1415 James Street

(Below in italics is from the 2003 Lakewood Park National Register listing; not verified for accuracy by this author.)

House. Craftsman-style front-gabled house with weatherboard, glazed Craftsman-style door, 4/l sash windows, recessed comer porch with boxed post, and overhanging eaves with exposed rafter tails and decorative brackets. This was a duplex from the 1930s to the 1950s. [1930, 1939, 1952 CD; interview]  

Past residents:

In 1935 Benjamin L. Gunther, a tobacco worker, and his wife Inez lived in half of the duplex, and John W. Atwater and his wife Evelyn, both workers at Liggett and Myers, lived in the other half.  The Gunthers had lived in this home since 1929 and are likely the original owners of the duplex, or long time renters. 

By 1942, William G. Austin, a stonecutter, resided here with his wife Edna in one half of the house. The other unit was home Robert Billings, a clerk at Durham Builders Supply and Mrs. Douglass Billings, a secretary at the Durham Herald. 

One of the first residents when the home was converted to a single family home was Bruce T. Blackley, an upholsterer, who lived there in the mid 1950s. He was followed by Mrs. Maggie Maynard, a machine operator at American Tobacco.