It’s getting chilly around Charlotte, which makes it a good time to transition from outdoor exercising activities to indoor ones. (Or a good excuse for stopping exercising altogether, if you ask me. We mammals will need fat for winter, after all, so pass the chips and dip.) But if you must keep the blood going [...]
Halloween’s over, and, amazingly, the decorations have already been picked up at my house. That’s the work of my wife. If I were in charge of putting them away, they’d likely become a permanent feature of the premises, much like a pile of newspapers is a permanent feature of my car’s backseat. Anyway, while we’re [...]
In a home near you, someone who shouldn’t be there might be inside right now. That’s because it’s the hot thing to do in the Charlotte area these days: Go to the local register of deeds office, file some paperwork fraudulently claiming ownership to a vacant home of your choosing, change the locks, put your [...]
In late August, while lots of people were focused on Hurricane Irene, something had just happened to the Barringer Hotel. All of us in the local media had fallen down on the job — I blame it on furloughs and layoffs — because no one reported that the Barringer had just been put on the [...]
The marketing ploy that is National Kitchen and Bath Month is in full swing. And the folks behind NKABM probably hope that every October we’ll all dutifully run out to Lowe’s and drop a few grand on, say, a new Jacuzzi tub. Sorry, boys, but I’m so broke, I’m lucky if I can afford to [...]
David Granberry was just a paralegal when the gay couple and the person with the TV camera waltzed into Mecklenburg County’s register of deeds office. He can’t remember when it was — maybe 2006, in the fall of that year — but Judy Gibson was the register back then. It was a publicity stunt. The [...]
The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for July were released this week, and the news wasn’t good. Well, it wasn’t good if you are among those of us who own “real property,” as they say. If you’re looking to buy a house, it was probably great news. In the Charlotte metro area, home prices [...]
“Mike Smith” wouldn’t give me his real name. I know very little about him, even though I spent about an hour interviewing the guy Tuesday evening. I couldn’t identify him in a lineup even if you threatened to make me watch last season’s Panthers games, but I am sure of a handful of things, including [...]
I can almost picture it. George Shinn is lounging poolside at his Tega Cay home, a tall, sweating glass of ice-cold tea in hand. The afternoon light streams through the glass, making the tea glow, so that it looks he’s sipping liquid sunshine. Next to the house, there’s Lake Wylie, which echoes with the sounds [...]
If William Alfred Freret were alive today, he’d turn 178 this year. While people don’t get that old, many buildings have. In Charlotte, though, preservationists like — or, better yet, dislike — pointing out all the old buildings that had dates with the wrecking ball. The post office building for which Freret was architect is [...]