This Cam Davis-built house in Newberry is on the market for $399,000.
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One of the dozen or so homes built in Newberry in the late 1800s and early 1900s by renowned builder C.C. “Cam” Davis is on the market, one of several historic Davis houses that have been sold in the past few years.
Davis built many of the grand homes still standing in Newberry’s downtown.
“You were somebody if you had Cam Davis build your home,” said Angela Reid, the listing agent for the O.L. Schumpert House, a four-bedroom, three-bath home built in 1907 on Newberry’s Main Street. The house is listed for $399,000.
Schumpert, known as colonel for his service during the Civil War, built the house after a fire in 1907 destroyed one he owned on the site as well two others he owned nearby. The loss was valued at $4,000 by his insurance company.
Schumpert was a lawyer and served as solicitor for the then-7th Judicial Circuit from 1886 until 1894. His obituary describes him as one of the state’s best criminal lawyers. He died of “heart trouble” three years after the house was built at the age of 66.
The house has 3,400 square feet plus a 956-square-foot wrap-around front porch, a master suite on the first floor, an in-ground swimming pool and a secret garden.
Inside is where Davis’ signature work can be seen — dark woodwork, built-in cabinets and a grand staircase.
Reid said she has another Davis house under contract. Known as the Johnstone-Rutherford House, it was built on College Street in 1904. The asking price was $457,000.
It, too, features a wrap-around front porch, dark woodwork and floors and built-in china cabinets.
Reid said the house was sold by descendants of the original family about 20 years ago and restored.
The sales price in 1997 was $160,000, according to county property records.
The purchasing family moved to Newberry from Colorado, fleeing cold and snow, and now want to downsize, Reid said.
Asked how they ended up in Newberry, Reid said, “Somebody said something about Newberry, someone knew someone in Newberry. Newberry claims to be the center of the universe. Sort of like seven degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
Other Davis homes have been bought and refurbished in recent years, including his own home on Caldwell Street, which is now the Caldwell Street Historic District, according to the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
“Five of the eight residences in the district were built by contractor C. C. Davis, and are characterized by quality of design and workmanship,” the department says on its website. “Consistent quality of materials, design and construction of a wide range of architectural styles characterized Davis’s work, which included most of the major residential, ecclesiastical and public buildings constructed between 1884 and 1916 in Newberry.”
Davis died in 1916.
Davis built in a variety of styles: Victorian, Queen Anne, Tudor Revival, Gothic Revival and Neo-Classical.
The year Davis built his personal house is listed in official documents as 1884, 1892 and 1894.
It was originally weatherboard, but Davis’ son modified it as an English Tudor house in 1932 with half timbering and stucco and granite facings.
Inside is woodwork crafted from walnut, cherry and mahogany.
The four-bedroom house includes a 7-foot-long claw-foot tub to accommodate Davis’ height.
The Boozer-Cannon House on Caldwell Street was in such rough shape the wife of the man interested in buying it wouldn’t even go inside.
“It had a tree growing in the middle of it,” Reid said.
Built in 1884, the listing said, “This Victorian home clearly has elegant ‘bones,’ and is well worth preserving.”
The husband prevailed, and the couple restored the three-story, six-bedroom house. Each room has Davis details such as built-ins, moldings or fretwork. All the way up three flights of steps is a multicolored window.
“This piece of history is being sold AS IS to someone who will restore it,” Reid said in the listing.
Most of Davis’ homes are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A major piece of his work did not survive. He came to Newberry in 1884 from Hendersonville, North Carolina, to build the Newberry Cotton Mills, the largest mill in the city. Cotton brought prosperity to Newberry — and the opulent Davis homes. The mill closed in 1982 and was razed in the 1990s.
Davis also owned a lumber mill, next door to the textile mill.
Reid said it takes a special sort of love for old houses to buy one of them. She said ensuring that old houses survive is one reason she got into the real estate business 20 years ago. Each one has a story, like the house across the street from the Schumpert house. Folklore has it that the Martin house was saved from the 1907 fire because the owner got under the staircase and prayed the flames away.
“We’re saving history,” she said. “We need to get back to our roots and learn where we come from.”