Raleigh is one of America’s few cities originally planned as a state capital. It was established in 1792, when the North Carolina General Assembly purchased the land from Joel Lane and decided on the name to honor Sir Walter Raleigh who sponsored the voyage of discovery of the colony in 1587. The city has grown from 13,643 in 1900, to over 375,000 today. The original square mile of the city has now expanded to cover 140 square miles. Known as the “City of Oaks” for its natural setting, Raleigh is now amongst the 50th largest cities in the US. It is the dominant city in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, home to numerous educational institutions, high-tech firms and bio-medical research facilities. It is within two hours of the Atlantic coast and three hours of the scenic Blue Ridge mountains.

Cameron Park was established in 1910 from part of the Cameron plantation. It was a streetcar suburb located just one mile West of the Capitol building on a streetcar line serving the newly developing State College (founded 1889). It was shaped by ravines and streams and incorporated alleys as the means of serving the individual home lots. Its adjacency to the prestigious Hillsborough Street residences, the downtown, and the college drew an upwardly mobile group of residents who shaped the Raleigh community for many years. In 1929, the Wiley Grammar School and Needham Broughton High School were opened. They have been neighborhood anchors ever since. In 1949, the South’s first suburban shopping center opened in the adjacent Cameron Village. It still serves the daily needs of residents and is a draw for people from throughout the region seeking its unique restaurants and shops. By the 1960’s urban blight had begun to adversely affect the neighborhood, but its residents organized, created a neighborhood development organization and began to buy and rejuvenate declining homes, attracting new residents to the neighborhood. As a result, Cameron Park is today one of the region’s most desirable neighborhoods, retaining the charm and walkability of its earliest days.

Woodburn Cottage was built in 1920 as a bungalow in the Arts and Crafts style. Its shingle frame is designed to minimize its appearance of size, but accommodates 2450 square feet, including two en-suite bedrooms for guests. One of its earliest owners was the Upshaw family whose eldest son, Berrien K.”Red” Upshaw, married Margaret Mitchell in 1922. Neighbors report that the couple lived in the home for a period that year after their honeymoon at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville. They separated after a brief and torrid life together and divorced in 1924. Shortly thereafter she began her novel, “Gone With the Wind”, finished in 1929. Many speculate that young Upshaw was, in fact, the Rhett Butler to Margaret’s Scarlett. They died within months of one another, in 1949, she of a pedestrian/automobile accident in Atlanta, and he of mysterious circumstances in Galveston. He is buried in Raleigh’s Oakwood cemetery, she in Atlanta’s Oakland cemetery The house became a duplex during the WWII housing shortage, and was owned by Joseph K. and Daisy B. Waitt. She was a geneologist with the NC Dept. of Archives and History. Joseph lived there until his death in the late 1970’s. Following that, the house was reclaimed as a single family home. From the mid 1980’s until his death in 1999, the house was owned by Gilbert “Gib” Smith, a professor at NCSU who also taught Spanish on educational TV in Raleigh. It was purchased by the current owners in 2000, and in 2005, they opened the home to the public as a bed and breakfast, Woodburn Cottage.

George and Gretchen Chapman have lived in the neighborhood since 1986 and acquired Woodburn Cottage in 2000. George retired after 24 years as Raleigh’s Planning Director in 1995 and Gretchen, now retired, was a middle school French teacher since the mid 80’s. Both enjoy travel, food and people thus innkeeping has come as a natural for them. They are happy to share their home with guests from around the country and the world.