Yearby-Smith House

503 Oakwood, 1980
 

(The information below in italics is from the National Register of Historic Places)

This two-story, simplified Queen Anne-style house is nearly identical in form to the house at 501 Oakwood Avenue. The house is two bays wide and double-pile with a painted brick foundation, German-profile wood siding, and an asphalt-shingled hipped roof. The house has a gable-roofed dormer on the right side of the façade and a one-story, hip-roofed front porch across the entire façade. The porch has a standing-seam metal roof supported by battered posts on painted brick piers with painted granite caps and replacement wood rail. The house has a replacement front door and original nine-over-one windows have recently been removed and replaced with vinyl windows. A one-story gabled addition extends from the left (south) rear of the house with a smaller hip-roofed addition filling in the ell. The house appears on the 1913 Sanborn map and George Ballenger (clerk) is the earliest known resident in 1915/16. By 1924, the house was occupied by Burl H. Smith, a superintendent at The American Tobacco Company Inc., who lived there until at least 1939. 

 

2006

 The house sat abandoned over a number of years - it was purchased in 2006, which fortunately saved it from demolition by NIS. Unfortunately, the purchaser thought the best things to do in renovating the house was to rip out the original windows and put in some Home Depot specials.

2006

 

503 Oakwood, 01.11.11

Fortunately, the house was owner-occupied in the end, so the loss of the windows is certainly outweighed by the fact that the house was saved. I still hope the/an owner will banish the fake muntins by replacing at least the front windows with some true 1 over 1s at some point.