11/30/06

South Brooks St. homes to be dressed in Christmas finery
By Cathy Gilbert

The Wells House Gibbons and Usry, CPA

There is only one thing that the members of the Manning Garden Council are wishing for this holiday season … nice weather for their Holiday Walking Tour of Homes on South Brooks Street.

Scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 9 from 2 to 6 p.m., this year’s edition of the tour will feature five well-known homes, each decorated and hosted by one of Manning’s garden clubs.

Visitors may start at any of the five locations and all are within the two blocks of South Brooks between Keitt Street and the large curve at Harvin Drive.

At 113 South Brooks is the Wells home, currently the headquarters of the Gibbons and Usry accounting firm
This Craftsman-style house was built around 1920, and like many homes of the time, was constructed on pilings and stumps of the cleared trees on the lot. The first documented owners were Rev. W.B. Duncan and his wife, Elizabeth. After their deaths, it was acquired by T. Mitchell Wells and his wife, Alice. Over time, rooms and porches were added in the back. The wide center hall and rooms to either side remain today.

The Bozard House The Bank of Clarendon

By the mid-1980s, the house had suffered serious deterioration and was condemned by the city. Al Gibbons and John Usry purchased it in 1988 to use as offices for their accounting firm. Maurice Kirkpatrick supervised the major renovation including electrical and plumbing updates, enclosing porches on the back and lowering the 14-foot ceilings to 10 feet. They preserved the original floor plan, windows, woodwork and, unusual for the times, built-in closets. Less than a year after the renovation’s completion, Hurricane Hugo blew out the attic dormers and caused major water and wind damage inside. Disaster struck again in May 2004, when a fire started in the back walls, raced across the attic and damaged the first floor’s front rooms. Now, after its third restoration, the original woodwork, fireplaces and flooring remain intact. The roofline was changed to almost double the space available for offices.

Visitors at the Wells house will be treated to a display of gingerbread houses and antique Christmas decorations, as provided by the Magnolia Garden Club.

At 201 S. Brooks, visitors can view the Coffey House, now home to Gregg and Terry Gregory. Decorated by the Evening Primrose Garden Club, the theme will springboard from the Gregory’s tradition of having multiple Christmas trees, both in and outside of this lovely home.

Believed to have been built around 1900 by W. Scott Harvin, it was the home of Thomas Finely Coffey and his bride, Blanche Wells, at the time of their 1903 marriage.

The Coffey House Home of Gregg and Terry Gregory

As the Coffey’s family grew, major changes to the house included the gracious wrap-around porches, double front doors and two parlors.

The agricultural depression of the 1920s left the then widow, Miss Blanche, with no choice but to take in boarders to help support six children.

The house was later owned by Miss Blanche’s son Bill, and later her granddaughter, Carolyn. In 1998, the house was sold to the Gregory’s who have updated the heating and air-conditioning, leveled the house’s settling foundation, refinished the heart-of-pine floors and are currently planning an addition to the rear of the home.

The eight fireplaces still contain the original coal grates and a majority of the original tiles. Most of the woodwork and glass pane windows are original.

The Queen Anne-style Victorian home at 209 S. Brooks Street is the Harvin-Stogner home, currently owned by Ervin and Wendy Davis.

The Harvin-Stogner House Home of Ervin and Wendy Davis

Built by the Harvin family around the turn of the century, the home was occupied by Lucius and Katherine Harvin from the early 1910s until their deaths. The tower chimes at the Presbyterian Church were donated by Mrs. Harvin in her husband’s memory and the Harvin Clarendon County Library was named in both their memories.

Thurman and Peggy Stogner purchased the Harvin home in 1957 and reconstructed the garage in the backyard for Miss Peggy’s kindergarten. Graduation ceremonies were held in the side yard, as were wedding receptions for the three Stogner daughters. The Stogners added central heat and air and made repairs to the damage done by Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

In 1995, the house was sold to the Davis’ who redecorated and modernized the kitchen and all bathrooms, added two working fireplaces and moved a few doors. In 2004, they expanded the kitchen and added a bath, laundry and more closets upstairs. They have retained all the wooden floors, woodwork, beaded and coffered ceilings, windows and blinds. Several light fixtures are original. Interestingly, the railing on the back porch was recovered from the J. Smith Boswell house on Boundary Street.

The Geiger-Goldsmith House Home of Anne Goldsmith

The Harvin-Stogner/Davis home is decorated for the Christmas season by the Azalea Garden Club.

Crossing Brooks Street, visitors will have the opportunity to stop and rest for a bit, while visiting the Bozard House at 116 S. Brooks. Currently the home of the Bank of Clarendon’s Financial Services division, the Bozard House was built in 1928 by Jake Iseman, who ran a grocery store in town. It boasted a model kitchen with all the newest appliances as well as highly polished wood floors that local children loved to slide upon in their stocking feet. The home was elegantly landscaped, unknown for a house of the time, with shaped cedar trees and lush grass.

After Iseman died in 1931, his widow remarried and moved away. Dr. A.C. Bozard came to town in 1934 and married a local girl, Ashton Plowden in 1936. They purchased the home and raised their two sons, Cecil, an orthopedic surgeon and Henry (“Mutt”), a local dentist, there. Mrs. Bozard lived in the house until it was purchased by the Bank of Clarendon in 1997 to use as offices.

Decorated by the Virginia’s Pride Garden Club, the house will feature some of Dr. Bozard’s antique medical equipment as well as his treasured doctor’s bag. While touring the home, visitors are invited to stop for tea in the house.

The fifth and final home on the tour is at 210 S. Brooks Street and is the Geiger-Goldsmith home, current residence of Anne Prothro Goldsmith.

Blanche Wells Coffey remembered playing at this house when she was a little girl in the 1880s, but no existing records document when it was built or to whom who it belonged before Dr. Charles Geiger bought it, probably around the time of his marriage to Nettie Weinberg in 1906.

The Geigers upgraded the front rooms and added rooms to the side where Dr. Geiger saw his patients. After his death in 1929, Miss Nettie ran a flower shop out of the dining room and took in tourists.

David and Anne Prothro Goldsmith bought the home from Miss Nettie’s heirs in 1950. The detailed woodwork and three mahogany and tile fireplaces are features of the original house. Over the years, the Goldsmiths finished the upstairs, enclosed many of the porches to make year-round rooms and added the garage and breezeway.

The pavilion in the side yard is the site of the former Prothro house where Anne grew up.

Decorated by the Manning Garden Club, visitors will be treated to a harpist and a pianist inside, as well as traditional carolers in the gazebo outside.

Tickets for the tour of homes are $10 in advance ($15 day of tour) and are available at the Chamber of Commerce, the Clarendon County Archives, Quality Printers, the Land, Parker, Welch law firm, Anderson Pharmacy, Inspired By, and Wen-Lily’s in Summerton and the Turbeville Town Hall.

South Brooks Street will be closed from Keitt Street to Harvin Drive on the day of the tour. Ample parking is available at the Bank of Clarendon – enter the parking lot from Church Street. Visitors are asked to refrain from wearing high heels so as to protect the floors of the homes. For additional information, call 435-0328.

Editor’s Note: Many thanks to Janet Meleney of the Clarendon County Archives for her research on the history of these five homes and to Judy Latham for the use of her illustrations.