William Thomas O'Brien House

	William Thomas O'Brien House
	U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	820 Wilkerson Ave.; Durham, North Carolina
Coordinates	36°0′6″N 78°54′55″W / 36.00167°N 78.91528°W
Area	less than one acre
Built	c. 1890
Architectural style	Gothic, Vernacular Victorian
MPS	Durham MRA
NRHP reference No.	85001777
Added to NRHP	August 9, 1985

William Thomas O'Brien House is a historic home in Durham, Durham County, North Carolina. It was built about 1890, and is a two-story, Gothic Revival style frame dwelling. It has a center hall plan and features a one-story wraparound porch, an original embossed tin shingle roof, and projecting bays. It was the home of William Thomas O'Brien, who perfected the Bonsack machine for the W. Duke Sons & Company.^[2] The house originally sat on a large tract of land that extended to Rome Street.^[3] The property included a servants' house, a smokehouse, and a chicken coop.^[3]

The house, located down the street from Immaculate Conception Catholic Church and Immaculata Catholic School, played a significant role in Durham's Catholic community.^[3] O'Brien, who was Catholic, invited a priest to perform masses in the home until Immaculate Conception was constructed in 1906 on West Chapel Hill Street, on land that O'Brien deeded to the Church.^[3] After O'Brien's death in 1907, his wife moved to South Duke Street. In 1919, a carpenter and interior decorator named Edward J. Long lived in the house.^[3]

Located in the Burch Avenue Historic District, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.^[1]

References[edit]

^ ^a ^b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
^ Patricia S. Dickinson (December 1983). "William Thomas O'Brien House" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-10-01.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e "WILLIAM T O'BRIEN HOUSE | Open Durham".

This article about a property in Durham County, North Carolina on the National Register of Historic Places is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[nris-1] "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.

[nrhpinv-2] Patricia S. Dickinson (December 1983). "William Thomas O'Brien House" (PDF). National Register of Historic Places - Nomination and Inventory. North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office. Retrieved 2014-10-01.

[opendurham-3] "WILLIAM T O'BRIEN HOUSE | Open Durham".

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