Limestone clads the Forsyth County Courthouse here in Winston-Salem, Forsyth County. Built in 1926, this three-story, limestone-clad building presents itself in the Beaux-Arts style. Step closer and you can still sense interior elements carried over from the earlier 1896 Romanesque Revival courthouse that the 1926 work incorporated.
Mid-century changes arrived between 1959 and 1960, when additions were built onto the front and rear. The building has since been adapted for new life: it has been converted into private apartments and in 2018 was owned by Winston Courthouse LLC. Its significance was recognized when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
For decades a Confederate Soldiers Monument stood in front of this courthouse; that monument was removed in 2019, changing the building’s relationship to its grounds. Stand here and you can read the layers of style and use in the stone and massing: Beaux-Arts limestone over an older Romanesque heart, later additions tacked to front and rear, and the open space where the monument once stood. Picture the limestone facade, the later additions front and rear, and the open space where the monument once stood.