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Powers-Dodd House & Powers Store, circa 1893 & circa 1897 The Powers-Dodd House, built circa 1893, is a well-preserved Italianate-style house. The frame two-story house with a gable-and-wing form has two interior brick chimneys, and an original one-story rear ell. All exterior materials are either original or have been replaced in-kind. The front façade gable and the east side gable are decorated with alternating courses of rectangular and fish-scale shingles around a round louvered ventilator. A metal roof, patterned to resemble wood shingles and believed to be original, covers the main block and the rear ell. The Italianate massing of the house is enhanced by decorative features that include single-story bay windows with paneled aprons, front and side porches featuring turned posts with sawn work brackets, and a pair of four-panel doors with two-pane transom as the main entrance. Adjacent to the house is the brick Powers Store which was built circa 1897 and is one of Wake Forest’s most picturesque and well-known landmarks. The first story window openings have flat brick arches while upper openings have segmental arches. A tall, decorative brick parapet wall rises above the flat roof along the front, north, and south elevations. In the center façade the parapet wall rises higher, with two decorative cast-iron ventilators below the sawtooth cornice. The main façade contains two retail storefronts on the first floor. A cutaway corner entrance, sup- ported by three metal columns marks the main entrance. It shelters a double door with flanking chamfered posts facing the intersection. An additional single door opens near the north corner of the façade. Both entrances have two-pane transoms. Five large six-over-six sashes illuminate the first floor corner retail space. The windows have chamfered posts and paneled beadboard aprons. The north façade entrance has a single large six-over-six sash window with apron. The history of these two buildings is tied to the Powers family. Benjamin Powers met Hattie Brewer while he was a student at Wake Forest College in the 1870s. Hattie was a daughter of John Brewer and Ann Eliza Wait Brewer, and granddaughter of Samuel Wait, first president of Wake Forest College. Ben Powers received his B.A. in 1876 and his M.D. in 1878 and married Hattie in 1879. In 1880 Ben, age 25, Hattie, age 21, and their first child Fannie N., age eight months and lived with her parents on North Main Street in a three-generation household of thirteen people. In 1892, Robert H. Timberlake and his wife Mary sold the lot that now contains the house and
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