Pleas M. Sawyer House #5

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

Another in the row of five Period Houses built by a speculator in the early 1930s. Here the roof is gambrel-front with wall dormers along the sides. The hip-roofed porch has deep eaves with sawn rafter ends, large fluted box posts, and match stick railing.

(The information below is from the Preservation Durham Historic Plaque Application for the Pleas M. Sawyer House)

The six houses numbers 909, 911, 913, 915, 917, and 919 on the south side of the 900 block of Green Street were built between 1922 and 1926 for Pleas M. Sawyer and his wife Edna Garland Sawyer. Originally purchasing lot 4 of Markham Place (plat book 5a, page 27) in 1922 (book 63/page 129), the Sawyers had their own house constructed on this lot, which is listed in the 1923 Durham city directory as 915 Green Street. It was the only house on the south side of the block at this time, and only one house, 918 (owned by R. L. Deas), was on the north side of the block. 

In 1924, the Sawyers expanded their property ownership, purchasing the eastern portion of lot 3 (the property just to the west of lot 4; book 69/page 381). In 1926, they purchased the western portion of lot 3 (book 74/page 72), and lots 5, 6, and the western portion of lot 7 (book 74/pages 71 and 73). 

The houses 909, 911, 913, 915, and 917 were all built in 1926 and first listed in the Durham City Directory in 1927. 

Sawyer sold 909, 911, 913, and 917 Green Street to the Durham Real Estate Co. in 1929. 911 Green essentially remained a rental house until the current owners purchased it in 1994. 

Pleas Monroe Sawyer, born 1884, was raised in an old pioneer family in Graham County in the far western part of the state of N.C. He taught himself to be an accountant and a lawyer because he did not want to be a farmer. In 1916 he was elected to one term in the State House of Representatives. He served as postmaster of Tapoco in Western Graham Co. in 1917-18. After being hired by the IRS, he trained around Washington, D.C. for 6 months, and then moved to Durham around 1920. He was promoted to assistant revenue agent for all of N.C. in 1930 and transferred to Greensboro. In 1937, he was named Revenue Agent in Charge of the state of N.C., a post at which he served until his retirement in 1954. After that he practiced as a tax lawyer. Pleas Sawyer and his wife Edna had three children, Grace, Roma, and Thomas. Roma became an early female professor at Duke University, teaching political science. Thomas B. Sawyer served in the NC State House and NC State Senate and made run for governor and US Senate. He was a lawyer and also involved in real estate. 
According to Pleas M. Sawyer III, Pleas M. Sawyer also had two houses built in the 800. block of West Club Boulevard around the time he built the houses on Green Street, 803 W. Club Blvd. (see 84/541 and 96/313) and 805 W. Club Blvd. (see 73/376 and 96/312).