house in
the 1940s, reportedly a restaurant at
some point, Dick Stephens’ used book
store from the late 1950s until about
1975, when it was renovated to house The
Corner in the southeast corner. George
Rogers’ coin shop shared the downstairs
for several years, and Dick Larsen
continues to have his studio on the
second floor, which has also been
offices and a used-book store.
Debbie Ludas wants to know
more about the history of the two
buildings. If you have some information,
send her an e-mail at
debraludas@aol.com.
The second question is: why
would a couple who are busy reshaping
their South Main yard be interested in
buying the two old buildings?
“It’s a hobby,” Debbie Ludas
said. Right.
Actually it is their plan
for the future. When it is renovated,
the brick building will house a
conference center, offices and space for
his business
In later years, again after
renovation, the house will be their
home.
“We don’t want it to look
like we’re waiting for my parents to
die,” Debbie Ludas said. “We’re very
happy where we are.”
They moved to a brick house
on South Main Street six years ago, a
house which also has a second, smaller
house and a large field on its lot. Her
parents live in the smaller house and
are still active. “Dad still builds
birdhouses.”
Right now, the task at hand
is the brick building and the goal is to
have it completely restored by 2009 and
the town’s centennial.
The first step is to repair
the 24 windows. “They are literally
rattling around. The window panes are
falling out on the sidewalk.”
The electrical system may
date to 1909. Like many other buildings
in town it has wires wrapped in cotton.
The brick needs to be
repointed. “It has been done, but it was
by someone who iced the cake,” Debbie
Ludas said.
There are trees growing out
of the foundation, the heating and air
conditioning do not work, the plumbing
needs to be replaced: the list of to-dos
is long.
The bright side is they have
already redone two upstairs rooms, “a
beautiful space,” for Marty’s office.
He publishes forensic
science training material and travels to
conferences all over the country where
he instructs teachers how to teach
forensic science. At those, he also
sells kits stocked with items he
purchases from Sirchie Laboratories in
Youngsville, where he is a partner. The
kits include fingerprint powder and ink,
materials to lift shoe prints and “a
banana thing where you can watch it
deteriorate like a body. Middle school
kids want the real stuff.
“We have to have a place to
assemble the kits,” Debbie said.
In the future they hope to
fit up a conference center on the south
side downstairs “where people can stay
in the hotels out on Capital Boulevard
and we can bus them in for two-day
conferences. At lunchtime he can turn
them loose to eat at the downtown
places.”
Meanwhile, at the house,
there are two seminary students who are
missionaries who are literally camping
out because there is no heat and no air
conditioning. At least they do not pay
rent.
“The good news is they
didn’t do anything to it in the sixties
and seventies when people were doing bad
things to house,” Debbie Ludas said. “It
still has the original arches and
beautiful millwork.”
And now two buildings that
have been an important part of the
history of Wake Forest also have a
future. |
