Swett-Woodhall House

4006 Dover Road, ca. 1928, 2008, Contributing Building

One-and-a-half-story side-gabled Tudor Revival with brick exterior, replacement casement windows,

projecting front-gabled bay with recessed front entry at one end of facade, gabled wall dormers, newly

installed bay windows with copper roofs at first-floor. Additions in 2008 include shed-roofed sunroom

over basement-level garage with half-timbering at garage entrance and additions with cementitous

siding at northwest rear corner. Neighborhood oral history identifies this as the Swett House; the 1931

city directory does show Duke professor Francis Swett and his wife Elizabeth in Hope Valley. Dr.

Swett was chair of the Department of Anatomy from 1930 through 1943 and was one of the original

members of the Medical School faculty. Deeds show that in 1947 Barnes and Frances Woodhall

purchased the house. Barnes Woodhall was the chief of neurosurgery at Duke from 1937 through 1960

and the Dean of the Medical School from 1960 through 1964.