As Averett University maintains its focus on achieving new levels of academic excellence, it continues to expand its role as well as a community partner - with a presence. Schoolfield Booksellers realizes in this restored historic house Averett's goal of its university bookstore as a "hub of the campus and community." Well beyond textbooks and school supplies, Schoolfield House offers bestsellers, special orders, and periodicals, including metro newspapers, plus meeting space for community group events.
Completed in 1913 for John H. Schoolfield, Jr. - a scion of the Danville textile dynasty that became Dan River, Inc. - this serene stuccoed house was one of several impressive dwellings constructed in the area, following the city's 1908 West End annexation.
Built in the shadow of Averert's newly-completed Main Hall, the Schoolfield's new house may have been the product, like Averett, of architectural designers based in Lynchburg. Architects McLaughlin, Pettit & Johnson, of that city, designed Averett's first edifice, completed in 1911. That same year one of those partners, Charles G. Pettit, completed for Mr. Schoolfield's uncle, Ad Schoolfield, a lavish, stuccoed, Mission-influenced new mansion still standing at 1124 Main Street. The architectural kinship of the two stuccoed houses (1124 Main Street and 354 West Main) both with red clay pantile roofs is striking.
John Jr., lived here with his wife, the former Frankie Hanes - a daughter of the Winston-Salem, NC-based Hanes Mills. One of three daughters reared in this house, Frankie Schoolfield (Jordan), continues to reside in Danville.
In 1931 the Schoolfields moved to Forest Hills, the new upscale garden-suburb behind Averett. The couple's former West Main residence was purchased late in 1931 by Mary Nunn. In the mid 1930s, Mrs. Nunn and her husband John sold the house to Rollin and Gertrude Read who, in turn, sold the property in 1938 to a veteran local theater manager, Mr. Leonard W. Lea, and his wife.
In 1951, Dr. and Mrs. Charles Easley purchased the house, where the well-known Danville surgeon and his wife reared their children. Here the family continued to reside for over 50 years. In 2005, the Easley children conveyed the house to the Averett University Foundation.