Can Anyone Place A Home Like This One?

[Doug Loudenback]

Martin, that is great stuff! Part of Becky's original comment in my main Mesta Park article which prompted all this research was this:

We were told it was called the Dr. J.G Brinkley House but don't know from what period that dates. I thought perhaps he had been on faculty of Epworth Medical College or the Oklahoma City University but can't find any information about him either.

My own search in the Oklahoman's archives found nothing useful under the name "Brinkley" but maybe I didn't look hard enough or maybe I ended my search too soon.

From what you've found, though, it looks like YOU may well have come up with come up with the smoking gun, as you put it, all things considered!

Sure ... post article dates, anything, I'm sure that this will all be useful to her. Probably, I'll later put together an article myself ... something like, "What do Shelby, North Carolina, and Oklahoma City have in common?" with a focus on the popularity of bungalows in the mid-1910s to whenever it ended.

YOU DID GREAT! I'll e-mail Becky in case she is not reading this thread.

ON EDIT: Martin, you've used 2 spellings ... Brinkley and Binkley ... which is correct for your finds?

[Martin]

huh... i would've figured on a bigger house sitting on all that land! glad i could be of some help. the name is 'j.g. binkley' with no 'r'

His bio starts on the front page of the 3/13/1960 oklahoman and continues on a subsequent page. there's a picture of him on the front page and one of him and his wife where the article is continued. that second pic is an interior shot... i'd presume it's inside the house in question, but the shot is way too tight to be sure.

the rest are mostly society page entries...
a.h. emenhiser 2/7/1918

j.g. binkley 4/25/1933, 12/25/1940, 11/24/1944, 2/17/1948 (where binkley is trying to zone the property for apartments)

there are many other for binkley... they really got around.

-M

[Prunepicker]

Doug,
I immediately thought of a house on N. Classen Blvd. but a little farther north.
Maybe 45th or so and on the west side of the street.

[rondvu]

[QUOTE=mmm;253703]i enjoy this kind of thing... kind of like detective work.

working off the assumption that 3909 classen is our mark, i found that:

one a.h. emenhiser lived at that address in 1918. emenhiser was secretery-treasurer of rising star oil company as of 1916.

one dr. j.g. binkley owned the property in 1933. he requested rezoning of the property in 1948. his request was to change his 8 lots on both sides of classen from nw 38th to nw 39th from single dwelling to multiple dwelling. apparently, his request had been previously denied.

between 1933 and 1944, the binkley family hosted numerous events at their home such as teas and family reunions.

in an article dated 3/13/1960, the oklahoman has a short bio of dr. binkley. the article states that he moved to his current residence (3909 classen) from capitol hill around 25 years prior. one cool detail in this bio suggests that it was binkley that came up with the idea that walker and robinson should have an underpass rather than an overpass across 'the tracks there'

in any event, given the status of the families living in this dwelling and the scale of some of the events hosted, i'm not so sure that the bungalow pictured fits at 3909 classen. i didn't find any pictures providing the proverbial 'smoking gun', though.

i've scribbled down dates of some of the articles if anybody is interested.

Cool stuff, how did you find all that info? Per my handy dandy 1951 City Directory I found on page 100: Jas G (Harriet G) city phys Okla City Health Dept h 3909 Classen blvd

[Martin]

^
anyone can search archived copies of the oklahoman online using a library card @ www.metrolibrary.org... it's really useful for digging up old info!

-M

[Prunepicker]

anyone can search archived copies of the oklahoman online using a library
card @ www.metrolibrary.org... it's really useful for digging up old info!
-M

That's good to know! Another AK-47 in my arsenal of information gathering!
Thanks!

[rebeccalove]

Wow! You folks are really blazing trails on the detective work. I played with spellings of that name but didn't think to leave out the "r". Thanks for all you're doing. I didn't have time today to get to PNC office here to get the photo of the "Dr. J.G. B(r)inkley house" but I will scan and post as soon as I can. Also try to find out where our photo came from. Very exciting findings.
Becky

[centralparker]

In searching the land records, the Emenhisers had a mortgage with Aurelius-Swanson Company for one of the lots now included in 3909 N Classen. Doesn't say anything specific about the house, but thought that might be a helpful clue.

Not sure if this link will work, but I'll give it a try. Here's the image of the mortgage record.

[Doug Loudenback]

Thanks, centralparker, that works great.

Earlier, I sent an e-mail to Becky:

Becky,

Martin (mmm) at OkcTalk has come up with some important information at [this address omitted]. Check it out! You'll be glad.

I've received 2 replies ... I'll post both below:

Thanks for your continued efforts. I've had long and hectic day (might otherwise describe as helluva day) and just now getting time to check. I haven't looked at Martin's posting yet, I'm holding it out in anticipation instead of dessert. Thanks for the commission report of Aurelius-Swanson. I talked to Ted Alexander, the regional director of Pres. NC today when we tag-teamed the Daughter of Am. Revolution lunch meeting and tour of El Nido since I couldn't get away from work as I expected. I did tell the D.A.R. folks about our great assistance from friends in OKC. I'll try to get the photo tomorrow. It's at his office. He is also mayor of our lovely city and sort of hard to catch sometimes. Sorry for delay on that when you are all digging and coming up with stuff everyday. Becky

... and then ...

Wow! If only I had played with that name a little more. It's Binkley, not Brinkley. This is so cool! I joined the OkcTalk and posted the first thing ok but last night I tried to reply. I know there's lag time for new folks to be monitored but it didn't seem like it went so I tried again after it wasn't there in a few hours. Neither of my posts are there today so maybe I need to pay the 4.95 to skip the montioring. Anyway, I'll try again but please let folks know how much I appreciate what they're doing.

Also Martin mentioned the city directories and you sent me something from ancestry.com. I have been using that site and city directories to try to trace another question we have about El Nido and the Gibbs family. This is sort of a romantic but sad story that caught the hearts of the two volunteers who did most of the initial work after Miss Gibbs died. She left diaries and letters. One box of letters from her sweetheart of 10 years starting in late 20s or early thirties. A romance that was put on hold because of the depression and its effect on family fortunes and her sweetheart's desire to meet his ambitions before taking her from her beloved El Nido. The last letter was in late 1940 when he is leaving Asheville ( about 90 miles west of Shelby) for Tennessee to work for the TVA. Giving up on his own law practice. No more letters and we can find very few traces of him. One mention in his mother's obituatry in 1960s. Another death notice in Georgia that may be him (same age and from Asheville NC and same initials and last name--he went by middle name). North Carolina has death certificates online for free but other states must pay. I'm sending off for that info. But those city directories really are helpful in tracking someone. Better than the census since those are not all online yet.

Becky

[Doug Loudenback]

After looking through the Oklahoman's archives to zoom in on Martin's finds, I did a little more internet looking about the Shelby NC property, and ran across this about Becky, the person making the inquiry, from Historic Shelby home welcomes new curator | home, historic, north - Local News - The Star Online : The Newspaper of Cleveland County

Historic Shelby home welcomes new curator
Friday, May 8 2009, 12:50 pm
Jackie Bridges

SHELBY - Becky Love, a physician who cared for former El Nido homeowner Evelyn Ray Gibbs, has been selected to become resident curator of the historic Mission-style home now owned by Preservation North Carolina.

As resident curator, Love will be responsible for rehabilitation and restoration work to the home's interior in return for a long-term lease on the property. Preservation North Carolina will continue to care for the grounds and exterior of the historic home, says PNC Southwest District Director Ted Alexander.

"Out of all the people who contacted us expressing interest in serving as resident curator, Becky was the obvious choice," Alexander says. "She has stated a desire to periodically make the home open to the public. She has a background of doing historic renovation work on a previous home and, of course, she has a strong connection to Ray Gibbs."

An informal ceremony marking the signing of an agreement was held on Friday at El Nido. May marks National Historic Preservation month.

Gibbs, a painter and music aficionado, lived almost all of her life at El Nido, which her parents, longtime Shelby residents, Dr. E.W. and Maude Gibbs, built in 1921. Today the house is among the best examples remaining of a Southern-built Spanish Mission/California-style bungalow and a contributing structure in the Central Shelby National Register Historic District.

The home and its contents were left in the care of PNC by Gibbs, who died in 2007 at age 92. Preservation North Carolina began looking for a resident curator for the house in 2008.

About Preservation North Carolina

Since 1939, PNC has protected and promoted hundreds of buildings and landscapes important to the diverse heritage of North Carolina by identifying, purchasing and reselling them through its highly effective Endangered Properties Program. It also promotes preservation through its stewardship properties, educational programs, public recognition program, DVDs and publications. PNC is supported through the generosity of more than 4,000 members.

Very nice, Becky, if you are reading. It's great to see a very fine piece of history in good and caring hands. Your persistence in tracing your property's roots back to its Oklahoma City connection reflects upon the seriousness with which you take your role, not only as a caretaker but as an illuminator, if that is a word. Information from Miss Gibbs's diary and letters that you related presented quite a story, perhaps bittersweet, about your former patient, very touching indeed.

As to the Oklahoma City twin, and if the 3909 Classen property be that twin as it is likely emerging to be, I also found that, after the death of Dr. J.G. Binkley on October 30, 1963, a surviving son, Dr. Samuel Binkley, applied to rezone the 3909 Classen property to restricted commercial in October 1973. I didn't find the disposition of that application, but either it or another was approved since the new commercial property began being advertised as the "Classen Central" in May 1982.

[Doug Loudenback]

Becky is unable to post here for some reason, so I'll paste our last e-mail below so that you'll know her appreciation for helping:

Thanks, Becky,

Sorry that you had trouble posting at OkcTalk. I'll post your reply below.
Doug

rebeccalove@XXX wrote:
Well, don't be too disappointed about the columns--I could be wrong; the copy of the photo is very dark on that part. I'm going to try to find the original photo. I saw that post on OkcTalk thread. I tried to post a reply with my general thanks and plans for including this information in an exhibit later on but once again it didn't seem to work. I'm registered and I'm logging in and I got that first posting to go but when I hit "post reply" on the later ones it goes back to the registration page and doesn't give any acknowledgment. I will include your name and the OkcTalk thread group in any references for exhibits this information is included in. Maybe sometime I'll have opportunity to visit OKC and see some of these homes myself. Becky

[Steve]

Doug, contact Classen Beautiful and see if they have any history...

[decepticobra]

theres an interesting looking house in midwest city in the same neighborhood as heritage park mall. it has an asian motif to it. its located on the corner of sunvalley and glenoaks.

[FRISKY]

Becky is unable to post here for some reason,

After 5-posts they will show without being held in que until they are approved by a moderator.

[Doug Loudenback]

I've received another e-mail from Rebecca Love and she asked me to pass it along to you guys, too, which I am doing with this post, except that I'm inserting images where appropriate. She sent a scan she'd made from a page in a booklet of some type which had copies of 2 photos affixed. I've cropped out the white space on that page and resized the images a little and am including them as inserts to her message, below.

Hi. I finally got my scanner working but then was out of action on everything but the local music festival I co-chair for our Arts Council. It's over now and this weekend I'm catching up on everything else. I think I am attaching a picture of houses similar to El Nido. The top one on the page is in Asheville, NC. The bottom one is the famous Classen Blvd photo. When I was in Raleigh at Preservation NC offices last month I asked where that photo came from and we searched their files for it. Myrick Howard, the president, thinks it was sent to him by someone in Oklahoma City after he spoke there in the early 1990s.

[DL note: the 3909 Classen house is shown below, including the handwritten note]



PNC had featured El Nido on the cover of its magazine and he was invited to come speak in OKC. We couldn't find the original. The intern who did the architectural survey in 2001 that included this picture no longer works there but Myrick was going to see if she or someone else that used to work there might be able to direct him to other files that we didn't find.

[DL note: the Asheville NC house is shown below]



An interesting story about the Asheville NC house was told to me earlier this week by someone on the Asheville Historical Society. The people who had it built had seen El Nido and wanted their house to be like it. They asked the the Gibbs if they would share the plans but they declined. Their architect sat across from the house and made drawings to be able to come up with the plans. Of course he never saw the inside. I don't know and she didn't know if inside is similar. How amusing that they could have purchased a very similar plan from Aurelius-Swanson. It makes me wonder if the mix-up that has been published about the architect being a friend of Mrs Gibbs from California named Aurelia Swanson was passed around by her to prevent anyone knowing where the plans actually came from. Footnote on that information in book about NC Architecture states that Miss Gibbs told author that in interview. She may have been told that all her life (or it could be result of dementia).

I hope you are doing well. I miss the flurry of emails we had back and forth about this. I still hope to come to OKC sometime. Thanks again for all your help. I hope you will pass this on to the folks on the thread. It's dark but maybe you can see that it really is similar.

Becky

And there you have it. 3909 Classen. And, per Martin, Dr. Binkley not Dr. Brinkley. Mystery solved!

I give my own thanks to all who have helped unravel this interesting piece of history. It was fun!

[gen70]

When was this home destroyed?

[Doug Loudenback]

Never did get a fix on that.

But, as noted above, after the death of Dr. J.G. Binkley on October 30, 1963, a surviving son, Dr. Samuel Binkley, applied to rezone the 3909 Classen property to restricted commercial in October 1973. I didn't find the disposition of that application, but either it or another was approved since the new commercial property began being advertised as the "Classen Central" in May 1982.

[gen70]

WOW...You are awesome.....Not!!

[gen70]

Never did get a fix on that.

But, as noted above, after the death of Dr. J.G. Binkley on October 30, 1963, a surviving son, Dr. Samuel Binkley, applied to rezone the 3909 Classen property to restricted commercial in October 1973. I didn't find the disposition of that application, but either it or another was approved since the new commercial property began being advertised as the "Classen Central" in May 1982.

I got ripped ---stoned---- at that house in 1971..Sorry....I Guess?..

[Doug Loudenback]

I guess I miss the points of your last 2 messages, gen70.

As to your 1st remark, "WOW...You are awesome.....Not," I agree completely that I'm not awesome and your personal expression is clear enough about how you feel about that. So, we are not in dispute about the fact that I lack the quality of being awesome. I don't know why it was so important to you to make that point in your comment but I guess you have your reasons. As for me, you asked if I knew when the building was destroyed and I tried to answer your question. I said that I didn't know and tried to give you what relevant information that I have which might relate to the answer. For some reason, that prompted you to make a personal comment about me.

Anyway, no, I'm not awesome, no argument there. Kudos to you for pointing that out.

About the 2nd comment that you got "ripped ... stoned ... at that house in 1971 ... Sorry....I Guess?" ... it sounds like you've got a good story to tell about your personal experiences at that house which will doubtless enhance everyone's knowledge about the house, and you.

Tell away, and thanks for your observations.

[rebeccalove]

Gen 70s remarks about experiences at the house at 3909 Claussen Blvd that no longer exists made me think that perhaps there are others who remember attending events there. Martin's research indicated that the Binkley family used the home for social events.

Also, I realized in the enlarged picture that Doug prepared (thanks-I'm not good at manipulating images on the computer) there looks like an open door on the terrace behind the ladies. That would mean that this on this house, the area corresponding to the front porch of El Nido is enclosed, so it is a bit different and may have had the larger interior space that Martin expected after reading about all the parties. I guess maybe the gathering that Gen70 attended there in 1971 wasn't in the society pages?

Hoping this will post since I think I've send at least five messages, Becky

[Doug Loudenback]

Becky, you got through the firewall! Great! Welcome!

[rebeccalove]

Yes, I'm "on". I'll try to forward any more tidbits I come across about this. As I was compiling information you all have found and shared for a meeting later this week, I came across picture with address in an ad for Aurelius-Swanson Co. from the Oklahoman of 8/29/1920 that you sent from library archives, Doug. I'm going to google the address and see what's there now. It's says 1201 W 36th St--one block west Classen Blvd, an airplane bungalow. Thanks again, Becky

[rebeccalove]

The house pictured in the Oklahoman Aurelius-Swanson ad in 1920 is still there at corner of NW 36th St. and N Military Ave. It has a huge magnolia in the front yard so house is obscured but can see details from the photo in newspaper. I wonder if the people who live there know it was featured in an ad in 1920? Becky

[Doug Loudenback]

Ha ha! Probably not ... the County Assessor's record for this property show that it was constructed in 1921 (not necessarily gospel) ... Leonard Sullivan Oklahoma County Assessor Real Property Detail Sheet ... here's one of two assessor photos ...



It would be very interesting to know how many bungalows Aurelius-Swanson constructed here. Oklahoma City got a horde of bungalows in the 1910s-1930s ... might call it bungalow city. Has your research given you a basis to know whether Okc was typical in that respect?