219 N. Churton St. / James Cheek House

09.10.2016 (S. Kueber)

(Below in italics from the National Register nomination; not verified for accuracy by this author)

This impressive Italianate-style, triple-A-roofed I-house is well-sited on a hill overlooking North Churton Street. The center-hall-plan house is five bays wide and single-pile with weatherboards, two-over-two wood-sash windows on the first floor and replacement windows at the second-floor level. There are two corbelled brick chimneys at the rear, a metal tile roof, and a wide paneled wood cornice and cornice returns with rondels centered in the panels and paired sawn brackets. The one-light-over-two-panel door has four-light- over-one-panel sidelights and is sheltered by a highly decorative one-story, hip-roofed porch that wraps around the left (south) elevation. The porch is supported by slender grouped posts with sawn delicate, elaborate brackets and spandrels and an ornate sawnwork railing. There is a one-story, projecting bay window on the right (north) elevation with paneled aprons below the windows and paired brackets at the roofline. There is a pair of French doors with a single transom in the left gable end and a one-story screened porch extends around the south and west elevations of a two-story hip-roofed rear addition that extends the full width of the house. A low weatherboard-covered knee wall and modern railing define a second-floor porch on the south elevation that is accessed by a door in the south gable. In 1991, a one-story, full-width shed addition was attached to the rear of the two-story addition [HDC]. There is a stacked stone retaining wall along the front and right ends of the property. James A. Cheek built this house on Lot 78 circa 1875. The Cheek family owned the property from 1875 until 1908, when it was sold to Allen J. and Annie Gray Ruffin. In 1919, Annie Gray Ruffin, by then widowed, sold the property to Houston J. Walker.