298. Smith-Wimbish-Blair House (FY 1751)
1208 Brookstown Avenue
Contributing, ca. 1902
This ambitious Colonial Revival house was once one of the most handsome dwellings on Brookstown Avenue and is now, happily, undergoing a sensitive rehabilitation. It is a large two-story structure with a weatherboarded first story, a pebbledash second story, a slate hip roof with flared eaves and hipped and gabled dormers (the central one with a Palladian window), and a wrap-around porch with heavy Tuscan columns on brick plinths, a plain balustrade, a balustraded deck, and a broad entrance bay with a “half-timbered” pediment. The unusual entrance is slightly recessed for emphasis and features a glass and wood paneled door surrounded by multi-light sidelights and transom.
City directories suggest that the earliest occupants of the house included s. H. and Margaret Smith, ca. 1902-ca. 1910, and J. L. and Riddie Wimbush, ca. 1913-ca. 1918. Adelaide c. Blair was the first to list the property for taxes, however, in 1918. She and her husband, David H. Blair, vice-president of Carolina Cadillac Company and an attorney, occupied the house and owned it until 1928. Since then it has had numerous owners, most for less than five years, and has served primarily as rental property. (CD, TR, SM)
Garage, Contributing: Behind the house is a two-car brick garage with a hip roof which appears to have been built prior to 1930.