The Venable House – 622 Holbrook Avenue
Reproduced with permission from Victorian Danville – Fifty-Two Landmarks: Their Architecture and History © 1977
Distinguished by a cast iron porch of unique de
sign for Danville, the charming brick house erected about 1880 at 622 Holbrook Avenue is situated on land once included in the acreage owned by Dr. Nathaniel T. Green. Mr. John G. Jefferson, originally of Amelia County, Virginia, purchased part of the Green estate in 1869, and after his death his wife Otelia and their children sold to Capt. Edwin Edmunds Bouldin the land between present-day West Paxton and Gray streets in 1875.
Captain Bouldin was an attorney in the city, as is his grandson, Edwin B. Meade. He was a veteran of the Civil War and at least two of his sons, Edwin, Jr., and William, worked at one time for the Danville Weekly Times, a newspaper owned and edited by Captain Bouldin’s brother, Powhatan Bouldin.
In 1880 Captain Bouldin subdivided his lot and sold 122½ feet fronting on Holbrook Avenue to Paul C. Venable. At the time of this sale Captain Bouldin is known to have occupied the house at 636 Holbrook Avenue on the corner of the property he retained next to West Paxton Street. Mr. Venable began work on the Italianate house next door at 622 Holbrook Avenue sometime shortly after March of 1880 – the date of a deed of trust that notes his agreement to keep the house he intended to build “insured for at least $1800 …”
Mr. Venable was head of P. C. Venable and Son, a leaf tobacco business on Lynn Street. He and his family lived in the house until it was sold in 1898 to his nephew, Col. A. B. Carrington, who had worked for Mr. Venable when he first arrived in Danville from Prince Edward County, Virginia.
Today the building is often referred to as the “Carrington House,” owing to that family’s long occupancy of the dwelling. Until his death, Colonel Carrington lived at this address with his wife and their three children. Carrington Bidgood and Mrs. A. B. (Ruth S.) Carrington, Jr., his grandson, and daughter-in-law respectively, reside in the city today. A son, Charles Venable Carrington, lives in nearby Cascade, Virginia.
A man of exceptional business ability, Colonel Carrington served as president of Dibrell Brothers, Inc. Other firms and organizations in which he played key roles included the Masonic Building Corporation, the Mutual Building and Loan Association and the Westbrook Elevator Manufacturing Company. He also did much to implement the successful founding of Hughes Memorial School.
In the Historical Sketch of Roman Eagle Lodge Colonel Carrington is described as having been “active at one time or another in the directorship of almost every worthwhile civic, educational and philanthropic organization in Danville …” He was the first citizen to receive Danville’s Kiwanis Citizenship Award. While still living he was accorded the honor of having his portrait hung in the Masonic lodge room.
Colonel Carrington died in 1936 and his wife, the former Mary Taylor, continued to live in the house. After she died it was sold in 1944 to the trustees of the Lee Street Baptist Church.
Five years later Albert P. Maurakis, now the local agent for the Shenandoah Life Insurance Company, purchased the property and remodeled the house, now known as the Terry Apartments. Adjacent to the house, on the subdivided lot, the Irene Apartments were built.
Architecturally, the brick Italianate dwelling at 622 Holbrook Avenue features a bracketed cornice and segmented arched openings. These elements are, however, subordinate to the superb cast-iron verandah. The motifs in the porch include an oak leaf frieze. Behind the main house is a two-story carriage house of the same style and period, visible from Gray Street, which has been converted into a residence. GG
See also The Venable-Carrington House.
