The suburban neighborhoods that comprise the Five Points Neighborhoods were part of an extremely important planning movement that had captured the imagination of the Progressive Reformers of Raleigh. In line with their desire for a new, simple, efficient lifestyle that was symbolized by the new bungalow houses which became popular in the 1920s, these suburban neighborhoods were planned communities with services that epitomized efficiency as well as providing escape from unhealthy and hectic urban life. The early suburbs of Raleigh included Oakwood in the late 19th century to the northeast of the center city and Boylan Heights, Glenwood and Cameron Park, platted between 1906 and 1910 to the southwest, west and northwest of the center city, respectively. With Raleigh’s population growing and residential and commercial development resuming after World War I, the area of the Five Points Neighborhoods was developed through planned suburban growth. Two hundred and seventy houses were constructed in the Bloombury Historic District during the 1920s; the majority of them being bungalow and Colonial Revival dwellings that housed the middle and upper-middle class families of businessmen and upper management. In contrast, the nearby areas of Roanoke Park and Georgetown displayed mixed income occupancy. In the Roanoke Park Historic District, the earliest, largest and most ornate houses are found near the major arteries of Glenwood, Whitaker Mill and Fairview roads. This location afforded access to the streetcar line for government workers and businessmen. The Vanguard Park neighborhood, today part of the Vanguard Park Historic District, was surveyed and platted in 1917 by C. L. Mann, a local land surveyor who also platted the Bloomsbury and Hayes Barton neighborhoods. Approximately 40 Craftsmen style homes, in both bungalow and front-gable forms, were built in the Vanguard Park Historic District between 1920 and 1929. Surviving houses dating from this first wave of construction are concentrated in the southern and western region of the district on Whitaker Mill Road, the 100 and 200 blocks of Hudson Street, Carroll Drive and McCarthy Street.

The Roanoke Park Historic District Photo by Elizabeth Alley, courtesy of Raleigh Historic Development Commission

These new locations were designed to capitalize on their proximity to the well-to-do neighborhood of Hayes Barton, found in the Hayes Barton Historic District, which was designed by preeminent New South landscape architect Earle Sumner Draper. Draper was one of the first to plan suburban developments as concise design units, and also pioneered golf fairway designs with integrated housing for both upper and moderate income levels, planned some of the earliest and largest greenbelt buffers (open park spaces surrounding planned suburban developments), and was an innovator in mill village design. Furthermore, Draper’s idea of the garden as an outdoor living room came in a 1927 article, 25 years before the prominent Modernist designer Garret Eckbo and other West Coast landscape architects began using the term during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. The Hayes Barton design includes roads fitted to the contours of the land, creating opportunities for small park areas, often in the street medians. The other neighborhoods of Five Points, although not designed by Draper, also take their design clues from his work. Architecturally, styles as varied as Tudor, Spanish Colonial, Craftsmen Bungalow, Period (English) Cottage, French Eclectic/Norman Revival, American Foursquare, American Colonial, Modernist, Minimal Tradition and Ranch are found in the Five Points Neighborhoods, designed by such local architects (especially in the Hayes Barton Historic District) as Thomas W. Cooper, William H. Dietrick, Charles Atwood, Arthur C. Nash and James A. Salter. The use of stone, which came primarily from a local granite quarry, is a hallmark of the Five Points Neighborhoods. Overall, Raleigh’s Five Points Neighborhoods exemplify the variety of architectural styles that were popular nationally between 1915 and 1950. Four of the five neighborhoods have been nominated thus far to the National Register of Historic Places as componets of the Five Points Neighborhoods, Raleigh, North Carolina Multiple Property Submission (MPS).