The Page-Walker Hotel, also known as the Page-Walker Arts & History Center, is a historic house museum and former hotel located in Cary, North Carolina. The founder of the town of Cary, Allison Francis Page, built the Second Empire style hotel about 1868, and J. R. Walker bought it later. Page's son Walter Hines Page (1855–1918) was an American journalist, publisher, and diplomat.[2]
History
From 1868 until 1916, passengers from the Southern and Seaboard Air Line railroads stayed at the Page-Walker Hotel. The building served as a boarding house and private residence from 1916 until 1980. After the business closed, the building sat vacant and deteriorated for five years until the Cary Town Council purchased the property. Volunteers restored the exterior of the hotel to its original design.[3]
Museum
The Arts & History Center also contains the Cary Heritage Museum, gallery exhibitions, educational rooms, an archive gallery, a smokehouse, and a garden.[4] The Page-Walker Hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 29, 1979.[1]
Events Today
The Page-Walker currently hosts a variety of events such as weddings. Annually, they host a "Paint the Page" art contest in which young artists from grades 8-12 are invited to draw an aspect of the building that inspires them most.
See also
- List of museums in North Carolina
- National Register of Historic Places listings in Wake County, North Carolina
References
- ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ Janet B. Silber (n.d.). "Page-Walker Hotel" (pdf). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-05-08. Retrieved 2015-05-01.
- ^ "Friends of the Page-Walker Hotel". Archived from the original on 2005-09-04. Retrieved 2008-03-12.
- ^ Page-Walker Arts & History Center Archived 2008-02-28 at the Wayback Machine
