Pilot Life Insurance Company Home Office | |
   | |
| Location | 5300 High Point Road, Greensboro, North Carolina |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 36°01′20″N 79°53′30″W / 36.0222°N 79.8917°W |
| Built | 1927 |
| Architect | Hartmann, Charles C. |
| Architectural style | Georgian Revival |
| NRHP reference No. | 100007970 |
| Added to NRHP | July 2022 |
Pilot Life Insurance Company Home Office in Sedgefield, North Carolina outside Greensboro is a historic campus which once served as the headquarters of Pilot Life Insurance Company, founded in 1903 and merged with Jefferson Standard Insurance in 1967 to form Jefferson Pilot Corporation. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in July 2022.
The first of the buildings began construction in 1927, and the last contributing building was built in 1965. A history of Jefferson-Pilot written in 2003 stated that the headquarters was "a careful replication of the governor's mansion built in 1767 in New Bern."[1]
In 1930, Jefferson Standard Insurance Company gained a controlling interest in Pilot Life Insurance Co. In 1967, Pilot Life Insurance Co. and Jefferson Standard became Jefferson-Pilot Corporation. 800 Pilot Life employees moved into the Jefferson Standard Building and its 20-story addition in 1990.[2][3] In 2008, Kisco Senior Living bought the Pilot Life buildings for $9.9 million. In January 2015, Kisco announced Pilot at Sedgefield, an updated version of a retirement community delayed by the economic crisis.[4] As of 2022, Clachan Properties of Richmond, Virginia was buying the property to develop apartments.[5]
The National Register of Historic Places listing states that the Pilot Life campus is "the earliest-known, pioneering example of a modern suburban corporate headquarters campus in North Carolina" and "[w]ith its handsome Georgian Revival-style buildings replete with allegorical stone images lauding hard work, its layout designed for efficiency, its landscaped grounds, its fountain and lake, and its facilities for employee comfort and entertainment, the complex exemplified an early modern suburban 'corporate campus'".[1]
References
- 1 2 Fernandez, Jennifer (October 8, 2022). "'Iconic property': Former Pilot Life building on National Register of Historic Places". News & Record.
- ↑ "History of Jefferson-Pilot Corporation – FundingUniverse". www.fundinguniverse.com.
- ↑ "Developer buys Pilot Life site for retirement center," News and Record, August 14, 2008.
- ↑ Taft Wireback, "Big project planned for Pilot life campus," News and Record, January 16, 2015.
- ↑ Caranna, Kenwyn (April 14, 2022). "Historic designation sought for landmark". News and Record.
