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Wall Home Some history of the house as filed with the North Carolina Department of History in 1983 when it was registered: The George W. Wall House, built in 1896, is one of the finest and least altered examples of Queen Anne Revival architecture in Davidson County. This vernacular reflection of a nationally popular style in the small crossroads community of Wallburg is typical of the impact of the late nineteenth century industrial boom throughout piedmont North Carolina. George W. Wall's family lumber business, founded in the late 1880s, provided the financial prosperity and sources for standardized and custom woodwork for the construction of a family residence.
The builder and owner, George W. Wall, erected this expansive two-story frame Queen Anne Revival style house in 1896 on Main Street in Wallburg, where he and his brothers had founded a lumber company in the late 1880s. The bracketted wrap-around porch with floor length windows with stained glass accents and the cross-gables with decorative sawnwork which enliven the front three elevations give the Wall House a splendor unmatched by typical late nineteenth century Davidson residences. George W. Wall's family lumber business, founded in the late 1880s, provided the financial prosperity and sources for standardized and custom woodwork for the construction of a family residence. The staircase and mantels of vernacular Eastlake design are said to have been designed by George's wife Hattie and constructed by his brother Turner S. Wall.The main block of the house is three bays wide and two bays deep, set on a low brick foundation and covered by a deck-on-hip roof. A two-story, two-bay deep wing with a gable roof projects from the rear elevation. The walls are finished with plain weatherboard, the roof with composition shingles. Two interior chimneys supply corner fireplaces to each of the four rooms flanking the center hall, but the stacks have been removed above the roof level. The interior chimney between the two rooms on each floor of the rear wing is still intact. The house has undergone only three significant alterations since its construction. In 1908 a bathroom was added behind the kitchen. In 1916 a larger
dining room was added behind the original dining room, with an entrance from the
side porch, and the back porch was enclosed. In 1973 the east side porch which
sheltered the rear wing was replaced by an enclosed sunroom. The main entrance, in the center bay of the front (north) elevation, is a double
paneled door with Eastlake trim. The upper half of each, leaf is glazed, with
colored glass borders. All of the windows are two-over-two sash with plain
surrounds and wooden louvered shutters. The upper sash of the windows flanking
the main entrance, and the window above the main entrance, have stained glass in
decorative geometric patterns characteristic of the Queen Anne style. The side
and rear entrances are single paneled doors with glazed upper halves. The wide
boxed eaves have a dentil cornice. In the center of the front and side
elevations is a large cross-gable covered with diagonal flush sheathing in
decorative patterns. In the center of each gable is a segmentally arched single
pane window with an Eastlake pediment. Bargeboards with scalloping and finials
outline the apex of each gable. The rear wing has a pedimented gable end covered
with plain weatherboard. All other rooms in the house are finished with plaster walls and ceilings and
high molded baseboards. Symmetrically molded architraves with rondel corner
blocks surround the windows and doors. All doors have five flat panels, with
cast-iron rim locks and porcelain knobs. All of the mantels throughout the house
are original, and most continue the Eastlake whimsy of the staircase,
particularly the one in the west parlor. Paired bracketted colonnettes, with
connecting spindles, frame a cornice with engraved floral decoration and a
frieze with alternating applied spindles and rondels. The mirrored overmantel
has a correspondingly ornate frame. In contrast to the parlor mantel, the dining
room mantel is Neo-Classical in style, with Doric colonnettes flanking the
fireplace opening and the overmantel mirror. Its chaste, standardized design
indicates that it was probably ordered as a unit from a millwork factory, while
the parlor mantel and the other more vernacular mantels and the staircase were
probably assembled from disparate pieces of woodwork by the builders on the
site. The large barn behind the house burned in 1936, but the smokehouse, woodshed, and chicken house, of indeterminate late nineteenth or early twentieth century date, survive. These are gabled frame buildings which were moved to the rear of the property and connected to one another at the gable ends, forming a single storage building. George and Hattie raised eleven children in the house, and lived there until their deaths, which occurred in 1943, only six weeks apart. In 1938 they had deeded the house to their daughter Clara and her husband Clay Vann Teague, who were living with them. The Teagues continued to reside in the house until their deaths. |