Lyles, family honored for restoration efforts

January 27, 2011: Historic Salisbury Foundation 22nd Annual Andrew Jackson Society event.

January 27, 2011: Historic Salisbury Foundation 22nd Annual Andrew Jackson Society event.

January 27, 2011: Historic Salisbury Foundation 22nd Annual Andrew Jackson Society event.

January 27, 2011: Historic Salisbury Foundation 22nd Annual Andrew Jackson Society event.

By Emily Ford

eford@salisburypost.com

When Anne Lyles answered the phone, she thought the caller was asking her to help present the 2010 Clement Cup, the highest honor bestowed by Historic Salisbury Foundation.

“No, Anne,” Sarah Kellogg, president of the foundation, told Lyles. “You are the recipient of our Clement Cup this year.”

Lyles said she was shocked.

“What I have done here, what we have done, has not been for any award,” she said. “It was simply to clean up our neighborhood.”

Lyles and her family were honored last week for their 20-year commitment to historic preservation. Together, Lyles, Preston Sale, Karl Sale and Ken Weaver have rehabilitated nine historic properties in the Brooklyn-South Square neighborhood.

As the recipient of the Clement Cup, Lyles said she will use the opportunity to promote historic neighborhoods as good places to live and ask real estate agents to stop deterring people from buying homes in historic districts.

“We have wonderful people living right here and putting time and effort and money and love into these properties,” said Lyles, who has served on the city’s Historic Preservation Commission for seven years.

The four family members have done nearly all the work in their properties themselves.

“It is an example of do-it-yourself, grassroots historic preservation like few others in the entire state of North Carolina,” said Greg Shields, a board member for Historic Salisbury Foundation who presented the award. “Anne, Preston, Karl and Ken, if you can put your paint brush and hammer down long enough to take your award, we honor you with the 2010 Clement Cup.”

The family’s historic preservation efforts began in 1990, when Preston Sale and Weaver purchased 425 E. Bank St. from Historic Salisbury Foundation and rehabilitated it.

In 1991, Lyles purchased the Huff-Wells House at 409 E. Bank St., built in 1892 by prosperous grocer W.H. Huff. The house retains original floors, wainscoting, beaded board walls, mantels, half-barrel ceiling in hallway and decorative spandrel and is said to be haunted by a ghost that speaks softly and opens and shuts doors.

In 1997, Karl Sale purchased and rehabilitated 313 S. Shaver St. in an area suffering from neglect. The house nearly had been destroyed by fire.

In 2000, Lyles and Karl Sale rescued a Victorian cottage and one-time crack house at 429 E. Fisher St. from the bulldozer. A year later, Preston Sale and Weaver worked to clean up and enhance the lot and buildings at 208 S. Shaver St., built by Charles Rufty.

They also purchased a duplex at 204 S. Shaver St. and transformed the former trouble spot into an attractive, livable property.

In 2002, Preston Sale and Weaver purchased the pivotal Silliman-Peeler-Miller House at 424 E. Bank St., which was built in 1893. The two-story Italianate house had been turned into apartments, and they returned the home to single-family and added a large wing in the back.

Lyles saved and rehabilitated 531 E. Fisher St. in 2005. The city has issued a demolition permit, and the family collected signatures from neighbors to head off destruction.

Most recently, Lyles purchased and rehabilitated 122 S. Shaver St., a forgotten property at a key entrance to the neighborhood, with help from Weaver. The north side of the house had sunken five inches into the ground.

This family of historic preservationists didn’t stop at just saving houses, Shields said. They also led the effort to establish a neighborhood association and significantly influenced the changes recently made in Salisbury’s preservation ordinances, he said.

Now 70, Lyles said she’s not sure she has another rehabilitation in her. “I have said I am done. I have said I’m too old for the stress,” she said. “My friends say, ‘We’ve heard that before.’ ”

The Clement Cup was founded 25 years ago, named for Ed Clement. Last year’s recipients were Virginia and the late Leo Wallace.

Contact reporter Emily Ford at 704-797-4264.