118 South Driver Street - Evans House

118 South Driver, 1980

The house at 118 South Driver was built by John W Evans, who was the first superintendent of the Durham County Home around 1900. The house originally sat on land comprising about half of the current block bounded by Hart Street, Driver St., East Main Street, and Robertson Street. Evans only lived in the house a short time, however, dying in 1902. His land was split up among his heirs.

Evans land subdivision, 1902. The house sits on "Lot 3"

The house passed to Evans daughter Amy and her husband, Arthur E. Burcham. Burcham was a superintendent at the Durham Hosiery Mills and served on the city council in the early 1940s.

The house is unusual in style, 1 1/2 stories with full roofline dormers, as well as a wraparound porch and a large centrally positioned rear wing.

This house became pivotal in the future of this neighborhood by the 1990s.

Normally, I'm a huge proponent of boosting owner-occupancy in a neighborhood - my experience with 118 South Driver is the only significant caveat to this. I'll start with the take-home message. If you have a drug dealer in your neighborhood, you'd much prefer them to be a renter rather than an owner.

I've described previously how the East Durham neighborhood retained some stability into the 1980s - longer than most of the inner neighborhoods in the ring around downtown - but began to plummet badly in the 1990s as the cohort of long-time residents began to pass away.

118 Driver is emblematic of East Durham's trajectory. Well-maintained through the 1980s, the property was sold by a widow in 1991 to a family who would collectively wreak havoc in the vicinity of the house over the next ~15 years. The story is somewhat classic; older couple moves in, patriarch dies, children and grandchildren move in / stay with grandma, and form a little family drug cartel. Members of the family would be arrested / charged (including grandma) with cocaine possession, and the business might slow for a little bit, but it would never stop.

When I first encountered the house around 2004, I had been working hard as chair of Preservation Durham's endangered properties committee to acquire options on threatened houses in order to try to get historic covenants placed on houses at time of sale. John Compton, Carrie Mowry, and I, in particular, had focused strongly on the two blocks of Driver Street between Angier and Main. I felt then, and still feel today, that the uppercase "I" formed by these two blocks, and the two blocks of East Main and Angier to the east and west of Driver form the backbone upon which a revitalization of East Durham would be built.

This house - or, more specifically, the trade being plyed from the house, - clearly stood in the way of that revitalization. There are a few wonderfully hardy folk who are brave enough to renovate a house within a block of a drug dealer, but hardly a deep demographic.

A combination of the three of us began courting grandma. NIS was putting pressure on the family because of code violations. Ken Gasch and Bill Anderson got the police involved enough to raid the house and make some arrests.

All of which set up the surreal experience of Rick Hester of NIS, Carrie Mowry, and I sitting around the living room of this house with the option papers and grandma, grown children standing over us looking none-too-happy. She signed the papers, and within a few months had moved out to north Durham.

Preservation Durham marketed the house, but couldn't sell it. In the meantime, as I became more invested in East Durham and distressed about NIS tearing down house after house on Angier Avenue, our approaches to preservation became incompatible.

Credit to PD for stepping up to the plate to purchase the house rather than let the one year option expire. Although they've had cleanup days there, a lack of credit for the inability to figure out how to do more to improve the exterior over the past 4 years. They continue to market the house for sale, and I know they've come close to sealing the deal a few times. They own the adjacent vacant lot as well, which was owned by the family, (lots 3 and 5 of the JW Evans estate.)

118 South Driver, 10.02.10

(Below in italics is from the 2004 East Durham National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

John Evans House. Architecturally significant example of the tri-gable house type, with 4-over-4 sash windows in the gables and flanking gabled front dormers. Windows have peaked lintels; the entrance has sidelights. The wraparound porch has replacement boxed posts. All-over vinyl siding. 1913 SM. John Evans, first supt. Of the Durham Co. Home, built this house. He owned most of the block, and gave portions of it to his children. His daughter married Arthur E. Burcham, a supt. of Durham Hosiery Mills and a city council member in the 1940s. 1930-1940 CDs: Arthur E. Burcham owner/occupant (knitter)). (Brown, Durham A & HI, 98)

As of 2014, the building is under renovation by Renovision partners.

08.07.14 (Courtesy Preservation Durham)

08.07.14 (Courtesy Preservation Durham)

February 2015 (TMLS)

February 2015 (TMLS)