Thomas A. & Mary B. Graham House

1999 (DC tax photo)

(Below in italics is from the 1984 National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

Large c. 1913 two-story modified frame Foursquare, sheathed with German siding and set on high random coursed fieldstone foundation.    Two tall interior brick chimneys rise above the pyramidal roof with a pedimented dormer.    Handsome attached full-facade shed-roofed porch carried by e}ephantine panelled pylons set on fieldstone plinths. Round-arched front door. An early two-story addition is at the west.

(The information below in italics is from the Preservation Durham Plaque Application for the Thomas A. and Mary B. Graham House)

Below is the content of an essay about the house prepared for the 2024 Trinity Park Home Tour.
Some of it repeats the narrative about architectural changes above. Other is more history about
the home and its former residents. When the term “current homeowners” is used, it is referring
to Chris and Dan Jewell:

There is a particular allure to several of the large, old houses that sit along Gloria and Lamond
Avenues in the southern part of Trinity Park. They were some of the earliest to be built in the
neighborhood and thus seem to hold a bit more mystery than those that came later. They were
built with stables and outhouses, fireplaces or stoves in every room, and when electric lights
were brand new. Those that retain their original materials are filled with architectural details that
exude a character that is palpable.

It was just such a special house that the current homeowners of 1025 Gloria Avenue went
looking for in 1999 when they decided to move from Chapel Hill to Durham in order to shorten
their commutes to work. College sweethearts who have enjoyed watching “This Old House”
together since it debuted in 1979, they chose Trinity Park for its historic character, walkability,
closeness to downtown, and houses with front porches. In 1025 Gloria Avenue, they found
“their old house,” with a front porch that sits high over the street overlooking two sycamore
trees, and a sizable back yard in which to put a garden and build within it spaces for outdoor
relaxation and entertainment.

Built in 1910, the house has had relatively few owners. Two families lived in the house for 40-
year periods, and the current owners have the third longest tenure in the house at over 20
years and counting.

This house and its mirror twin next door at 1023 Gloria Avenue were built as a speculative
venture for a young attorney named Arley M. Moore who lived with his wife Elsie on Watts
Street adjacent to this property. The Moore’s barn encroached onto the property, and early
deeds stipulated that those buying the property were buying all of the lot “excepting only the
space now occupied by the Moore’s barn.” From the time these two houses were built until
about 1924 they were numbered 1015 and 1017 Gloria Avenue (and are now 1023 and 1025
Gloria Avenue).

The Moores bought this property from the Duke Land and Improvement Company for $750 in
July 1909, had the house built, and sold it to William and Lillian Hinton in November 1910 for
$3,500. The Hintons lived in the house for just three years before selling it in 1913 to A. G. Cox,
who rented it to Thomas A. and Mary B. Graham and their family of six children, ages 7 through
19. The Grahams had recently moved to Durham from Moore County, N.C. and by 1915 were in
the grocery business, owning Graham’s Grocery nearby on West Main Street. Mrs. Mary B.
Graham was the owner and proprietor of the business, while her husband served as a clerk
and manager. After renting their Gloria Avenue house from Cox for six years, the Grahams
purchased it for $5,000 in 1919.

In 1921 Graham’s Grocery moved to 505 N. Gregson Street, a handsome brick structure that
still exists and was recently renovated into a private residence and featured on the 2018 Trinity
Park Home Tour. The Grahams sold their store in 1932 to a chain of grocery stores called
Progressive Stores, Inc. The company had locations throughout the state, advertising “North
Carolina Stores for North Carolina People.” The Gregson Street store was their first in Durham,
and other locations followed. In 1940 the store became a Piggly Wiggly.

After the Grahams retired from the grocery business in their 60s, they took roomers into their
large house to supplement their income. This was a common practice at the time, though it
might seem odd to us today. Rather than building ADUs with full apartments to rent, people
simply separated off rooms in their homes and installed small refrigerators and hot plates and
advertised “rooms available” in the newspapers.

The Grahams lived in their Gloria Avenue home until their deaths in the 1950s, and their
widowed daughter, Kathryn Graham Smith, stayed on in the house until the family sold it in
1957 to Robert H. and Emily Warren Pickard, who moved in with their two teenage children,

Bobby and Martha. Robert was an insurance agent with Security Life & Trust Company with an
office in downtown Durham. Though the Pickards divorced in 1967, Emily Pickard remained in
the house until her death in 1995, living there nearly 40 years. She had an informal preschool in
her home for many years, and she also took in roomers.

The house as originally built was Colonial Revival in style with an asymmetrical facade
composed of a simple two-story box with a pyramidal roof with pedimental dormer to which
was attached a two-story side gable wing toward the back, allowing for a full-width front porch
which wrapped around the northwest side to meet the gable wing. Double-hung single-pane
sash windows adorn the house which is sheathed in German siding, and two interior brick
chimneys rise from the roof. When built, the original entrance was likely centered and was
possibly the elaborate entrance door with sidelights and transoms that now serves as entrance to the first-floor sunroom added ca.1920. The porch foundation and plinths are clad in random-
coursed fieldstone of varying colors with accentuated, projecting mortar joints, and the plinths support tapered, paneled elephantine columns. The elaborate detailing on the porch is surely
the home’s most unique and wonderful exterior feature.

The interior plan was originally that of an American Four-Square, with four primary rooms
downstairs (two living, one dining and one kitchen) and four bedrooms upstairs. All of the
rooms contained either a coal fireplace or coal stove. There was a small back porch off the
kitchen. The house did not have a bathroom when it was built, and the privy was located in the
back yard where the fish pond is today. Both the downstairs sunroom and the upstairs sleeping
porch, which are stacked one atop the other, were added ca. 1920. The arched front entrance
door leading into the entrance hall with the unusual curve of the front stair into the center of
room are alterations that may have also been made around this time.

When the current owners moved into the house in 2001, many changes to the layout had
previously been made (including, thankfully, the addition of a bathroom), as had many updates,
including the addition a dual zone HVAC system, new plumbing, the removal of shag carpeting
to expose the hardwood floors, many new windows and the remodeling of the kitchen. This
enabled the current owners, who are able DIYers, to go room by room and make this house
their own. Though the extent of their renovation work goes well beyond the scope of this essay,
two projects deserving mention are the creation of the upstairs master suite and the latest
endeavor, finishing of the attic.

The master suite was created out of the two bedrooms and sleeping porch upstairs on the
west side of the house. The front bedroom was small. The sleeping porch was under-utilized
because it could only be reached through the small bedroom, and the back bedroom had been
significantly altered and reduced in size by the addition of an entire wall of closets. When the
vintage 1990s closet was removed, an original front-facing window was discovered, as was a
beautiful fireplace! The owners converted the small front bedroom into a bathroom and made
the sleeping porch into an office/sewing room that connects to the main bedroom. They also
restored the fireplace.

The most recent project has been the finishing of the attic and concurrently a restoration of the
upstairs bedrooms on the east side of the house. The major component of this project has been the addition of a “real” stairway to the attic which was previously accessed by a pull-
down folding stair. The owners are fans of exposed brick, now revealed in the back bedroom (note the stove-pipe cover from the flue from a former coal-burning stove in this room) and
celebrated in the attic. The installation of two Velux skylights adds an amazing amount of
brightness to the new attic room. Also note the “window bed” nook that grandchildren are now
claiming as their space on sleepovers. The owners wish to thank Mark Barron for his
remarkable architectural skills, structural engineer Gus Neville, and the incredible talents of Jon Fish, Kylie, Adam and the rest of Jon’s team at Acanthus Construction for creating this
amazing space.

Though the homeowners say the attic project may be the final project they undertake, do not
place bets on that!