1907 Cecil Street

(January 2018, Photo by Cheri Szcodronski, hmwPreservation)  

This one-story, side-gabled, Minimal Traditional-style house is four bays wide and triple-pile with a gabled ell at the right rear (east). The house has aluminum siding, vertical aluminum in the gables, flush eaves, and an interior brick chimney. Windows are a combination of eight-over- eight wood-sash window and vinyl replacement windows. A two-light-over-four-panel door located near the center of the façade is sheltered by a two-bay-wide, shed-roofed porch supported by square columns that has been enclosed with screens and is sheltered by aluminum awnings. A low stone wall extends along the southeast side of the driveway. County tax records date the house to 1948 and the earliest known occupants are Reverend George Davis and his wife, Esther, in 1950.  They were the parents to two daughters.

County deed records show that Louis Williams sold the lot to George W. Davis and his wife, Esther L. Davis, on January 6, 1948.  Reverend and Mrs. Davis conveyed the property to their daughter, Gwendolyn E. Davis, on June 11, 1949.    Gwendolyn Davis Tait Haskins conveyed the property to her son, Ellsworth Tait, on November 5, 2010.  Ellsworth Tait sold the house to T Z Home Buyers LLC on January 14, 2019.  T Z Home Buyers LLC sold the property to Melissa Lowe on January 22, 2019, who then sold it to Cowper Contracting LLC on March 29, 2019.  This house has been rental property since 2010.

Gwendolyn Tait attended Julliard School of Music and taught music at C.C. Spaulding Elementary School for many years, before becoming a Professor of Music at North Carolina Central University.  She appeared on the television show, the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and performed at the Metropolitan Opera.  

Gwendolyn Tait Haskins North Carolina Central University Faculty and Staff James E. Shepart Memorial Library