Wallingford Road, north side

Set on the north side of Wallingford Road, the John Farnham House is located in a rural residential area surrounded by open fields and woodland. Durham Hill, a school for the mentally handicapped, is located on a hill directly to the north of the property.

• Record ID: 187
• Address: Wallingford Road, north side
• Current Owner: Grozinsky, Tolius
• Name of Building:
• Historic Name: John Farnham House
• Download PDF of Original Record

Notable Features

The John Farnham House is a I! story, two bay, late-nineteenth-century domestic style building erected in 1877. Supported by a sandstone foundation, the clapboarded balloon frame is topped with a wood-shingled, intersecting gable roof. Similar to other late nineteenth-century rural farmhouses in the area, this house displays little decorative detail. A shed-roofed addition with a modern entrance door has been added to the facade of the eastern ell. Other additions include a single story, gable-roofed ell added to the northern elevation. Window sizes vary throughout the house: one-over-one on the facade, two-over-two and six-over-one on the remaining elevations. A flush wall dormer interrupts the roofline of the western elevation. There are a number of wooded outbuildings on the property including three large chicken coops and two gable-roofed barns.

Historical or Architectural Importance

John Farnham built this house on a ten-acre lot he purchased from his father-in-law, David P. Reed. Farnham, married to Lillie Reed in 1871, was a native of North Haven
and a farmer. In 1885, the property was sold to Martin Fredericks and his wife Agnes. Poultry farmer John Asman purchased the farm in 1901 and it remained in the family until 1933. Today the farm is still used for poultry farming.
The John Farnham House is significant as one of the few remaining active poultry farms in Durham.