Charles E. Crabtree House

01.14.12

Hewn log construction persisted intermittently after the turn of the twentieth century in northern Durham County as a few farmers elected the time-honored method of building for personal or practical reasons. Newly wed Charles E. Crabtree erected a two-story log dwelling with a fieldstone and brick chimney in 1912 on land given himself and his bride by her father, William Roberts. In the early 1920s, as economics allowed, Crabtree added a contiguous frame wing and weatherboard sheathing that completed a long side-gabled main block. On the front facade, fenestration is divided into five irregular bays below and two above. In 1938, a full- width hip-roofed shed was installed at the rear of the house and the sole outbuilding on the farm, a storehouse with an attached woodshed, constructed. A full-width shed-roofed porch on the front facade completed the dwelling in the 1940s. The interior displays wide-board sheathing and handmade mantels with simple flat-paneled friezes.

[I find it hard to believe that this is a 20th century house, but I'll defer to the county inventory until proven otherwise.]