Twelve years ago, Shirley Fulton was one of the first urban pioneers to buy a house in Wesley Heights, an inner-city neighborhood fighting back from blight and neglect.

Now the Mecklenburg Superior Court judge is launching yet another pioneering effort in the same neighborhood, slightly west of the Interstate 277 loop between West Morehead Street and Tuckaseegee Road.

Fulton is restoring the George Pierce Wadsworth House, one of the oldest and largest in Wesley Heights, as a conference center at 400 S. Summit Ave., about two blocks north of West Morehead and the Open Kitchen Restaurant.

The house's features are striking: an arched stained-glass window over the main staircase, a glassed-in summer porch downstairs, a sleeping porch upstairs, four fireplaces, a formal entrance hall, hardwood floors and original pedestal sinks in bathrooms.

Fulton, president of the Wesley Heights Neighborhood Association, estimates the renovation will total $300,000. Including the cost of the house and lot, she expects her investment in the project to reach about $550,000.

It's worth the price, she said, if meetings, conferences and special events at the center introduce more people to Wesley Heights and boost the historic neighborhood's revitalization momentum.

The neighborhood organization helped speed up the process fouryears ago by buying houses from absentee landlords and selling them back to individuals.

Wesley Heights was conceived as a streetcar suburb and developed starting in 1910 for middle-class buyers by the E.C. Griffith Co., which also developed prestigious Eastover.

I remember taking "the Summit Avenue cut-through" between West Trade Street and West Morehead in 1960, when I was a sophomore at the old Harding High School, off West Trade where Irwin Avenue Open School sits today.

My schoolmates and I would blow our city bus fare buying drinks for the girls at Condor's Soda Shop on West Trade after school and have to make the big hike home to Wilmore.

The tree-canopied streets of Wesley Heights were a respite from the scorching sun.

I remember the bungalows along Summit were well maintained and the yards neat.

Many of my classmates lived in Wesley Heights, which was viewed at the time as one of the nicer west-side neighborhoods.

Today, it might be even more attractive than it was then.

Carl Leonard, a real estate agent with Allen Tate Co., said he has a list of seven buyers looking for a home in Wesley Heights.

"It's hot," he said. "It has all the same things that made Elizabeth, Dilworth and Plaza-Midwood hot neighborhoods a few years ago - strongly built bungalows that have been fairly well maintained through the years, trees and sidewalks, all within view of uptown."

Prices also are appreciating rapidly in Wesley Heights.

"The last property I sold there was a duplex that went for $77,000," he said. "Twenty-four months later, it sold for $140,000."

Buyers scour the neighborhood for bargains in sort of an "underground" market, Fulton said. Many houses change hands before a for-sale sign goes up.

The 12-room, 4,500-square- foot Wadsworth House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, was designed by noted Charlotte architect Louis Asbury in 1910 and completed in 1911.

The Wadsworths, a prominent Charlotte family involved in livestock, land investment, banking and other enterprises, occupied the house until 1930. It had three other owners, including Worthy Hairston's funeral home, before Fulton bought it last June.

Fulton designed the restoration so both the upstairs and downstairs each have two self-contained meeting areas. The house can accommodate up to 300 people for an event.

Fulton had to enlarge bathrooms slightly to comply with American Disabilities Act requirements and install water fountains in a hallway. She's converting the former laundry room to a bar and applying for an ABC permit to serve alcohol.

Fulton has scheduled several open-house events over the next few days to introduce the new facility and demonstrate its potential for corporate and nonprofit group meetings and retreats.

She also expects it to be popular for weddings and receptions - imagine that album photo of a bride walking down the big staircase with the stained-glass window in the background.

Landscaping and a brick wall around a portion of the yard are yet to be completed. Still coming also: phase two, restoration of a 1,400-square-foot carriage house/servants' quarters behind the main house.

"I'm feeling good about it," Fulton said. "We've gotten several bookings already."