1981 (Old North Durham Architecture Slides, Durham County Library)
Tobacco warehouseman Maynard Mangum had this imposing two story clapboarded house constructed in 1914 by local contractor Lonnie Glosson. A similarity in the overall form, proportions and low hipped roof with deep bracketed eaves between this house and the Umstead-Rollins House next door may be due to the fact that both houses were designed by Rose and Rose, Architects. The Mangum House, however, is more overtly neoclassical on both the exterior and the interior than the Umstead-Rollins House. Here, Tuscan columns alternate with weatherboarded piers to support the one story wraparound porch. The spacious interior is dominated by a broad central hallway containing the main staircase, the center- piece of the house. The graceful staircase, flanked by Ionic columns and pilasters at its base, rises to a landing with a Palladian window where it divides symmetrically into two smaller flights that continue to the second story. Of the several houses that he built in this neighborhood, this, the grandest of them all, was Mangum's own residence.
For many years, it served as the Kempner Rice Diet Clinic, which attracted hundreds of people from all over the country for decades.
Burl Ives across W. Lynch St., in front of 1201 N. Mangum. (Courtesy Eleanor Elliott)
(The information below in italics is from the Historic Preservation Society of Durham Plaque Application for the Maynard Mangum House)
The house at 1111 N. Mangum was built between 1912 and 1913 by W. Maynard Mangum. Mangum, who was listed as living at 1107 Mangum, purchased the lot in 1911 from W. L. Umstead who had acquired it from W. W. Mason earlier that year. Mangum was prominent in the tobacco industry (city directories lists him alternately as a farmer and tobaccoist) working with Umstead, Mangum, & Co. and Star Warehouse in the nineteen-teens and -twenties. He was also a real estate investor and builder constructing a number of houses in the area, including 1107 N. Mangum and 1114 W. Lynch.
Maynard Mangum chose the north Durham neighborhood for its proximity to the tobacco warehouses downtown, its location on the trolley line (Durham's public transit system), and its accessibility to outlying areas north and east of Durham where Mangum presumably owned farmland. Of the houses credited to Mangum, the house at 1111 Mangum was by far the most elaborate. It was designed by Durham-based Rose & Rose Architects and was constructed by local builder, Lonnie Glossen. It was an overt expression of his wealth and status.
In 1913, Maynard Mangum transferred title of the property to his wife, Julia A. Mangum, just before moving into the house. According to history compiled by Elizabeth Benton (a former resident) Maynard and Julia had seven children by 1910, two boys and five girls. The large family moved into the home in 1913 with Old Ms. Durham, Julia's aging mother, joining the family. City directories indicate that a Miss Lyda B. Mangum and Samuel J. Mangum (presumably Maynard's children) moved with Maynard to the house in 1913 and were listed with him through 1917. Additionally, in 1926, a Miss Maynard Mangum and a Miss Norma Mangum were listed in the house with Maynard.
Exactly how the Mangum family lost control of the house is not clear. According to Benton, after Julia's death Maynard, "assigned the property to the NC Cooperative in the hopes of expanding his wealth. However, within a year he became enraged at what he believed to be the Cooperative's total control and broke the contract which he had entered into." He tried to take back control of his property, but was sued by the Cooperative, resulting in financial ruin for Mangum and the loss of his primary residence. This chain of events is neither confirmed nor denied by the deeds and city directories but may explain why, after Julia's death, her estate, including 1111 Mangum, was assigned to John C. Hutchins, who does not appear to have a family connection to the Mangums.
John C. Hutchins, Ella I. Hutchins (his mother), and Blanche Hutchins (his sister) shared ownership of the house until 1946, passing interests between each other. None of them appear to have ever lived in the house; rather it was operated as a rental with several different tenants and some vacancy over the years.
The house at 1111 Mangum was associated with the Rice Diet for nearly fifty years. From approximately 1951 to 1990, the house was listed in city directories as either a special diet home or The Rice House. The Rice Diet was developed by Dr. Walter Kempner was first administered to patients at Duke University in 1939. Patients were initially hospitalized during their visits to Durham, but the program had grown so quickly through the 1940s that the hospitals could not accommodate all of the patients. According to, The Rice Diet Report, Dr. Kempner sought to create an alternate facility and the wife of one of his patients offered to open her home to additional patients since, "she had to cook Rice Diet meals for her husband anyway." The book does not name the couple that opened The Rice House, but city directories list the residence at 1111 Mangum as a special diet home as early as 1951, indicating that it was W. C. Newton and his wife, Margaret R. Robinson Newton who began the facility.
Research compiled by Benton indicates that the facility was instead started by Hazel Vickers, a widow who had served as an army nurse, and Alline Hogan. During the period from 1956 to 1973, Ophilia B. Bailey and her husband Edmund D. Woody, owned and lived in the house, serving as its caretakers. However, Mr. Woody was forced into retirement in the early 1970s because of injuries sustained while working for the railroad. The couple could no longer afford to retain the house and in 1973 sold the property to Vickers who continued to operate the diet center until 1993 when a new facility opened on the west side of Durham.
The house was purchased by Marilyn L. Robinson and Elizabeth D. Benton in 1994 after it had sat vacant for two years. The two began work to restore the home, which had been institutionalized after serving patients for some forty years. After three years they re- opened the house as "The Mangum Manor." Additional work was completed by Farad and Robin Ali who purchased the house in 2005. The grand Maynard Mangum House has been returned to a single-family home again.
The house was completely renovated in 2009-2010.
1111 North Mangum Street, 02.12.11
Comments
Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sun, 4/3/2011 - 9:34pm
This is the house my grandmother was born in and lived in as a child. It was built by Wm. Maynard Mangum, a member of the first Durham Co. Commissioners and the Tobacco Trade Commission, and Julia Durham (a distant cousin of Bartlett). When my grandmother died, she left me a page from an unidentified "ghost stories of the south" book that featured an article about this house and claimed that my great-great grandmother Julia died in the back bedroom and continues to haunt the house. Farad Ali, our current city councilman, did an amazing job restoring the house when he purchased it and getting it on the historic register. The house is also notable because it was purchased by Walter Kempner and became the Rice Diet House, where numerous celebrities from Buddy Hackett to Elvis Presley stayed at times. Maynard also built the house next door to it on Lynch St., which is still standing.
The two-story home of Maynard's grandfather, Jesse Mangum, is also still standing -- albeit in very poor shape -- in northern Durham County. The Durham planning commission, which helped me locate it, once told me that it is one of the oldest standing residential structures remaining in the whole county. It is long abandoned but the surrounding area remains nearly completely undeveloped, looking just as it did when it was built back before the Civil War.
-Ian
Submitted by Nancy (not verified) on Sat, 11/26/2011 - 10:08am
I used to frequent this house in the 50's and 60's when my grandmother, Ophelia Bennett Bailey, operated The Rice House and may have owned it. Amazing memories of this beautiful home. Many celebrities came here as "patients" including Buddy Hackett, Beatrice Taylor (Aunt Bee on Andy Griffith Show), Burl Ives--just a few I remember my grandmother telling me about. I imagine the house was usually filled to capacity with "patients" as on each of my many visits it was a very busy and popular place.
My grandparents lived in a suite on the back corner of the home opposite the kitchen. Between the kitchen and the suite was a sitting room with jalousy windows. The grand hall and dining room were massive. I remember a bathroom off a suite to the right of the grand hall (foyer) that had tiny black and white octagonal tiles. My grandmother had what looked like the current coconut hanging baskets from the porch filled with ferns or flowers. There were a couple of "examining rooms" off the grand hall. Such a beautiful house in its day--I hope it has been renovated to it's original grandeuer.
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