Lenox And Virginia Baker House, (linden Briers) 1943

Lenox and Virginia Baker House

3116 Cornwall Road, ca. 1943, ca. 1960, Contributing Building

George Watts Carr, architect

Elegant two-story, side-gabled, brick Colonial Revival house with two-tier pedimented portico with Tuscan columns and slate roof; leaded glass sidelights and fanlight at centered front door and door to second-story portico; 6/6 sash; one-story wraparound porch with rooftop patio; ca. 1960 weatherboard additions at rear. A tree-lined, slate-bordered gravel driveway meanders through a verdant landscape as it approaches the front of the house. Deeds and city directories show that Lenox D. Baker and his wife Virginia purchased ten parcels between Surrey and Cornwall in 1941 and built this house in 1943. It was the only house on Cornwall Road for about fifteen years. Lenox Baker was Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at Duke Hospital and helped establish the North Carolina Hospital for Cerebral Palsy in Durham in 1952, later renamed Lenox Baker Children’s Hospital. Robert W. Carr identified this house as a design from the firm of George Watts Carr, Architects.

The Bakers named the house Linden Briers as it combined the elements of two homes they admired The Lindens and The Briers.

Shed

3116 Cornwall Road, ca. 1943, Contributing Building

Small shed-roofed outbuilding with weatherboard exterior and overhanging eaves stands north of house in overgrowth.