Williamson-Mullholland House

(The information below is from the Historic Preservation Society of Durham Plaque Application for the Williamson-Mullholland House)

By the turn of the twentieth century, American railroads reached not only every city, but almost every village and hamlet. This comprehensive and efficient system for the delivery of goods was exploited by big mail-order retailers. From the gigantic catalogs of Montgomery Ward & Co. and Sears Roebuck & Company, you could buy chinaware, dresses, union suits, pistols, bicycles, hardware, stoves, and furniture. With the country's population booming and the need for housing acute, it was only natural that these firms would also sell whole houses direct to customers who ordered them by mail. 

Sears distributed its first "Modern Homes" catalog in 1908. Montgomery Ward followed in 1909 with "Wardway Homes." Both companies offered everything from very modest houses to very fine homes for wealthy purchasers. Although they are sometimes referred to as "kit homes," the houses were not really kits designed to be assembled by average buyers. The firms supplied detailed plans to guide buyers' contractors in every step of the construction process. The houses arrived in boxcars by rail in the form of pre-cut and numbered joists, studs, rafters and siding, windows, doors - everything needed to complete the house. The quality was high and the homes were not inexpensive. Each year, the firms introduced homes in the latest popular designs. As this was the bungalow era, the catalogs were replete with bungalow plans of every style and description. Catalog homes found customers all over the county throughout the early decades of the century. 

The first seller of catalog houses was neither Sears nor Ward's, but the Aladdin Company out of Bay City Michigan. Unlike the others, its business was exclusively mail order houses. It issued its first Aladdin Homes catalog in 1906 and continued in business until 1987, much longer than any of its competitors. And Aladdin was big. By 1920, the company accounted for nearly 3% of all housing starts in the country. The firm sold single houses to individual customers and whole towns to manufacturers setting up new mill villages for their workers. Aladdin even shipped houses to Britain. 

The house at 2314 West Club Boulevard is a "Plaza" by Aladdin. It is not the only Aladdin house on Club. Just two houses east, at 2308, is a "Pasadena." The house at 2111 West Club may have begun its existence as an Aladdin "Sheffield," but it has been substantially changed with the addition of a full second story. 
With the Plaza design, Aladdin appealed to the craftsman bungalow's roots in sunny California, "This magnificent bungalow secures inspiration from one of the best bungalows in Pasadena...," boasts the catalog description. The house at 2314 West Club has been altered over time, but its Aladdin origins are unmistakable. The roof has the very low pitch common to all California style bungalows. In Pasadena, roofs shed little rain and never bear the weight of snow. The deep roof overhangs shade the windows and walls from the mid-day sun. 
 

The selling point for the Plaza was the large wrap-around porch. In its catalog, Aladdin states, "To the lover of large porches, the Plaza has especially strong appeal." On Club Boulevard, the wrap-around portion of the porch was enclosed long ago to make an office or den, but the original structure of the porch is clearly visible. Tapered or "battered" brick piers support the box columns. These are straight from the Plaza design. Also note the different kinds of brackets supporting the roof overhangs. In the gable peaks and eaves of the front bays are interesting double beam brackets without the diagonal cross brace common to craftsman houses. The same bracket supports the gable in the porch roof. At the corners of the now enclosed portion of the porch, a more simple single tapered support bracket is used. This arrangement is original to the Aladdin design. The cross-braced knee brackets that appear on the southeast corner and along the sides of the house are all later replacements and additions. The Plaza is invariably shingle-clad as depicted in the catalog illustrations and the house on Club Boulevard is no exception. 

The floor plan is a typical bungalow layout. The front door enters directly into the living room. The dining room and kitchen proceed from it along the east side of the house. The bedrooms and original bath are ranked along the west side of the house. In the living room, the dominant feature is the large brick fireplace. It was designed to burn coal. Note the Gothicized iron cover with its decorative hammered rivet heads. The floors in the public living and dining rooms are oak. The floors elsewhere in the house are less expensive pine - a common arrangement in the 1910s and 20s. The two-panel fir doors are original. Aladdin was proud of its components. The catalog declares, "Aladdin Houses are finished better than most new houses in your neighborhood." The door and window casings are original. Their entablature tops were common in houses built before 1925 when ceilings were high. The crown moldings in the living and dining rooms are recent additions. Originally, the walls in these rooms would have been finished with picture molding. This molding survives in the front bedrooms. Another interesting survival is the original push-button light switch next to the front door. 

The dining room space is original. The applicants added the wainscoting. The box in the corner contains the flue that served the original cook stove in the kitchen beyond. The Plaza plan had no butler's pantry or nook. Instead, it had a breakfast room off a very small kitchen. In the Club Boulevard house these spaces have been remodeled into a larger modern kitchen by the applicants. The living space beyond is an addition. 
The bedroom side of the house has also been rearranged a little bit. The essential layout is the same, but the original single bathroom has been modernized and what was once a small bedroom at the rear of the house has been enlarged with an addition into a master suite with its own bath. Over the years, this corner of the house had settled significantly leaving the applicants with a problem to solve. Rather than demolish and rebuild the northwest bedroom, they chose a more gentle solution. They stabilized the foundation and reconciled the varying floor heights with a purposely sloping floor. 

The house at 2314 West Club Boulevard was built in 1922 for Edgar Allen Williamson and his wife Annie. E. A. Williamson was born in Haywood County in 1888. He came to Durham to manage the local office of the Imperial Life Insurance Company of Asheville, a position he held for more than forty years. According to his 1917 draft registration card, Williamson was of medium height and medium build. His eyes were blue and his thinning hair was black. The Williamsons lived in the Club Boulevard house for more than twenty years. According to his obituary in the July 27, 1977 edition of the Durham Sun, E. A. Williamson died in 1977 in St. Paul Minnesota where he had moved to be near his family. Annie Laura Williamson was born in 1884. She died on February 9, 1967. The Williamsons are buried in Maplewood Cemetery. 

In 1943, the Williamsons sold the house to Alex B. Cumby and his wife, Annie. Cumby was an engineer for the Imperial Tobacco Company. They lived in the house for five years before selling it to Duke University professor Allan Hadley Bone and his wife, Dorothy. Professor Bone was the beloved director of the Duke University Symphony Orchestra. During the World War II years, he led students in popular Friday sings to keep up morale. It was probably professor Bone who enclosed the porch to make an office and music room. Allan Bone was born in 1917 and died on August 18, 1992. 

In 1961, the Bones sold the house to the Mulholland family. Christopher Columbus Mulholland was the head of classified advertising for the Durham Morning Herald newspaper. His wife, Margaretta, was the executive secretary of the Society for Crippled Children and Adults for a number of years. Later, she joined her husband in the classified advertising office at the newspaper. Mr. Mulholland died in 1989, but Margaretta lived on in the house until 2000. The Mulhollands are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Durham. 

The current owners, James Henderson and Janice Lee Tedder, are preservationists devoted to Watts-Hillandale. They restored the Kluttz house next door and then took on this house as a project. 

Jim Henderson was a teacher and administrator at Carolina Friends School from 1982-2013, and he continues to lead an active professional life as a saxophone player, songwriter, and creator of Ariel's Way, a modern musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest. Jim moved to Durham in 1975 to pursue a Ph.D. in religion and culture at Duke University and stayed on after that. Jim and Jan have two sons, David and Jonathan Tedder Henderson; both grew up in Watts Hospital-Hillandale and now reside in Durham.

During Jan Tedder's career as a family nurse practitioner and lactation consultant she worked in several family medicine practices in Durham, Wake, and Orange Counties, taught at UNC Family Medicine Center, and developed the pediatric program at SAS Institute. Jan was named the North Carolina Maternal/Child Health Nurse of the Year and created the international parent education program, HUG Your Baby. Jan and Jim purchased and renovated fifteen properties in Durham since moving here from Apex in 1986. 

Prepared by: Tom Miller