Incorporation & Formation

• Incorporated 13 May 1970 by Robert C. Rapp, Jr., Vice-President of Westminster Company, recorded on Page One of Book 3196 of the Mecklenburg Public Registry.
• The By-Laws were enacted 8 July 1970 and filed by E. Lynwood Mallard (a graduate of the Chapel Hill School of Law), then of Ruff Perry Bond Cobb & Wade, thus (possibly) creating the first North Carolina (non-profit) corporation of its kind.
• Sharon South Homes Association is a joint venture of Westminster Company of Raleigh, NC (a division of the Weyerhaeuser Company) and City Properties of Charlotte, NC.
• The architect was Thomas P. Heritage and Associates of Greensboro, NC.

Location & Ownership

• Originally an entity within both the North Carolina townships of Pineville (“Pineville Township”) and Sharon (“Sharon Township”)
• The plot of land was originally a farm owned by Sampson Wolfe (1799-1885) and his wife, Eliza Ann Rosser (1815-1895), consisting of 225 acres.
• The Wolfe Farm was purchased by an Eye, Ears, Nose and Throat specialist named Albert M. Whisnant in 1911 for $7,241.  It stretched from what is now the north end of Wolfe Ridge Road (at Park Road and Sharon Road), the length of Sharon Road West to South Boulevard, encompassing both sides of where Sharon Road West meets South Boulevard.

 

Dr. Whisnant died in 1963, and his wife, Hope Spencer Whisnant, died in 1965.
The Wolfe-Whisnant tract of land was eventually sold to various developers.
26 of the 225 acres became Sharon South.

Construction

• Began in 1970 at 8000 Regent Park Lane (the model home) and continued until 1973
• 203 homes in total were constructed; primarily 2 or 3-story units; 6 one-level, garden-style homes
• The clubhouse (constructed in 2 separate stages) is equipped with a kitchen, 2 meeting rooms, a swimming pool (with Olympic-grade diving board) and a Wading pool

The original plans were for a larger community, but those plans were later scrapped.

Early development history

The Westminster Company was pioneering a new concept of “planned unit developments” (PUDs) with common areas and homeowners associations. At that time one of the top real estate lawyers in Charlotte, Robert E. Perry, asked Lynwood Mallard, fresh out of law school, to assist with the legal work on the development of Sharon South.

Mallard recollects that there were no HOAs in North Carolina at the time, so documents were procured from a PUD in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC to assist in the creation of the Sharon South legal documents. Mallard recalls struggling with confronting a project that had no precedent.

Additionally, the then vice-president of the Westminster Company, Robert C. Rapp, Jr. (and an original signer on the Sharon South Declaration), recalls the Charlotte city manager at the time having no interest in a townhome community/association formation and in fact told him to ‘…build it elsewhere…’

Other unique facts

• Original homeowners recall seeing outhouses of the old Wolfe farm during the early years of construction in 1970
• Sharon Road West was two lanes
• South Mecklenburg High School had only been open for 11 years (Gleneagles Road was built to bus students to South Meck High)
• There was no Quail Corners shopping center
• The area housing Park Lane Apartments along Knights Bridge was originally a swampy area, due in part to large patches of bull tallow soil left over as a remnant of water/alluvial movement; an aquifer is reportedly located in the vicinity of the pool
• Sharon South II is a separate community built at a later date
• When the pavement in Lot One began to sink, the Association had the center of the lot unearthed where it was discovered that a small pond had existed during the farm years and construction workers had simply filled it in with construction debris.  In order to correct this, a fabric cover had to be applied, followed by firm soil and then new paving.  When Lot 14 was re-paved, the Bull Tallow was so pervasive that special soil from Virginia had to be trucked in and applied before re-paving could begin.
• Former Sharon South resident and retired teacher, Miss Anne Batten (deceased), taught future journalist and former Charlotte resident, Charles Kuralt, in Junior High School.  Batten recalls young Charles expressing an interest in journalism and asked her what classes he should take.  She told him to take as much History as he could!