This Place Matters!

Historic Preservation Month 2008

John C. Larson

John Larson is the Vice-President of Restoration for Old Salem Museums and Gardens. Mr. Larson has been working for Old Salem for more than 15 years and has headed the restoration projects of the 1832 Timothy Vogler Gunsmith Shop, the 1821 Herbst House, and the 1861 St. Philips Church. He also headed the reconstruction of the 1823 log church and the Single Brothers 18th century gardens. The new 25,000 square foot visitor center was also built under his supervision. So that the craft and knowledge of old building traditions are passed down, Mr. Larson is also the co-director of the Old Salem/University of North Carolina at Greensboro Field School in Historic Building Technology. Mr. Larson has also been on the boards of Korner’s Folly, Keep Winston-Salem Beautiful, the Historic Properties Commission, the Wachovia Historical Society and the Bethania Historical Association. Mr. Larson was also a volunteer consultant for the Lloyd Presbyterian Restoration Project and volunteer advisor for the Idols Power Station Preservation Initiative and the Reynolda Road Preservation Initiative. 

 
John Larson

Langdon Edmunds Oppermann

Langdon Oppermann has worked professionally in historic preservation for more than 30 years, but it is her work with African-American history that truly stands out. She grew up in Charleston, SC and worked in the State Historic Preservation Office in Raleigh during the 1970s, advising communities in setting up historic commissions and managing the state’s new tax credits for rehabilitation. Ms. Oppermann moved back to South Carolina for a short time, but moved to Winston-Salem in 1987 and began an independent consulting practice specializing in historic preservation. In 1990, Ms. Oppermann began her focus on African-American history with a study of the East 14th Street neighborhood and went on to prepare an in-depth inventory of 2,200 buildings associated with Winston-Salem’s African-American history. She recently completed the National Register nomination for the Reynoldstown Historic District and has championed its revitalization. She has given numerous talks to civic groups and others on Winston-Salem’s African-American neighborhoods and spoken at Preservation North Carolina’s annual statewide meeting on the topic. 

 
Langdon Edmunds Oppermann

Laura Adams Wooldridge Phillips

Laura Phillips has served on the Forsyth County Historic Joint Properties Commission and the Forsyth County Historic Resources Commission for the last decade where she uses her expertise as an architectural historian. Before moving to Winston-Salem and briefly teaching American Architecture at Wake Forest University, she worked in several capacities in art history and historic preservation in Alabama and Louisiana. She graduated cum laude from the University of South Alabama and received her Master’s degree from Tulane University. Ms. Phillips has written countless National Register nominations for historic properties in and around Forsyth County including: Salem Town Hall, the 103-property Downtown Winston-Salem Historic District, the 610-property West End Historic District, the John Henry Kapp Farm, the Wachovia Building, Union Station, and the S.J. Nissen Building. She has won the Historic Salisbury Foundation’s Historic Preservation Award and Preservation North Carolina’s Robert E. Stipe Award. 

Laura Adams Wooldridge Phillips