Virginia Avenue

December 2021 (Photo by Tom Miller) This unassuming cottage on the unpaved northern portion of Virginia Avenue was the longtime home of Dr. Clotilde Schlayer, and the epicenter of a fascinating group of emigres, many of whom fled Nazi Germany to create new lives in Durham. Though German by background, Clotilde Schlayer was actually born in...

This house was built in 1926 or 1927. Its first occupants were rental tenants, Lucius and Mary Oliphant. Oliphant was the assistant manager of the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store. They resided in the house a short while and are listed in the directory at 1113 Virginia only in 1928. The next residents, Charles Knox Massey and his wife, Anne Louise...

08.28.11 E. C. Dameron House. Substantial bungalow with a side gable roof, central chimney, wood shake exterior walls, and 4-over-1 windows in pairs and triples. The replacement door has a 4-pane transom. The gabled porch has stucco piers and tripled boxed posts, arched impost blocks, a peaked lintel, and deep eaves with brackets and exposed rafter...

08.28.11 Mitchell-Baker House. Side-gabled Classical Revival cottage with corbeled eaves, vented dormers, 9-over-1 paired windows, a paneled front door with transom and sidelights, and a classical arched entrance porch with fluted columns. The side screened porch has fluted columns. D. C. Mitchell Jr., bookkeeper at Durham Lumber Co., had this...

08.28.11 R. P. Skinner House. Hipped-roof bungalow with a front cross-gable with vent, an engaged porch with paired and tripled boxed posts on brick piers, a French front door, 12-over-1 sash windows, eave brackets, an interior chimney and plain siding. 1925 CD: R. P. Skinner occupant.