Residence of Hon. R. Lee Wright
Description
The home of Honorable R. Lee Wright, located at 302 South Fulton Street, was built in 1912 by architect Louis Asbury. Asbury, an architect educated at Trinity College (Duke University) in Durham and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was head of an architectural firm in Charlotte. Between 1909 and 1937, his firm designed sixteen projects for Rowan County clients.
Robert Lee Wright was born in Wilkes County in 1867, the son of a mercantilist. He was a direct descendent of Sir John Wright of Essex, England, who was a member of the House of Lords in the English Parliament. After moving to Salisbury, he graduated from Church High School. He planned his studies around the prestigious Harvard Law School curriculum, and studied law in the office of James W. Rumple, later attending Johns Hopkins for special courses in law. At the young age of 21, he was admitted to the Rowan Bar Association. He was Rowan County’s representative in the General Assembly from 1901-1903 and in the State Senate from 1905-1907 and from 1919-1920. From 1924 to 1927,Wright served as North Carolina Supreme Court Justice. He married Sallie Bird Oakes and the couple raised her niece after her parents died. Wright was the author of a number of articles on law. An avid flower gardener, Wright was known to wear a flower in his lapel everyday and proudly showed off his garden to friends and neighbors. At the time of his death in 1955, he was the oldest member of the Rowan Bar Association. He was buried in the Chestnut Hill Cemetery.
The Albertype Co., Brooklyn, N.Y. Buerbaum’s Bookstore Salisbury, N.C. No series no.
Source:
Hood, Davyd Foard The Architecture of Rowan County North Carolina: A Catalogue and History of Surviving 18th, 19th, and 20th Structures Salisbury: Historic Salisbury Foundation, 2000
Sides, Susan Goodman Salisbury and Rowan County Charleston, SC: Arcadia, c1999
Louis H. Asbury
https://ncarchitects.lib.ncsu.edu/people/P000449
Salisbury Post Obituary appearing March 13, 1955