D.T. Sasser House

08.28.11

D. T. Sasser House.

Large ornate Foursquare with hip roof, interior chimneys, deep eaves with curvilinear brackets, and a hipped front dormer. The front cross- gable has a lunette. Other finish includes plain siding, replacement front door with original transom, 2-over-1 sash windows, and a 1-story wraparound porch with massive paneled posts, original railing, and a dentil cornice.

Daniel T. Sasser, with the Royall & Borden furniture co., had the house built. (1925 CD) A rear addition was added in the 1990s.

(The information below in italics is from the Preservation Durham Historic Plaque Application for the D. T. Sasser House)

The West End land Company subdivided the lots along West Club Boulevard from land that once belonged to the Hester family in 1913 and called the new subdivision "Club Acres." The development of the new Watts Hospital on Broad Street, the extension of the trolley line down Club Boulevard (then known as "E" Street), and the recent construction of the Durham Country Club's spacious new clubhouse were irresistible attractions to Durham's professional and business class citizens. In 1914, Sumter C. Brawley, attorney, state senator, and secretary of West End Land Company, acquired a row of lots on the north side of the street nearest the clubhouse for himself. He built his own house on the lot at 2422 West Club and in 1916, sold the lot next door, 2418 W. Club, to D. T. Sasser. As a condition of the sale, Sasser promised to erect no dwelling on the property that cost less than $2,500 - a significant sum at a time when the average annual salary was about $700 and a perfectly presentable middle class home could be erected for about $1,500. 

Daniel Thomas Sasser (1869-1935) and his wife, Junia Matthews Sasser (1871-1968), came to Durham from Goldsboro in 1896. Sasser was employed by the Royall and Borden Furniture Company and came to run the Durham branch of the firm. The company manufactured and sold home furnishings and bedding and had factories in Goldsboro and Durham and retail stores throughout eastern and central North Carolina.

 Eventually Sasser rose to become a principal in the firm as well as manager of its Durham operations. In an article marking his death in 1935, the Durham Morning Herald described Sasser as one of the city's leading businessmen and stated that he took an active interest in civic affairs. See DMH, January 5, 1935. 

The Sassers and the Brawleys were already friends when Sasser purchased the lot at 2418 W. Club Boulevard. The two families had been neighbors in north Durham before they moved to the new Club Acres subdivision. The Sassers must have built their home immediately following their purchase as they appear as residents at the new house in the 1916 edition of Hill's Durham Directory. The Sassers' two children lived with them for a time at the house before they married and moved away. The Royall and Borden Furniture Company went out of business in the Great Depression and D. T. Sasser, as he was always known, then engaged in business for himself until ill health forced him to retire. He died of heart failure at home at 2418 W. Club on January 4, 1935. He is buried in Maplewood Cemetery. 

Junia Sasser continued to live at the house until 1963. She died on January 7, 1968, at the age of 91 and is buried beside her husband at Maplewood. Her obituary states that she was active in the First Baptist Church where she taught Sunday school. DMH, January 8. 1968. D. T., was a member of Trinity Methodist Church. It is unknown how they managed their competing Sunday morning schedules. In official records, Mrs. Sasser's name is sometimes records as "Julia." This is an error. 

At the end December, 1963, Mrs. Sasser sold the house at 2418 W. Club Boulevard to George and Eunice Keeton. Only months earlier the Keetons had purchased the Brawley house next door from Mrs. Brawley. The Keetons were unable to make the payments on their mortgages for the two properties and lost them both in foreclosure the following year. The house at 2418 was purchased by Telephone Plowing, Inc., which, in 1966, sold the property to Clifton Talmadge Thomas and his wife, Billie Shelton Thomas. The Thomases converted the house into two dwelling units - occupying one of the units themselves and letting the other to Worth and Ruby Shelton. It seems likely that the Sheltons were Billie Thomas's parents, but this is unconfirmed. Clifton Thomas (1921-2012) was in the real estate business and had at one time been the manager of the Rocky Mount Leafs minor league baseball team. Later Thomas was security manager for the Veterans Administration hospital in Durham and owned a commercial parking lot downtown. See Howerton and Bryan Funeral Home Obituaries, Clifton Talmadge Thomas, Sr., January, 2012. The Thomases are buried at Maplewood Cemetery. 

Both the Thomas and Shelton families occupied the property from 1967 until 1979 when the Thomases sold the house to Sandra H. Southwick and her husband Everett Southwick. The Southwicks made the house their home together only briefly. In 1980, they divorced and Everett Southwick conveyed his interest in the property to Sandra. She resided in the house until she married William Graham some years later. Sandra and William Graham were school teachers. 

In 1988, the Grahams sold the house at 2418 W. Club Boulevard to Karen Stark and her husband, David Dreifus. They restored the house to a single family dwelling and lived there with their daughter, Sally. David Dreifus is an attorney specializing in commercial litigation. Karen Stark is a former high school English teacher, who also has been a community volunteer and activist since she moved to Durham in 1977. She currently writes novels, having recently published a fictional adaptation of her father's memoir. Dreifus and Stark divorced and in 2006, he conveyed his interest in the house to her. Karen Stark continues to make the house her home. 

The house is an early colonial revival style, two-story, frame house with a modified foursquare plan. The exterior front, east, and west sides of the house are original. The broad wraparound porch is supported across the front by four paneled box pillars. Of note is the denticulated cornice. The front door has a sidelight to the east. The stained glass panel was added by the Dreifus-Starks. The pediment in the multiple-hipped pyramidal roof is offset to the west and ornamented with a fan window. The pediment is supported beneath the deep roof overhang with decorative corbel braces arranged in pairs. There is an attic dormer with a hipped roof. The tall interior chimneys are corbelled at their tops. The two-over-one windows are original. 

Originally the house had a one story kitchen wing extending from the west rear. In later years one or two additions caused this extension to cover the entire rear of the house. In 1998, a second story addition was built above this extension. The addition was done to match the existing exterior details of the house. 
The front entry leads into the stair hall. The stair winds counterclockwise to a landing at the second story. There is no room above the stair hall, but there is a landing that wraps to the front of the house. The newel and balustrade are all original as is the woodwork throughout the house. To the left of the entry, through pocket doors, is the principal parlor. In this room and in the five other rooms served by fireplaces, the mantelpiece and tile surrounds are original. Most of the fireplaces have their original iron covers. Beyond the parlor on the west side of the house is the generous dining room with its high windows designed to accommodate a sideboard or buffet. The breakfast nook space remains, but its cabinetry has been removed and the space has been reworked more than once. The kitchen space is original, but the kitchen has been updated. 
On the east side of the house beyond the stair hall is a passage that originally lead to a porch at the rear of the house. The original exterior doorway, though now on the interior, is marked by its transom lights. To the left of the passage is the downstairs bedroom. In places throughout the house the plaster surfaces have been covered with sheetrock or plywood paneling. 

Upstairs there are three bedrooms one of which has been enlarged into a master suite. The original bathroom has been updated and other baths have added to the house. Throughout, except in the modern additions, the pine and oak floors are original. 

By degrees, the current owner has restored the house by removing inappropriate wall coverings and ceilings and by restoring the woodwork and other features of the house. 

Dreifus and Stark added the large shed and workshop at the rear of the property in 1994. The style of the building and the materials used are all appropriate to the house in scale and period. 

The house is a contributing structure in the Watts-Hillandale National Register and Durham local historic districts. It is called the D. T. Sasser House in the National Register nomination and simply the Sasser House in the Durham Architectural and Historic Inventory, Roberts, 1982. For plaque purposes, the house should be called the D. T. Sasser House.