Cleveland Street District

Cleveland Street, at the east edge of downtown Durham, preserves a group of frame houses built between the 1880s and 1910s. It is a remnant of the city's most fashionable late-nineteenth-century neighborhood, which grew with the success of the local tobacco industry and was largely cleared in the 1960s and 1970s. Families that helped pioneer Durham sold lots to industrialists, financiers, merchants and professionals, who built Queen Anne and classically inspired houses. The district also includes the 1891 Shingle Style house that architect Samuel Linton Leary designed for himself, regarded as the best example of that style in Durham. Other notable buildings include the Howerton-Masser House, the Markham House with its Corinthian porch columns, and the foursquare houses built by A. A. Murdoch. Tree-shaded streets, uniform setbacks and low retaining walls give the street a cohesive look. Many houses are now apartments, and some have deteriorated, but most keep their original details.