The most ‘antique’ of the structures on the DHS tour this year, the home of Dr. Ann Garbett at 931 Green Street reveals to the careful observer clues to its presumed late antebellum origins. However, its cheerful yellow facade, busy with fishscale shingled gables and a Queen Anne-style, spindle-work porch, relates this comfortable dwelling to the heyday of Green Street at the turn of the 20th century. By that time, most of the street’s earliest dwellings, like this one, had been reborn to resemble their newer, more fashionable neighbors. 

Although deeds and land records do not pinpoint the exact year when the first phase of the house was built, design elements of its oldest section, especially such features as the hand-planed two-panel doors in Dr. Garbett’s dining room and library, point to the decade just prior to the Civil War. In fact, buried behind later facades along the street are at least four dwellings which may have begun as simple, two-story, wood I- houses—the sort of no-nonsense domestic buildings which dotted Virginia and North Carolina towns and countryside alike on the eve of the Civil War. 

A three-acre parcel with “appurtenances thereon,’ most likely including the early core of the house now standing at 931 Green Street, was sold to William S. and George C. Ayres in November of 1864. Re0ecting perhaps wartime inflation, this $8,000 sale benefitted the estate of the late Dr. Nathaniel T. Green, namesake for the street itself, as well as Green Street Park and Green hill Cemetery.

Two decades later, the estate of William Ayres sold at auction a subdivided portion of this acreage, a 62-foot lot stretching from Green to Colquohoun Street, with improvements, to Matilda Myers. It is not known if, or how long, Matilda Myers or members of her family lived here. Her name never appears in any Danville city directories for the twenty years between 1885 and 1905, although during this period a joseph Myers and a C.H. Myers are known to have lived somewhere on Green Street. For the nearly 20 years of Myers’ family ownership, it is certain only that the Dugger family, who must have rented the house, lived for a time at 931 Green Street. According to the 1898-99 city directory, members of this family included a widow, Addle G.; Henry B.; and Benjamin E. and David H. Dugger; both employed with Mr. John H. Patrick at Dugger & Patrick, tobacco commission merchants. The property was sold in 1904 by a presumed relative, Joseph Myers, possibly the same individual listed in Danville directories of a few years earlier. Then a resident of Chesterfield County, Virginia, Mr. Myers conveyed the house and lot to Sarah K. Perkinson for $1,240. 

Members of the Perkinson family lived at this address for next half century. In addition to Sarah K. (Waddill) Perkinson, the widow of James Robert Perkinson, at least two other generations of the family called 931 Green Street home. These included a son, Albert lames Perkinson, and his wife, the former Carolyn Turner, and their children James W Perkinson and Carolyn T. Perkinson. Following the death in 1954 of Al. Perkinson, long a respected Danville tobacconist, his widow sold the house to Miles and Viola Bennett. A few months after Mrs. Bennett died in 1978, her heirs sold the property to Drs. Coy and Ann Garbett, who had relocated to Danville from Arkansas after joining the faculty of Averett College. 

Along with the Shadrick family’s restoration by the of the old Graham-Fox House at 879 Green Street in the mid-I 970s, the subsequent refurbishing of 931 Green Street gave impetus to the reclamation of Green Street which continues today. Dr. Garbett, a professor of English at Averett College, was an urban pioneer along with her late husband, Dr. Coy Garbett, who nearly twenty years ago was the catalyst for the dynamic Preservation Revolving Fund that recently initiated the salvation of the seventh home on Green Street for owner-occupancy The visible and gratifying achievements of a number of individuals like Ann and Coy Garbett, coupled with the eighteen-year efforts of the Society, are abundantly evident all along the street today. 

Inside, the house at 931 Green Street is a handsome personal expression of the owner’s long-time enthusiasm for architecture, art and antiques. Original artwork by several accomplished Danville-area artists complements period 19th-century antiques, mostly American Federal, Empire, and Victorian pieces, throughout these spacious rooms. Dr. Garbett’s passion for books is evident in the library, a quiet, jewel-toned sanctuary of mellow oak, leather upholstery, art pottery, and hundreds of volumes. She cultivates her culinary talents in the recently-refurbished kitchen, a light, airy room that is functional, yet respectful of the character of the structure.