Fayetteville’s Travis House spruced up, now home to local attorneys

Greg Rogers and Mike Hofrichter wanted their law office to remain in the city of Fayetteville, preferably in a historic house.

They got their wish when they purchased the Travis House, located across from Fayetteville City Hall. The city hall is in a former school building, the first school being built on this site in 1855.

Eugene and Jessie Hightower Travis built the house circa 1893. They lived there with their daughter, Helen Travis Harrell, and a cousin, Elizabeth Stewart. Elizabeth’s parents, Mae Turnipseed and William J. Stewart, died and Gene and Jessie became Elizabeth’s guardians. “Cap” Gene (no one is quite sure how he acquired the nickname) was a merchant and worked with the Jackson store. It was located on North Jeff Davis, just a few feet north of Ga. Highway 54.

He also maintained a vegetable garden along with fruit trees. There were several Stewart pecan trees in the back yard, and in bumper crop years, they were taken to Stuckey’s on old Highway 41 to sell to tourists on their way to Florida.

His wife, Jessie, was a talented gardener, cook, artist, and seamstress. Her treadle sewing machine sat in the window of a front bedroom.

Elizabeth, again, was reared by Gene and Jessie, was in a group of girls, all of whom graduated from Fayette County High School. They include Emily Burch Scovill, Martha Redwine Rountree, Margaret Wise Daniels, Blanche Calloway Kelley and Jo Redwine Carmichael. Elizabeth’s journals and scrapbooks tell of the many house parties in their homes.

In 1941 she married a man from Senoia, J.D. Dukes, and lived there with him and their daughter, Beth Duke Black, until he died in 1948. At that time she returned to the Travis House.

Elizabeth taught school across the street in the building now Fayetteville City Hall. She was graduated from Georgia State College for Women.

Beth, who now lives in Raleigh, N.C., has many fond memories of growing up in the house with “Daddy Gene” and “Mama Jessie.” She remembers Janet McElroy Windham coming for sleepovers, the incredible openness of the house in the summertime, and Mama Jessie’s sponge cakes with cold boiled custards. Of sitting on the front porch and talking with neighbors as they passed by, of going “to town” with Daddy Gene and getting to buy penny soft peppermint sticks at the store owned by Ruby Crews Mize. It sat at the corner store at Stonewall and Hwy. 54, in the building the mural is located on.

She remembers the rotary telephone that sat on a stand in the hallway, and which she now has in her home. One of their neighbors was the Culpepper house, with peacocks kept in the backyard. “I was allowed,” she said, “to collect feathers. I also remember how the adults complained of the piercing screams the birds made.”

Mama Jessie’s water colors and oils hung over the mantles in the front foyer and parlor. She used the back porch to do the laundry, with tubs and the washboard at hand. She also boiled starch for her husband’s shirts.

She also had a love of gardening and raising flowers. Beth recalls the roses, irises, lilies, spirea, larkspur, primrose, and quince. Add to this the crepe myrtles, the wisteria, and the forsythia that grew annually.

Beth enjoyed playing on an old Cable piano that had belonged to her father. “I could not practice in the afternoons, though, as Daddy Gene and Mama Jessie were often napping.”

In the summertime, powder post beetles would leave residue in the hardwood floors, a situation readily taken care of by dropping turpentine on the tiny mounds.

Sunday mornings found everyone walking to Fayetteville Methodist Church. It was founded along with the Fayetteville Baptist Church in the late 1820s.

When the elder Travis’ became ill in the early 1960s, they moved to Florida to be with their daughter, Helen.

Elizabeth built a home on Georgia Avenue at this time, and the Travis House was locked up. She fretted about the deteriorating condition but because she was not the legal heir, she could do nothing but see that the yard was clean and the grass was cut. She died in 1996.

Just 11 years later, thanks to Rogers and Hofrichter, it is once again a grand place. They added as much in the back of the building as had been in the front, and all details were copied. Special woodworking and windows make it difficult to tell the added-on from the original.

“We cannot be more proud,” said Hofrichter, “of the time and efforts we put into renewing this historic structure. It is once again a proud addition to historic downtown Fayetteville.”

Added Beth Duke Black, who spent all her growing-up years in it, “this restoration bears a special tribute to my mother. It represents a rich tapestry of family and heritage. This is where my faith was first nurtured [she is now a hospital chaplain] and where my mother modeled courage and resolve. This was where my grandparents loved and protected me. It merits fine workmanship and the research that Bob Barnard has carried into this project.

“The attorneys now seem poised to pick up with the history of the home and the people who lived there. You can only imagine the sheer joy I felt walking into this beautifully restored home. The rooms still speak to me with myriad memories.”

The law office opened in May of this year. It recently added Heather Karrh to the firm, and Eric K. Maxwell has a law office in the rear.

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