The Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood includes a handsome array of houses in an variety of styles typical of Durham's residential construction in the first half of the 20th century. Centered on tree-shaded West Club Boulevard, the neighborhood is anchored by the Durham Water Works on the west and the former Watts Hospital, now the NC School of Science and Math, on the east.
Watts Hospital's move in 1910 to a 25-acre tract at the intersection of Broad Street and West Club Blvd. invited the development of the surrounding area. George W. Watts, who had donated $50,000 for the establishment of a general hospital in 1895, donated another $500,000 for the new hospital, designed by Boston architect Bertand E. Taylor in the Spanish Mission style. The hospital was enlarged in 1926 with the Valinda Beale Watts Pavilion, designed by the local architectural firm of Atwood and Nash.
Around the hospital, homes sprang up for doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals who wanted to live near their workplace. Many of these early houses have the regular, boxey form and restrained decoration suggestive of the Colonial Revival style, with details like wrap-around porches with box posts. Meanwhile, growth was spurred by the extension of Durham's trolley system to the intersection of W. Club and Broad Street. The lake at the Durham Water Works, built in 1917; Hillandale Country Club's 18-hole golf course, opened in 1923; and Oval Park were popular amenities of the new streetcar suburb.
Contractors built dozens of bungalows throughout the neighborood in the 1920s and 1930s on W. Club Blvd and intersecting streets. Although no architect-designed houses have been identified in the neighborhhod, the popular stylishness and detailing of so many of the houses indicate that they probably used plans published in builders' guides and magazines such as Better Homes & Gardens.
By 1940, rhe rural atmosphere of the area had almost disappeared, and since World War II, West Club Blvd. has become a major vehicular thoroughfare. Watts Hospital closed in 1976 and was converted into the NC School of Science and Math. Despite the changes, many of the people who moved here in the 1920s and 1930s remained through most of the 20th century, making it one of Durham's most stable neighborhoods. A National Historic District since 1998, Watts Hospital-Hillandale is still popular with a new generation of Durham families. |
