Update: The house sold for $415,000, its full asking price, on November 6, 2019.

The Paisley House, 409 Hillcrest Drive in Westerwood, may be oldest house in Greensboro that’s still a residence. It was listed for sale on October 4; the sellers accepted an offer on October 8. A quick deal like that isn’t uncommon in Westerwood, one of Greensboro’s most attractive neighborhoods, especially now when so few homes are for sale there. What is uncommon is that the house is so much older than the neighborhood. The Paisley House was built in 1820; Westerwood was developed about 100 years later.

The oldest-house claim is hard to prove, maybe impossible, but no one has suggested a reasonable alternative (as Benjamin Briggs explains here). It was built downtown (the address is unknown). The house was moved to Westerwood, possibly around 1931, the first year the Greensboro City Directory shows a residence at 409 Hillcrest. This undated photo from Preservation Greensboro appears to have been taken while the house was still downtown:

Today, the house is elegantly updated with 3 bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms and 3,418 square feet. The price is $415,000, a relatively modest $121 per square foot. It has a finished basement and a detached two-car garage with a 12-by-24 room above it. There’s a porch off to the right side of the front. The back of the house has a deck along with a spacious yard (the lot is 0.34 acre).

Hillcrest is a quiet, out-of-the-way street toward the western end of the neighborhood. Oldest in town or not, the Paisley House is beautifully preserved and in a lovely setting, one of Westerwood’s real treasures.

Listing for 409 Hillcrest Drive

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