Tag Archives: Columbia Notable Properties

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See inside 315 N. Tenth St., a 1882 Italianate historic home

Everyone loves to take a peek inside someone’s house. Here’s your opportunity to take a look inside an 1882 Italianate-style home in Columbia, Missouri.

This house at 315 N. Tenth St., was once the home of Samuel H. and Isabel Smith Elkins. Today, it houses Village Glass works.

That’s why you can get this online peek inside. Here’s a link to a March 11, 2011 slide-show published in the University of Missouri student paper, The Maneater. The slide show is of photographs taken by Peter Yankowsky and it shows the home owner, Susan Fiegel, working with glass. You can take a tour of the house in person by visiting during business hours.

http://www.themaneater.com/slideshows/2011/3/11/114/

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Arch McCard cabin at 121 West Blvd.

Here’s a link to a Nov. 28, 2010 article in the Columbia Daily Tribune outlining the history of this house, which started as a two-room cabin.

http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2010/nov/28/west-boulevard-gingerbread-house-for-sale/

But if you’d like to see inside as well, you can go to this link on the House of Brokers site. http://www.houseofbrokers.com/listings/detail.php?lid=60280602&limit=0&offset=0&aid=006200047&oid=006200001&temp=1&aname=Betty+Tice&aimg=1&chome=1&agent_hasfeat=7&&posc=2&post=4&cfq=radarea%3D3%26startnewsearch%3D1%26aid%3D006200047%26oid%3D006200001%26temp%3D1%26aname%3DBetty%2BTice%26aimg%3D1%26chome%3D1%26agent_hasfeat%3D7%26searchtypesent%3D5%26radarea%3D3%26address%3Dwest%2Bblvd%26state%3D29%26b.x%3D48%26b.y%3D6%26SRSearchDate%3D1290972632%26SRRecordCount%3D4%26SRPage%3D1%26SRPageCount%3D1%26SRPageLinks%3D6

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For Sale: 1911 Log Cabin at 121 West Blvd.

The house at 121 West Boulevard is for sale, but many people don’t realize there’s a log cabin inside.

The house is listed by House of Brokers and you can see all the details here and see pictures of the inside and the outside of the house here. The house is listed for $175,000.

But what the listing doesn’t tell you is that the house began as a two-room log cabin built in 1911 by Arch McCard from oak tress growing on the property, according to a June/July 2006 Columbia Home & Lifestyle article written by Jim Muench with photographs by Tom Schmidt.

Later, between 1940 and 1950, Otis T. “Sam” and Nadine Coleman bought the cabin and built on three rooms, added electricity and plumbing. Betty and Herb Brown bought it in 1957 and have owned it since, however, Dr. Herbert Brown, 88, died Sept. 21, 2010.

The house was named to the Columbia Notable Properties list in 2004, according to this May 5, 2004 article in the Columbia Daily Tribune.

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Nominate A Building

It is your turn to decide what building, home or area should be on the Most Notable Properties list of the Columbia Historic Preservation Commission.

Nominations are being taken for selection for the list. Here’s a link to more information and the nomination form. Nominations are due by Oct. 1, 2010. The gala event announcing the winners will be in February 2011.

The criteria are:

  • Properties must be at least 50 years old.
  • Located within Columbia’s city limits.
  • Have architectural or historic characteristics that contribute to Columbia’s social or aesthetic resources.

What kind of buildings or areas have made the list in the past? The brick streets of Columbia are on the list, as are several public schools. A modest Cape Cod is on the list as well as Columbia’s more majestic mansions including Maplewood. Two bed and breakfast locations are on the list. But the list also includes scores of residential homes that may look quite ordinary to some, yet have historic value either due to their former owners or the building’s qualities.

You can’t win if you don’t play and Columbia can’t laud historic properties if someone doesn’t nominate them.

Here’s your chance.

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Keiser Avenue? Today it is Wilson Avenue

Historic homes can tell us more than just about buildings and architecture. Sometimes they can tell us about our culture and our past fears. 

Today, anti-immigration sentiment against Mexicans is making the news, but in the past, Germans bore the brunt of such negative feelings.

The Walter and Helen Guthrie Miller home is at 1516 Wilson Avenue, built circa 1916. It was named to the Columbia Historic Preservation Commission’s Notable Properties List in 2002.

It has not been placed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it is within the East Campus Neighborhood Historic District, which was placed on the Register in 1996.

The document nominating the East Campus Neighborhood for placement on the Register notes, ”Wilson Avenue was once named Keiser Avenue, perhaps named after J. P.Keiser, who owned land in the area in the late 19th century. The name was changed in the late teens or early twenties, as a result of anti-German sentiments following WWI. The new name could be after Thomas C. Wilson, an early resident of 1507 Wilson, who served as the secretary to the Board of Agriculture in 1912…” 

The house does more than mark a time period of anti-German sentiment.

It also represents a home designed by James Jamieson, who designed many of the buildings on the University of Missouri’s “White campus,” so named for the color of the stone used to build many of those building. Jamieson was involved in the design of Ellis Library, Memorial Union, Mumford Hall, the President’s House and the 1953 renovation of Jesse Hall, among others. 

This home is thought to be the only architect designed home within the East Campus Neighborhood, according to the nomination form for the National Register of Historic Places. 

 1516 Wilson Avenue, built 1916, photo courtesy of Historic Preservation Commission and FitzImages Photography 1516 Wilson Avenue, built 1916, photo courtesy of Historic Preservation Commission and FitzImages Photography

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Spanish Influence – Vessell Home – 2 East Stewart Road

It can be easy to forget history, but historic homes serve as wonderful reminders.

That’s the theme of the article, “Historic Home: A Slice of Spain,” published in the April/May 2006 Columbia Home & Lifestyle magazine written by Jim Muench.

The home at 2 E. Stewart Road looks like something that could be found in Spain or California or anywhere Spanish settlers had influenced. This Spanish look highlights the fact the article notes, that Spain held the Louisiana Territory, which included what is now Missouri, from 1763 to 1800.

The Spanish influence doesn’t stop there. The Santa Fe Trail was a vital trade route that connected Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico, which was in use until the railroads took over the job of moving goods and people.

Yet, the home at 2 E. Stewart Road doesn’t stem from those origins. Spanish Colonial stucco and tile became popular in Missouri in the 1920s, with its most prominent example shown in the Kansas City’s County Club Plaza, the article notes.

Indeed, the home on the corner of Stewart and Garth was built in 1929 on land purchased from Clara and John Stewart, for which the road is named, the article states. It was owned by a long list of people and named to Columbia’s Notable Properties list in 2004 by the Historic Preservation Commission of the City Council.

Here’s a list of the owners of the home, taken from the April/May 2006 article by Muench.

 1929 – Dan and Gona Wilkerson, who had purchased the land two years earlier from Clara and John Stewart, for whom Stewart Road is named

1941 – George Foster

1942 – Evelyn and Smith Turner

1943 – Catherine Tallen, who later married W.E. McClellan

1953 — C. Mitchell Tucker and Helen J. Tucker

1959 – Webster and Irma Wheelock

1971 – David and Marilyn Vernon

1980s – Garland Stephens, who owned the Temple Stephens grocery

1990 – Jennifer and Alan Polniak

2001 – Danna and Keith Vessell

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Greenwood Heights – built by slaves

Historic homes can be our touchstones to history, some of which we like to recall and some we’d like to forget.

Greenwood Manor or Greenwood Heights at 3005 Mexico Gravel Road was built by slaves owned by Walter Raleigh Lenoir of Lenoir, North Carolina. That city was named for Lenoir’s father, who fought in the Revolutionary War at the battle of Kings Mountain. Hence, the house reminds us of America’s foundation and of the country’s greatest stain.

Built in around 1835, Greenwood Heights, was featured in the February/March 2007 issue of Columbia Home & Lifestyle in an article written by Jim Muench with photos by Peter Anger.

It was named to the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 15, 1979, according to the National Register of Historic Places Inventory — Nomination Form. It won its place on the Register as an example of the earliest remaining homes in Columbia and Boone County, according to the form. The form includes background on the home and property as well as 10 photographs.

The home was placed on Columbia’s Notable Properties list in 2000.

The Federal, red brick, two-story home includes wood floors of random-width blue ash and oak planks and built-in cupboards in the chimney niches in the dining room and north parlor, which are quite unusual, according to the National Register form. However, the form notes, “The most remarkable features of Greenwood’s interior are the fireplace mantels … they are all hand-carved and planed of walnut, each differing slightly in design.”

In 1978, when the home was nominated for the National Register, it was being operated as an antique shop operated by Melissa Williams. The form refers to the store as “one of Columbia’s most interesting antique stores…”

Owners of the home have included, according to the National Register materials and the Muench article:

Walter Raleigh Lenoir, who died in 1943, and his wife Sarah Evalina Bouchelle, until 1877.

1881 — D.B. Kurtz, purchased for $7,500

1919 — F.J. Nienaber

Abandoned for an unknown period of time

1933 — Mr. and Mrs. Warren W. Fuqua. The property was now only 144 acres.

1968 — Allen and Martha Baker and Maurice and Lorene McClintic

March 1974 — Gorman L. Williams, the owner in 1979 when the home was named to the National Register.

1989 — Sold to the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, which repaired the home.

1990 — David B. and Genie Banks Rogers.

1997 — Judith Retsema and Pat Rish

2002 — Sara “Sady” Mayer and Eddie Boster