Savage-Bacon House, 1963

Description

This black-and-white photograph of the Savage-Bacon House, taken by an unknown photographer, measures 3.5 by 3.5 inches.

History

In 1982, the estate of Ida Brooks Kellam (1895 to 1981) donated a collection of 123 photographs to the Museum. This image of the Savage-Bacon House, located at 114 South Third Street in Wilmington, was among the collection.

The house was built in 1848 for Henry Russell Savage (1799 to 1861). Savage, who hailed from Connecticut, worked at the Bank of Cape Fear. From 1881 to 1891, the house was home to the Bacon family. Henry Bacon, Sr., (1822 to 1891) worked with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and was responsible for the creation of a dam, known as "The Rocks," that closed New Inlet

In 1909, Percy Reece Albright (1866 to 1936), vice-president of operations at the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, remodeled the house in the Neoclassical Revival style. The house is currently a bed and breakfast called the Rosehill Inn.

Henry Bacon, Jr., (1866 to 1924) a noted architect, was born in Watseka, Illinois, to Henry (1822 to 1891) and Elizabeth Kelton Bacon (1832 to 1912). The Bacon family moved to Wilmington in 1875. Bacon attended the University of Illinois and also studied in Europe. He met and married Laura Florence Calvert (1862 to 1945) in Turkey where her father was a diplomat.

In 1897, Bacon opened his own architecture firm, Brite and Bacon. The firm separated in 1902 and Bacon continued on his own. Although he is best known for designing the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Bacon also designed homes in Wilmington, and the monument to the soldiers of the Confederacy on Third Street. Bacon died in 1924 and is buried in Oakdale Cemetery with his parents.