Park Avenue was a key village entrance meets with West Main Street at a perpendicular and runs all the way south to the Dan River. The most visible to outsiders, the homes on the upper corner of Park and West Main were among the grandest in the village. Reserved originally for supervisors, overseers and clerical staff at the mills, these homes’ 1910 construction was left to the capable hands of mill-founder T.B. Fitzgerald’s construction company.
Once completed, the row of large, seven-room, wood-frame houses faced outwards, away from the core of the village and were distinctive from all other village housing in form, massing, and style. These seven-room homes were nearly a story taller than most of the homes in the village, with more complexity and grander details from the roof to the foundation. Seven-room Park Avenue homes were built in the Queen Anne style, with simple wood shiplap exterior walls, but with complex massing that signified the complexity and distinction of character residing within. Both the front and side caught the eye with the variation of bays, the hipped roofline was interrupted with lower cross gables only outdone by corbeled brick chimneys that rose from the front roofline and from the rear extension, heralding the home’s capacity for warmth and security. The front entrance was the grandest detail and featured a full-width porch with a shed roof and central pediment, upheld by wood Tuscan columns. Through their design and prominent setting, Park Avenue houses offered a distinguished entrance to the village that remains today.
1910s Dan River Mills booklet showing the houses along W. Main Street (Greensboro Road) and Park Avenue. Courtesy of Judy Edmonds.
A Park Avenue home in 2020. Photo on file with the City of Danville.
See also:
Virginia Department of Historic Resources, “Schoolfield Historic District.” 2020. https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/108-5065_Schoolfield_HD_2020_NRHP_FINAL.pdf
schoolfieldvillage.com 