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A good rock house may last forever. Here's one in Searcy Arkansas.

I had this photo loaned to me. It shows three handsome guys standing in the front entry to this unique rock and brick house. You have to look at the rock and brick carefully and try to figure out how it was done. Did they cut the rock to fit around the brick? It must be hard to cut a rock. Searcy Arkansas and White County has a multitude of this style house. The rock mason must have been very popular.

But I ramble.....I didn't know where the house was that was behind the three handsome guys. Today I found it! So you can see how it is still the same! Now we just need to know who the three handsome guys are and whether they are still standing! Searcy readers may be able to tell "the rest of the story."

Young men in Searcy AR Rock house in Searcy AR

Posted by Barbara S. Duncan ABR, CRS, GRI, e-PRO Searcy AR on 06/06/2009 04:54 PM

Comments (29)

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29 Comments on A good rock house may last forever. Here's one in Searcy Arkansas.

JUN

I love rock homes. I almost bought one once in Covina, just because it seems like a fairytale home. This home is in amazingly good condition from the photo. And it's a good thing the present owners did away with all that brush and vegetation that was hiding the beauty of the home.

Barbara - I have no clue but I love it. I love the style, as long as it is the old school style. That's something that technology probably will never replace.

Elizabeth, it's hard not to like a rock home. Thank for the comment!!

Sardi, old school style? I'm not familiar with that . Please tell me what it is.

Barbara,

Nothing like a good solid construction. It would be interesting to know about the fellas in the picture. :)

Steve

Barbara,

That is one where the new photo sure makes it look attractive compared to the old one.

I believe that the house on West Race belonged to either the Fuller's or the Sullivan's. The lot probably have backed up to my grandparent's place on N. Sowell. Harold Gene can probably shed more light on the old picture because my guess is that is Harold Gene in the middle.

JUN

Wow, not a lot has changed over the years has it...

Your building consultant for life in Nashville, TN

Hi Barbara,

I have always liked stone houses as well. I haven't seen too many around these parts.

Steve, perhaps the fellas in the picture will surface on this blog!

Steve, the old art person in me has a major criticism with the house. I wish the pitch of the entry was the same as the pitch of the roof. Don't you think it would improve the looks of the house?

SHS 51, thanks for the possible info about the house. It doesn't back up to Sowell Street. I believe Fullers had a house a little further down the street. I may have to do a shot of it too.

Michael, styles change but a good house can last forever. Check all those castles in Europe!!

Tony, some people here covered their original frame houses with rock or stone.

Mrs Barbara,

Nice house but that would not confine the steam coming from the boss and Wheatloaf. They are so steamed. They wrote a blog post at your request and you ignored it.

I would recognize Don Thompson anywhere: boy on the left looking at the picture. I think on the right is Jimmy Sims (now Dr. James Sims, psychiatrist) and I'm thinking Cotton Fuller in the middle as I think it's the Fuller's house (no relation to me). If not then it's Harold Gene Sullivan and the Sullivan's house, as '5l guessed. Who took the picture?

Anita Fuller

When Harold wakes up in Issiquah, WA, he will have more to say about the rock house that belonged to his family in the 40s - 70s. That's me, Harold, and Jimmy Sims in the photo taken in the Summer of 1949 or 1950. I lived 2 doors down from Harold at that time. We're all alive and kicking.

Here's a blow up of us.

Don, Harold, Jimmy Left to Right

Nutsy,

I have hustled on over to the boss's blog and flagged that dude for a feature. It is a great explanation of the difference in pop and rock! He might get the big head if you tell him this so keep it secret, just between you and me, but he's a very skilled writer and is a true asset to this activerain blog site.

Godmoma Ms Barbara

Anita, thanks for id-ing the boys. It is not the old Fuller house, which is down the street and also rock. I'll have to snap a photo of it.

Don, thanks for telling us positively for sure who is in the picture and which house it was. You're a wealth of knowledge. Thanks, too, for sharing the picture.

Mrs Barbara,

I believe that Wheatloaf wrote it and agreed to let the boss put his name to it for a bag of peanuts.

Nutsy

Barbara, Jim and Lula Selvidge's home was on Sowell St where Vine St takes a jog to the north. The lot extended west by 150- 200 ft or more. Some of the properties on Race St. near the rock house backed up to their lot. The fence lines are still visable on Google Satellite. (The Selvidges also owned land further north on Sowell that extended all the way back to what is now Ella Street. That ground is now part of the Duncan "farm".) But I digress, let's pick on Harold Gene. Bob Collins

NUTSY!!! YOUR ARE FIBBIN' AGAIN!! I know your boss did it!

Bob, I'll have to drive by again and see how things look over there. You might capture a picture like Don did from GoogleEarth and stick it on this blog.

I guess between Anita and Don things have been identified about our old house. I do have a picture which shows what it looked like before it was rocked in the early '40s. I've sent it to Don and asked him to upload it to this blog. It is amazing what a rock facade does to an old place. But this original house is still under the rock. The original house was built in the early '30s and we bought it in 1940. It is on the sight of an old college, hence, College Street that dead-ends at our garage. Dad added the garage, breezeway and porches to the house. We owned over an entire city block at one time, with hogs, chickens and cow on it, but gradually sold it off as Dad needed the money. He got the big sum of $200 to $500 a lot.

Harold Gene, we'd love a picture of it before the rock. What was the college that was there? I never knew there was a college on the West side of Searcy. I had this house for sale in 1995 and it sold for $47,500. That was a pretty good sales price at the time. My memory is not good enough to have those figures at my finger-tips. I had to go into my records to find it. A new house had been built beside it and I sold it also. The seller was a combo plumber/electrician so I'll bet he'd put it in excellent condition.

Here's the Sullivan family home before the rock work.

Dad-Mom-Aunt Ruth-Uncle Glenn-Aunt Iris-Gene-Gene-Darlene at Searcy

That must be Harold bottom left.

Harold and Don, what a fantastic picture. I'd never guess it was the same house. They must have either removed the porch or enclosed it to make the house bigger. There was rock already under the porch, I see here. And the kids are fantastic. How many knobby kneed kids do you see today that are as skinny as a weed and can run faster than the wind? How times have changed. Thanks for this contribution to the blog!!

No, Don, wrong guess. I am the really good looking guy in the center of the botton row. That is my dad on the far right and my mom just behind me.

Barbara, the front porch was removed and the stoop added. As I mentioned the other day, dad hauled all the rock for the house using his Pepsi truck, doing it at night and weekends. I wish I could remember the name of the people who bought the house but he was a plumber and put a lot of work into the house. When he bought it from us it was in really bad shape as my dad had been widowed for several years and took no interest in keeping things up. I understood the fellow that bought it had done a very good job of fixing things. The college was called Searcy College. It is talked about book that the Harding professor wrote about Searcy and, also, on the White County Historical Society website. Here is the web address, http://www.whitecountyar.org/searcycollege.htm

Bob, I remember the Selvidges well, their property backed up to ours and on a few occasions we shared "hog killing" with them. We owened the block bounded by Race, Olive, Vine and College, if that street had gone through plus the lot our house was on all the way back to Vine.

Harold Gene, the man I sold it for was Bradley. Does that ring a bell. He was a plumber and he may have had it for many years. I need to go check out the Searcy College. I thought all colleges had been in the Harding U area. How interesting this blog has turned out to be! Thanks.

Harold Gene, I copied the college from the website. Here it is. I would never have dreamed this huge building once occupied that space.

Searcy College

In the fall of 1891, the properties of the Searcy College on the corner of Pine and Center Streets were sold and the school was relocated at the west end of Race Street, now the twelve hundred block. The main building of the new college was four stories in height and finished in pressed brick. At the first graduation exercise in the lew location there were eighteen graduates, only two of whom were males. Academics were not always on the boy's minds. Not long after Searcy College settled on the new campus, they received approval of the following "official cheer:"
      Hors, hors,
      Gorunk, gorunk, gorn
      Ha, Ho. hi. he!
      Rah! Rah! Searcy!

Several modifications were made in the two buildings to facilitate the transition of the school from a predominantly female to an all-male school with emphasis on military training and discipline. A new system of electric lights arid a new waterworks were added in 1900 as well as cannon to give it a fortIfied appearance. But tragedy struck the Institute twice within a year in the form of fire. The dormitory was burned to the ground and students were forced to board in private homes. The following year a fire destroyed the classroom building and students were left without a place to continue their studies. Since the benefactors of the school were the claimants to the insurance policies, they refused to allow the moneys to be used to rebuild the buildings. The city of Searcy brought suit for the insurance, but since attorney Stephen Brundidge, Jr.. was unable to locate the papers which allegedly obligated the Speers and Langford families to perpetuate the school in such eventualities, the suit was lost and the Institute ceased altogether.

JUN

I know of only one Rock sided home in my market area. The rock was collect from a local stream bank and hand placed and mortared by the owner. It is very unique as is your photo.

Mary, that was one hard house to build! Not many rock houses are being built here anymore either.

JUN

Harold my guess was based on A.J. being in the picture. Apparently, he was absent. Do I remember your saying that some of the house building materials came from remnants of the torn down college?

It is mind boggling that that magnificent structure once stood in the location of your homestead.

I remember being on that back screened in porch drinking a Pepsi fresh from the Frigidaire (don't care what the brand, they were all Frigidaires). I doubt there were many homes in Searcy stocked with soft drinks at that time.

JUN

Sorry for no response but have been on a trip for the past week plus. Yes, Bradley was the name of the fellow that bough the house from my dad in about 1987 for around $25,000. But he really put a lot into it. Elmer Dale Yancey was the agent we sold it through.

Harold Gene, Mr. Bradley also built another house beside this one. I had them both listed and got them sold. He was talented in that he could do plumbing and electrical. The only other person I remember having the double license was Cotton Fuller's dad.

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