Back in 2013, not long after I had started geocaching, I solved a geocache that brought me to a spot very near this location (GC1ANE1). While the cache had nothing to do with this site, I was still intrigued by the location. What was this huge house doing here? Whose was it? Why were the streets around it obviously designed to accomodate the house? I went home and looked at a map and realized that I had heard of this place before.
The Dr. John R. Drish House, also known simply as the Drish House, is a historic plantation house. It is considered by state preservationists to be one of the most distinctive mixes of the Greek Revival and Italianate styles in Alabama. First recorded by the Historic American Buildings Survey in 1934, it was added to the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on July 31, 1975, and subsequently to the state's "Places in Peril" listing in 2006. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2015.
The large stuccoed brick mansion was built at the center of a 450-acre plantation on what was then the southern edge of town for Dr. John R. Drish in 1837. Drish, a native of Virginia, was among the earliest settlers of Tuscaloosa, arriving there in 1822. A widower himself, he married a wealthy widow, Sarah Owen McKinney, in 1835. By that time he had a successful physician's practice and worked as a building contractor, with many skilled slave artisans. These slaves executed much of the early plasterwork in Tuscaloosa.
Built for Drish by his slave artisans, the first early incarnation of the house is usually credited to the influence of state architect William Nichols. The exterior of the house, as completed in 1837, featured full width, monumental Doric porticoes to the front and rear, with two-story pilasters dividing each bay on all four sides.
The house was extensively remodeled in the Italianate-style prior to the American Civil War, with a three-story brick tower being added, the front columns changed to the Ionic order, brackets being added to the eaves and overhangs, and two-story cast iron side porches to each side. John Drish died in 1867, reportedly from a fall down a stairway, and Sarah Drish died in 1884.
The Drish House in 1905
The occasion of John Drish's death initiated a well-known ghost story, popularized by Kathryn Tucker Windham in her 1969 book 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey, which I had read as a child. This, of course, was the reason I had heard of the house. In addition, when I was in college, a popular national radio show sent a team down at Halloween to "investigate" the house and see if any ghosts lit up the tower. (See my night cache about this legend: https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC516VT_13-alabama-ghosts-death-lights-in-the-tower?guid=1838959c-2004-4707-961e-32ab4c0966b7)
The mansion changed hands several times after the death of Sarah Drish; while it was still a residence the surrounding property was sold and subdivided to create Tuscaloosa's first major expansion. The structure eventually came to be owned by the Tuscaloosa Board of Education, who opened the Jemison School in the house in 1906. The house continued to be used as a school until 1925, after which it was purchased for use as a parts warehouse for Charles Turner's Tuscaloosa Wrecking Company. It was during its use as a parts warehouse that Walker Evans took his famous photograph of it in 1936, displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Tuscaloosa Wrecking Company, 1936
In 1940, it was purchased by the Southside Baptist Church, which added a sanctuary abutting the house on one side and a detached Sunday school building on the other. The church retained it for the rest of the 20th century. It was eventually threatened by proposed demolition in 1994, but was leased to the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County instead by former church members when the church became defunct in 1995. The house was in a state of disrepair by 2006, when it was added to the "Places in Peril" listing by the Alabama Historical Commission and Alabama Trust For Historic Preservation. It was deeded to the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society in July 2007, and the group made efforts to stabilize the structure. They had the church additions demolished in 2009.
The Drish House, as it appeared in 2008
In 2014, Nika McCool bought the house from the Tuscaloosa County Preservation Society, with plans to renovate the property and use it to host events. She also successfully petitioned to have the house added to the National Register of Historic Places. Repairs were made to the roof, stucco and masonry. The woodwork and windows were replaced, and more than 100 gallons of paint were used. Then work began on restoring the interior. Repairs are ongoing even now, with the first wedding event in the house scheduled to be held on May 14, 2016.
The Drish House today
You must answer each question to solve the coordinates for the puzzle.
Coordinates are in the form N 33° 11.ABC W 087° 33.DEF
A - ADD one to the final digit in the year the house was completed.
B - ADD together the digits in the number of acres that the original plantation covered.
C - ADD the total number of columns surrounding the house (front and back), MINUS the first digit in the number of gallons of paint used to refurbish the exterior of the house in 2014.
D - The first digit in the number of years that Sarah Drish lived in the house after her husband's death.
E - The fourth digit in the year that the house was completed, PLUS the number of lanes of traffic that encircle the house.
F - The number of different owners of the Drish house referenced in the story. (Do not count the Heritage Commission, as they only leased the property, or Sarah Drish, as she was never the property owner)
You can check your answers for this puzzle on GeoChecker.com.