Preservation Durham, North Carolina

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please contact our office at (919)-682-3036 or
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2002 - Hope Valley: Durham's First Golf-Course Suburb

Hope Valley was Durham's first full-fledged country club suburb, developed around an 18-hole golf course in the late 1920s Traces of the farms that occupied the land in the 19th Century remain around the suburban landscape developed by the Mebane Company to attract the newly successful young professionals that were thriving with Durham's tobacco, textile, and health care industries. The golf course was designed to allow the most houses facing it, and the Norman Provincial style clubhouse was designed by Milburn and Heister. The early homes in Hope Valley are an eclectic mix of revival styles popular in the 1920s and 1930s: Tudor, English Cottage, Colonial, Norman Provincial, and even Spanish.

Homes on the tour included the Hubert O. Teer House and the Dr. B. H. Branscomb House on Chelsea Circle; the Herbert Hussey House on Surrey Road; the David Smith House, the Dr. Paul M. Gross House, and the W. A. Pearlzweig House on Dover Road; and the Edward S. Orgain, Sr. House on Devon Road.

Architect and developer J. Scott Harmon headed the committee for the 2002 Old Durham Home Tour. Web Communications and Sigrid Carter designed the poster and booklet cover. Martha Scotford was the tour site photographer and booklet designer. Victoria George and Tom Miller wrote the architectural histories for the booklet. Richard Mullinex was the Tour Flower Chairman. Thanks to the Durham florists who pulled out all their creative stops to provide special flower arrangements for each of the houses on the Old Durham Home Tour: Fallons at Woodcroft, Family Gardens (Old Chapel Hill Road), Floral Dimensions, Friendly Floral Gallery, Montgomery's Florist, Sanders Florist, and Steve Taras Fresh Flowers.

Tour Introduction Program
Explored the History of Hope Valley

Tour Introduction panelists Dan Hill, Martha Uzzle, Mena Webb, Nan Scheibel, Bob Baker, and Mary Barringer shared stories of growing up in Hope Valley in the 1930s and '40s. Preservation Durham committee members had to scramble to find enough chairs for the crowd of 200 guests at the Westminster Presbyterian Church! Preservation Durham's Victoria George began the evening with a slide-illustrated lecture of the development of Hope Valley.

Panelist Dan Hill moved to Dover Road in Hope Valley in 1953 from Glendale Avenue in Durham when he was eight years old and "had the good fortune of growing up on the 12th hole." Bob Baker moved to Old Hope Valley with his parents in 1940, and still lives in the home he built on Cornwall Road in 1963.

Mary Teer Barringer is a life-long resident of Hope Valley, and still lives in her childhood home, the Hubert Teer House.

Nan Alyea Schiebel lived in Hope Valley for 30 years, having moved with her parents into a Tudor house between Hope Valley Country Club golf holes 4 and 5 in 1930 when she was six years old. Martha Erwin Uzzle was born Martha Cameron on Chelsea Circle where she lived for twenty years. Mena Webb, who lived in Hope Valley from 1927 until 1935, is working on her new book The Way We Were: The Social History of Durham.

Tours Eve Celebration

The 6th Annual Tour's Eve Celebration took advantage of the pleasant evening to move outside to the spacious lawn of the Gross House. Celebrants received their tour guidebooks at the party for a sneak preview of Saturday's event as jazz guitarist Bob Tapp added a sophisticated tone.

HPSD President Ben Speller greets a guest at the Celebration.

Celebrants enjoy some of the delicious food set out on an elegant buffet.

HPSD members and friends gather on the back lawn.

Farm to Green Pictures

More than 800 visitors braved rainy weather to attend the 6th Annual Old Durham Homes Tour. Because of the wet conditions, some tour entrances were moved from homes' front doors to garages and porches.

The tour committee worked with homeowners and volunteers to make the day a pleasure for all. Committee member Terry Worley takes tickets, Doug DeBank greets a visitor to his home, and Dan Addison explains the floor plan of his dramatically remodeled home.

Visitors waited patiently for admission to tour sites. Parking on Hope Valley's winding streets was limited, and tour goers walked from house to house sheltered by bright umbrellas. The big front porch of the Teer House became tour headquarters. Tour goers received tour guidebooks at their first stop and ticket takers marked off each house along the route.

hope valley

At the Smith House, greeter Frank DePasqual explains the need for visitors to wear surgical booties to prevent damage to homeowners' carpets and floors. Although the booties could be worn over normal shoes, some visitors chose to remove their footwear first.

Many visitors enjoyed exploring the toy house on the Teer House lawn as well as the seven full size houses on the tour. Farm to Green proved that interest in historic preservation in Durham cannot be dampened by a little rain.

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