Somerset Villa | |
---|---|
Alternative names | Julian S. Carr House Waverly Honor |
General information | |
Status | Demolished |
Type | Villa, Private residence |
Architectural style | New World Queen Anne Revival |
Location | 111 South Dillard Street Durham, North Carolina, U.S. |
Completed | 1888 |
Demolished | 1924 |
Owner | Julian S. Carr |
Design and construction | |
Architect(s) | John B. Halcott |
Somerset Villa, also known as the Julian S. Carr House, was a Queen Anne Revival mansion in the Downtown East Neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina. The villa was built in 1888 by the architect John B. Halcott for the North Carolinian industrialist Julian S. Carr. The house, considered one of the grandest Gilded Age mansions in Durham, was demolished following Carr's death.
In 1870, the wealthy industrialist Julian S. Carr built an estate on the southeast corner of East Main Street and South Dillard Street in the Downtown East Neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina. [1] The large Italianate house was named Waverly Honor, [2] and was later dismantled and moved to the south side of Peabody Street (now Ramseur Street). [1] [3] In 1888, Carr hired the architect John B. Halcott and the contractor William Carter Bain to construct an ornate villa on the grounds where Waverly Honor stood. [2] [4] [5] It cost $100,000 to build. [1] He named the villa Somerset after his ancestor, Robert Carr, 1st Earl of Somerset. [6]
Somerset Villa was one of the grandest Gilded Age mansions built in Durham. [1] [7] A Richmond newspaper reported that the home was "the conspicuous landmark [of Durham] upon which the eye first falls and upon which it loves to linger." [4] It included a large turret on the northeast side of the house that was capped by an ornate copper weathervane and a two hundred and twenty-foot veranda. [1] The interior of the home featured stained glass windows, painted ceilings, carved mantels, a stairway platform inlaid with medallions of white holly, mahogany rosewood, and ebony, and floors made with French mosaic tile. [1] [2] The estate, which included elaborate gardens, service buildings, and greenhouses, took up an entire city block. [2]
Somerset Villa was Carr's city dwelling, as he also owned a country estate in Hillsborough known as Poplar Hill. [8]
In 1915, Carr's wife, Nannie Graham Parrish Carr, died. Carr remained in the house until his death in 1924. The home was demolished between 1924 and 1926. [1] [9] Peabody Street was extended through the middle of the former lot. [1] The homes located at 1008 Green Street, 1010 Green Street, and 1012 Green Street were all constructed using salvage from Somerset Villa. [1] The gates of Somerset Villa were moved to 147 Pinecrest Road in Duke Forest. [10]
Carrboro is a town in Orange County in the U.S. state of North Carolina. The population was 21,295 at the 2020 census. The town, which is part of the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill combined statistical area, was named after North Carolina industrialist Julian S. Carr.
Durham is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina and the county seat of Durham County. Small portions of the city limits extend into Orange County and Wake County. With a population of 283,506 in the 2020 census, Durham is the fourth-most populous city in North Carolina and the 70th-most populous city in the United States. The city is located in the east-central part of the Piedmont region along the Eno River. Durham is the core of the four-county Durham–Chapel Hill metropolitan area, which had an estimated population of 608,879 in 2023. The Office of Management and Budget also includes Durham as a part of the Raleigh–Durham–Cary, NC Combined Statistical Area, commonly known as the Research Triangle, which had an estimated population of 2,368,947 in 2023.
A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word mansio "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb manere "to dwell". The English word manse originally defined a property large enough for the parish priest to maintain himself, but a mansion is no longer self-sustaining in this way. Manor comes from the same root—territorial holdings granted to a lord who would "remain" there. Following the fall of Rome, the practice of building unfortified villas ceased. Today, the oldest inhabited mansions around the world usually began their existence as fortified houses in the Middle Ages. As social conditions slowly changed and stabilised fortifications were able to be reduced, and over the centuries gave way to comfort. It became fashionable and possible for homes to be beautiful rather than grim and forbidding allowing for the development of the modern mansion.
The Breakers was a Queen Anne style cottage designed by Peabody and Stearns for Pierre Lorillard IV and located along the Cliff Walk on Ochre Point Avenue, Newport, Rhode Island. In 1883, it was referred to as "unquestionably the most magnificent estate in Newport."
Châteauesque is a revivalist architectural style based on the French Renaissance architecture of the monumental châteaux of the Loire Valley from the late fifteenth century to the early seventeenth century.
Julian Shakespeare Carr was an American industrialist, philanthropist, and white supremacist. He is the namesake of the town of Carrboro, North Carolina.
Thomas Franklin Lloyd is one of the founders of Carrboro, North Carolina. He was a prominent North Carolina industrialist who built the Alberta Cotton Mill in 1898 in Carrboro; the former factory building is now home to the Carr Mill Mall.
The architecture of metropolitan Detroit continues to attract the attention of architects and preservationists alike. With one of the world's recognizable skylines, Detroit's waterfront panorama shows a variety of architectural styles. The post-modern neogothic spires of One Detroit Center refer to designs of the city's historic Art Deco skyscrapers. Together with the Renaissance Center, they form the city's distinctive skyline.
The Elkins Estate is an American 42-acre (170,000 m2) estate located in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania. The estate contains seven buildings, the most notable being Elstowe Manor and Chelten House, mansions designed by Horace Trumbauer.
Charles Pierrepont Henry Gilbert was an American architect of the late-19th and early-20th centuries best known for designing townhouses and mansions.
Fairholme is a Tudor Revival historic mansion in Newport, Rhode Island designed by Frank Furness and built by Furness & Hewitt in 1874–1875 for Fairman Rogers.
John B. Halcott (1846–1895) was an American architect who worked in New York State and in North Carolina. In North Carolina, he was credited with architectural design of the New York State Capitol, which everywhere else is credited to others.
Mary Duke Biddle Estate, also known as the James O. Cobb House, is a historic home and estate located at Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. The main house "Pinecrest" is a Tudor Revival style dwelling built in 1927, with additions and interior renovations made between 1935 and 1958. These additions and renovations included Colonial Revival, French Eclectic, Oriental, Art Moderne, and Art Deco elements. The estate property includes an additional three contributing outbuildings and nine contributing structures. They are The Cottage, a gasoline pump, iron picket fence with two ornamental gates, two large brick arches, stone-lined grottoes, bathhouse, tennis court, a swimming pool, a stone fireplace, pergola, a gardener's cottage with an attached greenhouse, and a storage garage. The estate was the home of philanthropist Mary Duke Biddle from 1935 until her death in 1960.
Eegonos, known more recently as East of Eden, is a historic summer estate house at 145 Eden Street in Bar Harbor, Maine. Built in 1910 to a design by Boston architect Guy Lowell, it is one of a small number of summer houses to escape Bar Harbor's devastating 1947 fire, which resulted in the destruction of many such buildings. It is an architecturally sophisticated expression of Beaux Arts and Mediterranean Revival styles, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
Julian Livingston Peabody was a well-known American architect and soldier who drowned on board the SS Mohawk during a collision with a cargo ship.
Poplar Hill is a historic plantation house in Hillsborough, North Carolina. The home was the center of a large plantation, formerly called Occoneechee Farm and Banks of the Eno. Established on farming and hunting grounds for the Occaneechi and Saponi peoples, the land was granted to colonist Francis Corbin by the English and made into a working plantation. Ownership later passed to the Hogg family before the farm was purchased in 1891 by tobacco industrialist and white supremacist Julian Carr. Carr and his wife had the original 1794 plain farmhouse redone in the Greek Revival style. After Carr's death, the house was moved from its original location to a new lot in the Hillsborough Historic District. Poplar Hill later became a rental property and, in the twenty-first century, many tenants, including the singer Tom Maxwell, have broken their leases due to reported hauntings on the property.
Mary Hilliard Hinton was an American painter, historian, clubwoman, and political activist. She was a leader in North Carolina's anti-suffragist movement and an outspoken white supremacist, co-founding and running North Carolina's branches of the States Rights Defense League and the Southern Rejection League. A prominent clubwoman, Hinton was active in the Daughters of the American Revolution, the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the Colonial Dames of America, and the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America; serving as a booklet editor, artist, registrar, and state regent for the North Carolina Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
Wilhelmena Katherine Fuller "Mena" Webb was an American writer and editor. She taught writing classes at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Evening College, was a columnist and society editor at The Herald-Sun, a novelist, and the author of a biography on the industrialist Julian Carr.
Immaculate Conception Catholic Church & Immaculata Catholic School are a Catholic parish church and parochial school run by the Order of Friars Minor in downtown Durham, North Carolina. The church and school are located in the Burch Avenue Historic District. Immaculate Conception is the oldest Catholic congregation in Durham, and the affiliated school was the city's first Catholic school.
Harwood Hall, also known as the George Watts House, was a mansion in the Morehead Hill Neighborhood of Durham, North Carolina. It was built for American manufacturer and philanthropist George Washington Watts in 1897. Following his death, Watts' second wife and widow, Sara Virginia Ecker Watts, stayed in the house until her remarriage to North Carolina Governor Cameron A. Morrison. The wedding ceremont of Sara Watts and Governor Morrison took place at Harwood Hall. After his widow's remarriage, the house passed down to Watts' daughter, Annie Louise Watts, and her husband, John Sprunt Hill. The house was later inherited by their son, the banker and philanthropist George Watts Hill. The mansion was demolished in 1961 to make way for what would become Duke University School of Medicine's Physician Assistant Program building.