This is a great thread! I've enjoyed reading the responses to it. I'll try to contribute to it.
According to Preservation North Carolina (
they would know!), "Y-Houses" are unique to Winston-Salem. They are around 100+ years old and can be found in historically black neighborhoods in the city.
Two Y-Houses (notice the Y-stairs):
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I'll try to guess a few more that could be unique or at least not very common in other places. These are just my guesses and they may not be as unique as I think. Historic neighborhoods and a variety of housing options are a strength of Winston-Salem. It's a city with architectural tourism! I'll also try to keep the files small (compressed together as one image) and use a smaller image size than I usually post.
These could be semi-unique to Winston-Salem? Moravian Houses built between roughly 1760-1820?
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They feature tile roofs, kick eaves, tile stoves, may have a business space built into the house, and are often built into a hillside with much of the home's cooking and laundry happening in the half-exposed basement floor. Winston-Salem had a water system in the late-1700s and President Washington visited the city to see it. Homes with water would have a connection to the water system in that basement storey. The architecture of these homes was used to create a new architectural style for Winston-Salem in the 1910s/1920s called Moravian Revival. Yes, Winston-Salem also has a "European village" neighborhood on the south end of downtown. These are National Landmarks.
The textile mills in Winston-Salem weren't in the housing business. The lack of mill housing and the lack of shotgun houses in Winston-Salem is very unusual in the South. Only one textile mill in the county built homes for their workers. Instead, workers would construct 3-6 room homes on their own. These houses were built between roughly 1830-1890? Some of these were expanded over the years, but if it's one-storey it was originally three rooms (on average) and if it's two-storeys it originally had six rooms (on average). This neighborhood was given National Landmark status a few years ago, with homes from 1788-today and historic factories constructed between 1838-1880.
Unique in the South? - Small, Factory Worker Houses (built and owned by the factory workers!):
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Not sure how unique they are? - These 4-flats are ubiquitous in Winston-Salem and look similar to single family homes:
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Even if you only see two doors, there are usually four units. Count the mail boxes. They date back to when Winston-Salem was North Carolina's largest and fastest growing city. They allowed four families to live on one single family home lot. They look almost like a typical SFH from that time, until you notice multiple doors and multiple mail boxes.