In the final stretch of finish

The owners of the Purple Castle (1106 Alabama Ave.) are kindly offering their house up for a tour on this coming Thursday evening, Dec. 1, 5-7pm.  I’ll be on hand to answer questions about tax credits, and there’s a suggested $5 entry fee – a donation to Preservation Durham.  Come and visit!

Enough people have asked for an update on the purple castle that I took a detour on my morning walk this morning and snapped a few pictures of the progress. The plans received approval from the Historic Preservation Commission in December and from SHPO in January, with only minor changes necessary. Since then, the homeowner (who is also a contractor) has been doing demolition and clean-up on the site while he gets other paying projects off the ground. He told me that he is also preparing for the exterior work, ripping down a load of cedar siding into shakes for spot repairs.

As I walked around the property, now without all those crazy vines, I was struck by what was visible now, and the evidence of the past owners who had loved the house once. It is so easy to forget that a house as old as this one has gone through all sorts of evolutions – instead, we see the past 15 years of deferred maintenance and forget that it was once a loved home. The house only shows the recent history, but hidden back in the landscaping, there’s all sorts of interesting things peeking up into the spring.

The back yard, which extends well into the block, has lots of daffodil bulbs now coming up for air, crocuses that are probably so sun-starved they didn’t put up flowers this year, and what looked like a bank of hyacinths. The far back has a stand of pines that clearly once were a cool, shady spot, hidden from the road and even the house. And the profile of the house from a distance made me think of what it must have looked like from Club Boulevard after it was built – definitely a striking sight!

Also, I had noticed on my first visit to the house a disk set into the front terrace, at the north-west corner. Unfortunately it isn’t dated, but it appears to be a latitude/longitude marker made of concrete, with the cardinal directions called out. I have no idea which of the past residents might have installed it, but someone who was clearly passionate about this specific place.

As work progresses, I have permission from the owner to swing by periodically and check up on things, so will be updating as I can. I am assuming that once they commence things will move pretty quickly, but who knows how long it will be before they really get started. I am really looking forward to seeing how the facade shapes up once the second floor gets a balcony door again – so exciting!

For the purple castle project, I have been trying to establish who first lived in the house.  The slightly loony man who brokered the sale of the house (let’s call him Mr. Gravy) swore that the house had originally belonged to an architect and his wife.  Mr. Gravy said they owned the entire corner and the house faced the main street, with a wide, circular drive.  After a few years ‘out in the country,’  the missus insisted that they move back into town, and the property was sold.  The new owners wanted to know the truth, so off I go to write a proper house history.

The stair hall of the purple castle

Some grain of truth seemed plausible from all this: the house appeared to be earlier than many in the neighborhood (now Watts-Hillandale, then Club Estates and Hester Heights), which was platted around 1910 but did not get a streetcar nor dense settlement until a decade or so later.  Tax records (always a dubious authority around here) have the house constructed in 1911 – definitely earlier than  everything else nearby.  And I give Mr. Gravy about as much credence as the tax records.  So what’s the real story?

The West End Land Company sold two lots to Hill C. and Josie S. Linthicum on August 14, 1915.  Hill C. Linthicum was a practicing architect for many years, who had settled in Durham by 1904.  The first lot (#75) was where the purple castle now sits, plus the 1950s ranch immediately to its north; the second (#77) was around the corner on Club Boulevard, with an adjoining back yard.  16 months later in December, 1916, they transfer the purple castle’s lot (now subdivided from the original wider parcel) to their son, Henry Colvin Linthicum, and his wife Catherine.

Henry (or Henri) C. Linthicum had moved to Durham about 1912 to work as a draftsman in his father’s firm.  The two of them were listed in a 1916 business directory as ‘specialists in modern schools,’ and he officially joined the firm in 1918.  Both the Linthicums and their wives are listed at 703 Jackson Street (a house lost to the Durham freeway) in the 1915 city directory, when the lots were purchased.

In the 1919 city directory, however, Hill is listed at Club Boulevard near 12th Street, and Henry is at “16th, corner D, Oakland Heights.”  What?  there is no such intersection… unless you extrapolate a little bit.  Before the area was incorporated, the streets in this area were lettered and numbered – a carry over from the mill area south and east of Club Boulevard.  9th and 15th are still around, but the rest were renamed eventually.  That said, this lovely map, off of Old West Durham’s fantastic website, shows the basic grid.

Old West Durham map, c.1920 – with thanks for the OWDNA website

Knowing that the streetcar line went up 7th (now Broad) to E (now Club), 16th and D puts the younger Linthicum at the corner of Alabama and Englewood – tada!

2023 West Club Boulevard

As for where Hill C. and his wife were living through his last days (he passed away in October of 1919), 12th looks to be about the location of Carolina Avenue today… in which case, I might propose this house, if the penchant for brackets and shakes ran in the family.

I’ve still got a few loose threads to tie up, including what popped up in Henry and Catherine’s daughter’s obituary.  It looks like Diana Skipworth Linthicum Coley, born in 1912, tells her stories of growing up in Raleigh – and the Linthicums weren’t there until after 1920 at least.  I wonder if the elder Linthicum’s passing in 1919 helped push the younger family out of town?  Regardless, Henry Linthicum sold the purple castle in 1921 to Ira J. and Lizzie Stoner, who owned the house for 22 years and gave it its name for the national register nomination.  Lizzie sold it to J.W. Wilkinson in 1944 – a name connected with the building trades in Durham.  I’d wager he’s the one who cut up the house and turned it to apartments, classy light pole support system and all.

So there’s definitely some truth to Mr. Gravy’s claims about the history of the purple castle – long circular driveway notwithstanding – and I am looking forward to finding out the last details and giving the new owners the full story.

Someone has requested more information on the purple castle, and I am happy to oblige as I just got some addition photographs of the lovely wreck.  From some early research, it looks like it may well have been built by the architects Linthicum and Linthicum in about 1915 – the property passed between the father and the son around then, and was sold soon thereafter to Dr. Ira Stoner in 1921.  I’ve got more digging to do to find out if either of the Linthicums ever lived in the house, but it gives some justification for the house being so unusual.

The architects’ involvement doesn’t begin to explain some of the more quirky bits of the house – I think we can blame the later owners for that.  More on them soon!

There are a few things I didn’t document, because it was too dark or too nasty – I’ll spare you the kitchen sink, for example, and the bees’ nest in the back wall of the house doesn’t photograph well.  Overall, it’s amazingly intact and architecturally interesting; I’ve never been in a Durham house quite like it before.  More as I dig into a little more of the history.