Dr. Merle T. "Doc" Adkins House

08.28.11

Dr. Merle T. Adkins, associated with Watts Hospital, bought the lot at 2101 West Club in late 1915 and had the house constructed soon thereafter.

The house is a two-story, hipped-roof Colonial Revival Prairie style house with exposed rafter tails, front and side hip dormers, 12-over-1 sash windows, wood shake siding, and interior chimneys. The wraparound porch has a recessed balcony, battered posts and a plain railing. The front French door has a transom and sidelights. A side bay features a diamond pane window.

(The information below in italics is from the Historic Preservation Society of Durham Plaque Application for the Dr. Merle T. "Doc" Adkins House)

The house at 2101 West Club Boulevard was built in 1915 or 1916 for Dr. Merle Theron Adkins (August 5, 1872 - February 21, 1934) and his family. Adkins had recently moved to Durham from Baltimore in 1914 to establish his medical practice. Before moving to Durham, Adkins had been a professional baseball player. He began his career in 1902, pitching for the Boston Americans (later the Red Sox). In the 1903 season he played for the New York Highlanders (later the Yankees). In that year Adkins joined the roster of the Baltimore Orioles in the Eastern League where he remained for ten years. Adkins was a successful pitcher. With the Orioles his win-loss record was 165-111. His best season was 1908, winning 29 games and losing 12. 

While in Baltimore, Adkins enrolled in the medical school at Johns Hopkins University. He earned his medical degree there in 1907. From then on he was identified as "Doc Adkins" on baseball cards. At the time, there was no bubblegum and baseball cards were included in packages of cigarettes as novelties. In Baltimore, Adkins also met and married Florence Frances Trogler (January 12, 1883 - March 19, 1968). The first two of four of the Adkins' four sons, Merle Jr., and Fenton were born in Baltimore. 

Adkins' association with Durham apparently began in 1908 when he began to coach the baseball team of the newly relocated Trinity College. He coached at the school for seven seasons posting a 108-67-4 record. After the 1913 season in Baltimore, Adkins retired from professional baseball and moved to Durham. The family's first home was at 1107 North Mangum Street. Adkins' medical office was located in room 406 of the Loan and Trust building downtown. 

In late 1915, Adkins bought a lot at the corner of Club Boulevard and Carolina Avenue in the new Club Acres subdivision. Whether the house was built before or after his purchase is not clear from the available records, but according to city directories, the Adkins family was residing in the house in 1917. This would tend to indicate that they had moved to their new home late in the preceding year. 

This house and the Bitting house, its neighbor to the west, were among the first large, modern homes built for professionals along Club Boulevard. The relocation of Watts Hospital to Broad Street in 1909, the opening of Durham Country Club on Club Boulevard in 1912, and the extension of the trolley line down Club at the same time, made the area attractive to doctors, lawyers, and business executives. The Adkins house is a large, shingle clad, four-on-four plan with a pyramidal roof. The house exhibits a successful combination of elements of the prairie, craftsman and colonial revival styles which were all popular at the time. The first floor is wrapped on two sides with a deep trabeat porch supported by tapered box columns crowned with bed moldings. The porch roof overhang is decorated with deep modillions. On the front of the house, windows and doors are arranged in three bays. The windows are arranged symmetrically, but the front door with its wide side lights is offset to the west. The window sashes are organized in a nine-over-one pattern. On the west side of the house there is a polygonal bay serving the dining room. The foundation is dressed with rusticated, irregular granite. 

The roof overhangs the structure with a very deep, boxed, knife cornice. The roof line, like the porch and foundation ledger below it, is unbroken placing an emphasis on the horizontal so important to prairie style architecture. To the east, north, and south, there are large, centrally-placed attic dormers with hipped roofs. On the west side, the roof is pierced by a very tall, interior, corbelled chimney. There is a similarly tall chimney on the southeast corner of the building. 

To the rear, there is a shallow extension covered with a shed roof. This roof may have been hipped or flat originally. The extension houses a sleeping porch on the second story and may have covered a pantry, small porch, and cold kitchen below. It has now been enclosed with sliding glass doors. 

The front door opens directly into a large living room or parlor. The dining room is beyond. The stair hall is located in the center of the east side of the house. The kitchen, though updated, is still in its original location beyond the stairs. Upstairs, spacious bedrooms open to a hall at the top of the stairs. The painted case work in the house is generous and simple. The decorative fireplaces were designed to be fueled with coal. Their iron inserts are still in place. The fireplaces are surrounded with the original colored tile and the hearth for each is clad with matching tile. The mantels are simple and the woodwork closely mirrors the exterior structural elements of the house. One is supported by box columns and the other has panels decorated with a diamond pattern similar to the decorative window in the dining room bay. The stair newel is also a boxed column with a molded cap. The stair rail is held up by closely set square-cut palings. 

The house is still accompanied by one of its original outbuildings. Neighbors remember that these once included a barn and a garage. The Adkins' kept a cow on the property and Dr. Adkins installed a gas pump to make sure his automobile always had fuel to visit patients. The pump is still there. 

The house is very nearly in its original condition and has been beautifully cared for over time. This is a testament to the quality of its construction and the durability of its original design. The proportions of the house and the arrangement of its elements possess and informal elegance which has always attracted the admiration of neighbors and passers-by. It is an important artifact of American style and design in the early 20th century. 

Dr. Adkins was a very large man. His neighbors remember him as being immense. He died of a series of heart attacks in February, 1934. He was well loved in the Durham community. Florence Adkins continued to live in the house until her death in 1968. At times, her sons and their families occupied the house with her. Merle Adkins, Jr. became an engineer with the N.C. Highway Department. He and his wife, Louise Mason Adkins lived on Gloria Avenue in Trinity Park and later at 1505 Alabama Avenue in Watts-Hillandale. Trogler Adkins became a physician like his father. He lived on Dacian Avenue and later, with his wife, Delana G. Adkins, at 2108 Sprunt Avenue in Watts-Hillandale. Doc and Florence Adkins, Fenton and Evaleigh Adkins, and Merle Adkins, Jr., and Louise Mason Adkins are all buried in the Adkins family plot in section 2 of Maplewood Cemetery. 

The house is noted in the Durham Architectural and Historical Inventory on page 267. The entry is correct.