Architecture

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Entry Category: Architecture

James E. M. Barkman House

The James E. M. Barkman House, constructed in Arkadelphia (Clark County) in about 1860, is an example of a transitional Greek and Gothic Revival–style house. Added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1974, the building is now owned by Henderson State University. James Barkman was the son of Jacob Barkman and Rebecca Davis Barkman, who settled along the Caddo River in 1811. One of the earliest settlers in what became Clark County, Jacob Barkman owned a variety of businesses and worked as a planter. James Barkman was born in 1819 and followed his father into farming. The younger Barkman was successful and quickly accumulated wealth. In the 1860 census, the family of James Barkman included his wife, Harriet; …

James Phillip Smith House

The house at 510 West Sevier Street in Benton (Saline County) was built for the family of businessman James Phillip Smith circa 1885. Like the Gann House on South Market Street, the Smith House was built in the Queen Anne style. However, the Smith house has a two-story symmetrical front façade with a wood-frame structure; ornamental siding elements; double-hung windows; and a gabled, asphalt shingle–clad roof. The Smith family lived in the home until 1943. The Smith House was purchased by Joe Tollet in 2017, who, along with Brandon Sutton, began a complete restoration of the house. The Smith House was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on December 5, 2018. James Phillip Smith was born in DeKalb …

Jess Norman Post 166 American Legion Hut

The Jess Norman Post 166 American Legion Hut, the best example in Augusta (Woodruff County) of a vernacular log meeting hall, was constructed in 1934 through local efforts with the assistance of the Depression-era Civil Works Administration (CWA). The post was named for Jess Norman, the first man from Augusta to be killed during World War I. The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 14, 2001. On January 5, 1933, the Augusta Advocate announced that the Jess Norman Post planned to construct a hut on the banks of the White River for “a minimum amount of money” and with “all labor…contributed by the Legionnaires.” The Legionnaires planned a boxing match as a fundraising event. …

Joe Marsh and Maxine Clark House

aka: Joe Marsh Clark House
The Joe Marsh and Maxine Clark House in Fayetteville (Washington County), often referred to as the Joe Marsh Clark House, is located along the northern side of Rockwood Trail on the eastern slope of Mount Sequoyah. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 2020. The Joe Marsh Clark House was designed and constructed by acclaimed Arkansas architect Fay Jones between 1959 and 1961 for Joseph Marsh Clark and Maxine Clark, a couple who had retired to Fayetteville. Joe Marsh Clark, a geologist, and wife Maxine Bradford Clark, a botanist, were both charter members of the Ozark Society with Dr. Neil Compton. They also were both the long-time editors of the award-wining Ozark Society Bulletin. …

John F. Weinmann House

Located in the Central High School Neighborhood Historic District in Little Rock (Pulaski County), the John F. Weinmann House was built in 1917. The house was designed in the Tudor Revival style with Craftsman influences. It expands the boundary of the Central High School Neighborhood Historic District, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996. The district was amended in 1997 and 2004 to include contiguous historic development on the east side of the present district, which comprised the Wright Avenue Neighborhood Association. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 4, 2012, as part of the second boundary increase of the Central High district. The 160-acre parcel of land on …

John G. Williams House No. 2

The John G. Williams House No. 2 in Fayetteville (Washington County) is located on the east side of North Sang Avenue, near its intersection with West Markham Road. The house was constructed between 1969 and 1970, and was designed by John G. Williams, founder of the Fay Jones School of Architecture at the University of Arkansas (UA) in Fayetteville. It was designed in the Organic style of Mid-Century Modern architecture, following the ideas of Frank Lloyd Wright. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 13, 2020. The ideal location for Williams to design a new home for his family presented itself in 1967 when Evangeline Pratt-Waterman-Archer hired him to design a residential subdivision on a …

John Wilson Martin House

aka: Bradley County Historical Museum
The John Wilson Martin House in Warren (Bradley County), the oldest surviving residence in the town, was the home of a notable Civil War doctor. Now housing the Bradley County Historical Museum, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 27, 1990. John Wilson Martin was born on June 8, 1819, in Harrison County, Virginia, and went to New Orleans, Louisiana, around 1843 to attend lectures at Tulane University. He was settled in Warren by 1848, when he married Mary Elizabeth Franklin and established what became a flourishing medical practice. It was said that Martin would ride by “horseback all day to reach the frequently remote residences” of the sick. Martin’s medical practice was especially active, …

Johnson County Courthouse

The Johnson County Courthouse, built in the 1930s, is located on the corner of Fulton and Main streets in downtown Clarksville (Johnson County). The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program recognizes the three-story building as architecturally and historically significant as a courthouse built in the Depression era and for its impressive elegance. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 14, 1991. In 1934, the Great Depression had its grip on the United States, and northwestern Arkansas was not immune. The wave of public works construction brought about by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal provided jobs for many Americans, with new federal appropriations bringing wages and stabilizing unemployment. The people of Johnson County took advantage …

Johnswood

Johnswood, located at 10314 Cantrell Road in Little Rock (Pulaski County), was built in 1941 as the home of poet John Gould Fletcher and his wife, writer Charlie May Simon. Designed by architect Maximilian F. Mayer, Johnswood was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 20, 1994. John Gould Fletcher and Charlie May Simon were married on January 18, 1936, and five years later hired their friend, architect Max Mayer, to design a house for them on wooded property they owned eight miles from downtown Little Rock and, at the time, well outside of the city limits. Simon later wrote of Mayer that “because he was also a dear friend, I’m sure he took more pleasure watching …

Jones, Fay

aka: Euine Fay Jones
aka: E. Fay Jones
Fay Jones was an internationally known architect from Arkansas who won the American Institute of Architects’ highest honor, the AIA Gold Medal, in 1990. From his small studio in Fayetteville (Washington County), he practiced architecture from 1954 to 1998. He designed 218 projects, encompassing residential buildings, educational and commercial buildings, chapels, pavilions, and intricate metal structures. The most acclaimed of Jones’s buildings is Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs (Carroll County). Of the 218 projects for which records exist, 129 projects were built; eighty-four were built in Arkansas. Euine Fay Jones was born in Pine Bluff (Jefferson County) on January 31, 1921, to Euine Fay Jones and Candie Alston Jones. The family moved to El Dorado (Union County), where Jones grew …

Joseph Taylor Robinson House

aka: Foster-Robinson House
The Joseph Taylor Robinson House at 2122 Broadway in Little Rock (Pulaski County), a two-and-a-half-story Craftsman-style structure, was the home of a prominent Arkansas politician when he was at the top of his career. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 28, 1975, and designated a National Historic Landmark on October 12, 1994. The house at 2122 Broadway was built for Harry H. Foster and his family. Foster was born on March 15, 1857, in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. After finishing school, he entered the lumber business with his father, Edward Augustus Foster, before venturing into other opportunities on his own. Foster moved to Arkansas in 1901 to run the Wisconsin and Arkansas Lumber Company, based in …

June Sandidge House

The June Sandidge House is an English Revival–style home located in Gurdon (Clark County). Constructed in 1935, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places on February 25, 1993. Gurdon was founded in 1880 on the Cairo and Fulton Railroad. The town grew as more rail lines were constructed in the area and large-scale timber operations began. June Sandidge worked as a signalman on the railroad and resided in Gurdon with his wife, Beatrice Sandidge, and their six children. The family name also appears as Sandedge in some records. Originally from Missouri, the family resided in Illinois before moving to Arkansas. Sandidge purchased four lots in the Wright’s Park Addition in 1935 and began construction on the house …

Justin Matthews Jr. House

The Justin Matthews Jr. House, located at 257 Skyline Drive in North Little Rock (Pulaski County), is a two-story, stucco-clad residence sited on a prominent corner lot and designed around 1928 by architect Maximilian F. Mayer in the Spanish Colonial Revival style of architecture. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 18, 1990. Real estate developer Justin Matthews Sr. began building houses in what became the Park Hill neighborhood in the early 1920s as an alternative to Pulaski Heights (Pulaski County) but later in the decade started work in “Edgemont,” which would cater to wealthier buyers in the area, establishing lots along the curvilinear Skyline Drive (originally Crest Road). Matthews hired architect Max Mayer to …

Kahn-Jennings House

The Kahn-Jennings House at 5300 Sherwood Street in Little Rock (Pulaski County) was built in 1927 from a design by architect Maximillian F. Mayer that incorporates elements of the English Revival and French Eclectic styles of architectures. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 1992. Sidney L. Kahn Sr. was a former banker who, in 1919, formed a real estate business and began developing subdivisions in Little Rock. Prominent among those was the Prospect Terrace neighborhood in the Pulaski Heights Addition, and Kahn chose to build a large home for his family there on six lots between Sherwood and Edgewood. Kahn hired Mayer, an architect with an emerging Little Rock practice, in 1926 to …

Kays House

The historic residence of Victor Cicero (V. C.) Kays, who led the early development of what is now Arkansas State University (ASU), occupies a prominent rise along Aggie Road on the eastern side of the campus in Jonesboro (Craighead County). Kays was the first president of the First District State Agricultural School—which later became Arkansas State College, then Arkansas State University—from appointment in 1910 until retirement in 1943. In the later years of his presidency, around 1936, he and his wife, Bertie, began construction of a three-story residence near the edge of the campus. Kays hired Little Rock (Pulaski County) architect A. N. McAninch to design the house, which includes bedrooms on the top floor, living and dining spaces on …

Lafayette County Courthouse

The Lafayette County Courthouse is an early 1940s-era Art Deco building built with funds from the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It is known as the first Art Deco building in Lafayette County, though its style also heavily incorporates WPA Moderne. The Lafayette County Courthouse is located at 1 Courthouse Square in Lewisville (Lafayette County). The current Lafayette County Courthouse is the fourth courthouse to be built in Lewisville. Several years after the first courthouse was constructed, the railroad was built south of the town. The city of Lewisville began to build southward toward the railroad, and a second courthouse was constructed in the newer part of town in 1890. Fourteen years later, another courthouse was built to replace it. Finally, from …

Lake Village Post Office

The Lake Village Post Office at 206 South Cokley Street in Lake Village (Chicot County) is a one-story, brick-masonry structure designed in the Colonial Revival style of architecture. It features a mural financed through the U.S. Treasury Department’s Section of Painting and Sculpture (later renamed the Section of Fine Arts), a Depression-era stimulus project that promoted public art. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 14, 1998. In August 1937, Congress passed an appropriation bill providing a $23 million lump sum for construction of public buildings. Included in the allocation was $75,000 for a new post office for Lake Village, the seat of Chicot County. Though details of construction could not be located, the building …

Lakeport Plantation

The Lakeport Plantation house in Chicot County is Arkansas’s grandest remaining example of antebellum Greek Revival architecture. The plantation was established around 1831 by Joel Johnson, the scion of a large and influential Kentucky family. Johnson had sold his house and grist mill in Scott County, Kentucky, and set off for Chicot County. He purchased a tract of land southeast of Old River Lake (present-day Lake Chicot) just above a large oxbow curve in the river called American Bend. The plantation he developed there was named Lakeport after a nearby steamboat landing. For the next fifteen years, Johnson expanded his holdings in land and slaves and brought more land under cultivation. The soil produced abundantly, and slave-based plantation agriculture became …

Latimore Tourist Home

Located in Russellville (Pope County), the Latimore Tourist Home served African Americans from the 1940s until the 1970s as the only overnight accommodations available to them between Little Rock (Pulaski County) and Fort Smith (Sebastian County). Likely constructed around 1900, the house was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 27, 2012. First appearing on fire insurance maps in 1913, the home began accommodating African-American travelers sometime before 1944. Operated by Eugene Latimore and Cora Wilson Latimore and their daughter Anna, the home offered short-term accommodations for African Americans, many of whom worked on the railroad. Eugene Latimore also worked as a veterinarian. The home appeared in the 1949 Negro Motorist Green Book (usually called simply the …

Lawrence County Courthouse

The Lawrence County Courthouse is located in Walnut Ridge (Lawrence County), within the city’s commercial district on Main Street. The building, completed in 1966, stands as one of the newer county seats of justice in Arkansas, with its cohorts erected largely at the end of the nineteenth century or during the New Deal era of the 1930s. The Arkansas Historic Preservation Program considers this mid-century building in the New Formalism style as architecturally and historically significant to Lawrence County’s legal history. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 2015. In 1870, the Arkansas General Assembly split Lawrence County into two judicial districts to accommodate residents traveling long distances for county business. Legislators designated Walnut …

Lawyers’ Row Historic District

Lawyers’ Row Historic District is a group of four buildings located on West Second Street in Malvern (Hot Spring County). Sitting to the northeast of the Hot Spring County Courthouse, the buildings are similar to one another in design and construction. Lawyers’ Row Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 28, 2015, with three of the buildings listed as contributing structures. The district is located on the northeast side of West Second Street and runs between Locust Street and an unnamed alley parallel to Main Street. Cooper Funeral Home is located at 118 West Second Street at the corner with the alley. Constructed around 1910, the building was first occupied by an undertaker business. …