Hotel

Looking southeast at the Regal Theater and the Biltmore, 1946 (Courtesy The Herald-Sun Newspaper) Although Dorothy Phelps' book opines the the Biltmore Hotel was built in 1923 by Dr. Clyde Donnell, it seems likely, based on the city directories, that the hotel was built in ~1929. Dr. Donnell's 1951 biography makes copious mention of his various...

Second King's Daughters Home, soon after construction (mid-1920s) --- "Old Ladies' Home", ~1910, looking northeast from Gloria Ave. (From "Images of America: Durham" by Stephen Massengill The International Order of the King's Daughters and Sons, per the organization's website, was founded January 13, 1886, as "an organization of Christian men and...

The hotel/motelly goodness that inhabits the 3.71 acres of prime real estate at South Duke Street and the Freeway was likely built in the early 1970s, on land that had been cleared by urban renewal.

(Duke RBMC) Greystone was built in 1911 for James Stagg. Norman Underwood was the contractor and CC Hook the architect; it's no surprise that this house strongly resembled B.N. Duke's Four Acres, built 5 blocks away by the same team during the same year, although it was smaller of the two. I was writing figuratively when I wrote earlier in the week...

The preeminent hotel in Durham when built in 1912, the Malbourne suffered after construciton of the Washington Duke Hotel in 1925. By the 1950s-1960s, it was seen as a 'seedy' hotel of faded baroque glory. It was unfortunately demolished in 1966.

Looking north-northeast, 1905. (Courtesy Durham County Library) The building on the northeast corner of East Main St. and Church St. was built between 1898 and 1905. While it isn't clear if the building was built to house the local telephone exchange, by 1905, it contained the Herndon drugstore on the ground floor and the telephone exchange on the...