GOVERNOR APARTMENTS

Governor Apartments, February 1966
(Courtesy Durham County Library / North Carolina Collection)

The Governor Apartments, with buildings named after four NC governors (The Vance, The Glenn, The Aycock, and The Bickett) a brick, colonial revival style apartment block built in the late 1920s. This stylistic choice seems to have been common among contemporaneous apartment buildings, and it was certainly the dominant architectural theme of the nearby 1920s phase of construction of now-East Campus of Duke.


Governor Apts. from Dacian, 08.01.10


Governor Apts. from Gregson, 08.01.10

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36.007954,-78.90799

EVANS HOUSE - 1021 DACIAN

Still frame from HLW film of Durham, showing the Evans house soon after construction, ~1940

The Evans house was built in 1937 by Eli Evans and his wife Sara; Evans had come to Chapel Hill to attend UNC from Fayetteville, and Sara had come to Durham with her parents, the Nachamsons, who started United Dollar Stores on West Main Street. Eli and Sara were married in 1928 and took over the United Dollar Stores - which would become Evans' United Department Store - in 1929.

I'm unsure where they lived prior to commissioning this house, but they hired Durham architects Atwood and Weeks to design the house in a very-unique-for-Durham International Style in 1938. Per the Historic Inventory, "the builder of the house tested the design by constructing clay models to be sure that the curved wall of glass brick would be structurally sound."

The house was built as a duplex, and the Evans rented out the second floor apartment. They lived in the house until 1950, when they moved to another modernist house at 1401 Forestview in Forest Hills. Evans would serve Durham as its mayor from 1951-1963.

The house later became a sorority house, per the historic inventory, with the large basement "used as a game room." It was subsequently further divided into apartments. In 1994, the then-owners received a Pyne award from Preservation Durham for restoration of the house.


Evans House, 03.13.10

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36.007406,-78.910087

GEORGE WATTS ELEMENTARY

Watts Elementary at or near completion, 1918

George Watts Elementary is the oldest school building in Durham still serving in its original capacity. (The oldest extant school building is the former YE Smith school on South Driver St.)

Watts Elementary was built in 1918 according to the design of architect C. Miller Euler. Originally symmetrical, with a combination of Deco and neoclassical elements, the school was placed at the northeastern edge of rapidly developing Trinity Park.


Circa 1920 bird's eye view of Trinity College and Trinity Park, with the Watts School visible at the edge of the housing development.

Below, H. Lee Waters film footage of Watts Elementary in the late 1930s. By this point, the right entry to the school had been widened/modified.




Watts School, 1950s.

Additions have been made to the west of the original school building; the school remains a vibrant part of the neighborhood, and, as one would expect, appears to have a great deal of parental (and alumni) involvement. I'm always thrilled to see neighborhood schools thriving (at least from an outsider's perspective.) The logic behind locating schools where kids can neither walk nor bike to them seems decidedly twisted to me.


Watts School, 10.03.09

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36.008199,-78.910762