George Thomas Morris and Snoopy

George Thomas Morris and Snoopy. . George Morris (1901-1986), from Sonoma, California, was a plasterer by trade. In 1929 he married his wife, Jessie Merle Arnold. After working in shipyards during world war two, he moved to North Carolina in 1945, settled in Raleigh, and started a plaster company in Durham with a friend. , After retiring, Morris turned his plaster skills into an art form, experimenting and mixing color with stucco. He always considered himself more of an artisan than an artist. Morris got the most enjoyment out of giving away his unique sculptures – which included mushrooms, vases, dogs, abstract forms, and even an igloo. His replica of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse can still be seen at the NC Fairgrounds. , The Morris family lived in a Lustron House, a post-world war two pre-fab all-metal house. Morris loved “new things,” and his house represented the can-do optimism of mid-century America. Tucked away on Buffaloe Road, the idyllic piece of land that they named Gotno Farm was filled with his whimsical sculptures. It was a place where family and neighbors loved to gather. In 2017, Preservation NC worked with the Raleigh Historic Development Commission to save the Lustron House from demolition by moving it to southeast Raleigh. , Snoopy – one of the few surviving sculptures – sat abandoned at Gotno Farm, so Preservation NC moved him to the site of its new headquarters on Oberlin Road. There he watched over the renovation of the Hall and Graves-Fields Houses in 2018-19. Snoopy, by then more than fifty years old, was modeled on a child's toy and was the largest of three versions created by Morris. The whereabouts of the others is unknown. , Snoopy is now the mascot for Preservation NC's work to protect historic properties. As our “preservation pup,” he represents the endangered of abandoned historic buildings that we rescue statewide. , Dedicated by George Thomas Arnold Morris, MD in memory of his parents George and Jessie Morris, with additional support from The Jandy Ammons Foundation.