My "Deed" for the Day

William K. Fentress and Louise Gale Fentress in front of their house (our house)

In the photo above, Mr. and Mrs. Fentress (the original owners of our new/old house) are standing in front of the far left corner of our house. So, the house that you are seeing behind them is the next door neighbor's house. I am guessing this photo was taken in the 1950s.

 

If we could just pan right we would be able to tell if there was a column in the middle, back then. We don't have one. We have a brick pier in the middle but no column on top. I have no idea if the house ever had one?

 

House with the cream colored vinyl siding removed. And, see? No middle column!

 

I have spent some time in the Circuit Court House in Norfolk where the deeds, wills, marriage licenses, and other such documents are kept. My original goal was to see if I could find out anything about our house ... that didn't happen. 

 

 

Here is what I did discover:

 

• The lot that our house sits on was part of a development by the Westover Company. The lot is in block 21 and is all of lot 3 and 3/5 of lot 4. An original lot was 30 feet wide so by adding part of lot 4 the Fentress' gained another 10 feet of width.  This made it wide enough to build a house and add a driveway.

• Mrs. Fentress was the owner of the lot and she paid $2000. (Our lot assessed for almost 100 times that last year!)

• Eight families have lived here, in our house, since 1922

• The Fentress' purchased the lot in 1919 and apparently they had the house built and then moved in, in 1922.

• The family that lived here the longest was the first, the Fentress' - for 43 years!

• The average years that a family has lived here is 13 1/2.

• The median number of years that families lived here is 5 years.

• We are the 4th owners in the last 11 years.

Can you tell I'm married to a mathematician?

Guess what? In next week's blog posts there will be pictures of the completed bathroom tile!! AND, there will be pictures of the James Hardie siding going up!! Yee Haw!