Members of Watkinsville’s Memorial Baptist Church could be deciding soon how they will handle the sale of an early 1800s house on their property, a pending sale that has captured the nervous attention of city officials, local historic preservationists, and former residents of the 4,000-square-foot structure on Second Street at Barnett Shoals Road.
Earlier this month, following a vote of the congregation, the Watkinsville church put the house up for sale on the Craigslist website, advertising it for either removal from church property or for demolition, noting the house could be an “architectural salvage goldmine.”
The Craigslist ad will run through Monday, Watkinsville Memorial Pastor Tommy Duke said late last week, and at some point after that, the congregation will consider whatever offers have been received on the house and settle on one of those offers.
Athens Banner-Herald coverage of the sale has produced a number of offers, according to Duke.
Before the house is either demolished or moved, though, the Watkinsville City Council will have to decide on the issuance of a permit for either activity. City officials reminded the church of the need for a permit after a city council member saw the Craigslist ad.
“If we could save it, we’d love to,” Duke said, noting the church does have some historical connection with the house, and acknowledging there is “some nostalgia” and “some great memories” connected with it, particularly for some longtime church mem
bers.
Watkinsville Memorial Baptist Church was organized in 1970 by some members of a preceding Baptist church who decided they wanted a ministry centered in the city rather than in rural Oconee County. The new church met in a Watkinsville school building for a time, and in January 1971, according to a history of the church written by local resident Clarence T. Dalton, the church purchased the house, and the four acres on which it sits, for $30,000.
Church services and other activities were held in the house for a time as a church building was constructed elsewhere on the site. In January 1973, the congregation moved into the church building, and the house eventually came to serve as a pastor’s residence.
According to Duke, the last time a pastor occupied the house was 2004, and the house has sat vacant since, falling into disrepair, with the most obvious structural problem being the two front porches which are rotting and collapsing.
“If we could save it, we’d love to,” Duke said, but he added that the church is “not in a position to restore” the house, an endeavor which he estimates would cost at least $200,000.
And even if the church were in a position to restore the house, Duke said, it wouldn’t serve the church’s current needs. Asked what might be done with the property when the future of the house is settled, Duke said the church might consider building a multi-purpose building, or might simply build a playground at the home site.
Acknowledging that he was speaking bluntly, Duke said the house “serves us best by not being there.”
While the official record of the beginnings of the house are somewhat murky, owing in part to a fire at the Oconee County Courthouse that consumed some real estate documents, various histories of the community indicate it was built sometime in the early to mid-1800s by a Thomas Booth, who built two similar houses in Watkinsville, one of them now a children’s clothing store at 35 N. Main Street.
The house has carried a couple of names during its history, once being known as the “Dr. Durham House” because it was patterned after a house built for a doctor in the Greene County community of Scull Shoals. References to the structure as the Osborn House (or, in some instances, the Osborne House) hark back to the late 1800s, when it was purchased by David Augustus Osborn, a native of England. (According to the “History of Oconee County, Ga.” compiled by Margaret Sommer, some members of the Osborn family, for reasons now lost to history, added an “e” to their last name.)
Sommers’ compiled history also includes an early reference to the Osborn House as being “among the attractive and well-appointed homes” in the community.
Among the local people with ties to the house is Oconee County resident Nancy Smith, the former Nancy Osborn, who lived there from her birth in 1945 until near the time she started first grade when her father, David Francis Osborn, a respected Watkinsville school superintendent who inherited the house from his father, David Augustus Osborn, moved the family to the west Georgia town of Hogansville.
Family photos from the time show Smith and her brother, Bill, playing around the house.
“Bill and I both were children in that grand old place. We also had many cousins who spent endless hours of fun there,” Smith has written in recent reminiscing about the house.
“Many tricycles and bicycles have careened down the wide walkway leading to the front steps of the house,” she wrote. “It had also served as a great place to draw ‘hop-scotch’ patterns to jump in, or play a game of marbles.”
“The house was truly a beautiful sight at Christmas,” Smith continued, “with garlands strung over the staircase and holly and cedar filling every room.”
Because the house isn’t listed on any local, state or national historic registry, there are no protections in place for it, meaning that the church can proceed with whatever plans it might have for the structure.
In last week’s interview, Duke hinted strongly that the church likely will opt to have the house moved, hopefully somewhere within the community, so that people, including church members, who have an attachment to it can continue to enjoy its presence.
“Our goal is to move the house,” Duke said, adding that he and his congregation, now numbering a few dozen people, are “really optimistic that God is going to work out something” to benefit both the church and the community.
