Helper-Walley House
(ca. 1896)
The evolution of the Helper-Walley House from the traditional hall-and-parlor form to the Craftsman style shows the transitional nature of architecture.
603 N Main St, Davidson, NC 28036
One of the few pre-1900 homes along Davidson’s historic North Main Street, the Helper-Walley House is also one of the town’s few remaining hall-and-parlor houses. The house is also an excellent example of the transitional nature of architecture, specifically the evolution of an 1896 hall-and-parlor house remodeled in the 1920s with the addition of Craftsman-style features and more rooms at the back of the house. Originally built by Harlan Page Helper (1867-1937) and his wife Emma Potts Helper (1871-1912), the Helper-Walley House reflects the malleable nature of architectural style.
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The hall-and-parlor house is a traditional folk British form that became the dominant housing type in the antebellum southeastern United States. Many of North Carolina’s earliest houses were of the hall-and-parlor form. The form’s simple two-room layout combined with a symmetrical façade – two windows flanking a front door under a front porch structure separate from the main roof – meant its features could easily be altered to include the center gable and pointed arch windows of Gothic Revival, the elaborate columns and railings of the Italianate or Folk Victorian styles, or the simple pediments of Colonial Revival architecture. Later, the Craftsman bungalow, an offshoot of the English Arts and Crafts movement that swept the United States in the 1890s, quickly became a new popular residential style. The Craftsman style of art and architecture focused on simplified details in contrast to the excessive ornamentation of the Victorian Era.
Harlan’s father Hanson Pinkley Helper (1825-1902) moved to Davidson from Rowan County around 1855 and went into business with James Henderson. Hanson purchased a store on Main Street from Lewis Dinkins in 1855, expanding it into the thirteen-room Helper Hotel. In 1886, Harlan left home for Austin, Texas, only to return to Davidson a decade later and marry Emma. Harlan made several unsuccessful attempts at entrepreneurship over the next twenty years. Following Emma’s premature death in 1912, Harlan was hired in 1820 to manage the new Davidson College laundry, a position he held through at least 1927. It was during that time when he remodeled the Helper-Walley House. A few years later, Harlan retired to northern Virginia to live with his daughter Lillie Helper Thomas (1906-1997).
The Helper-Walley House has since changed hands several times over the next twenty-five years. Its past owners have included Davidson College alumnus Charles W. “Charlie” Parker – who served as the school’s wrestling coach for over forty years – and his wife Blanche, who owned the house between 1946 and 1957.