Gay House
|
|
This historic home, Victorian in style, was built in 1902 for William Blaylock and Anna Griffith Gay. The photo on the left shows WB and Anna at their house, in a photo that is dated 1912. The two story sleeping porch (on the right in the second photo) was added in the 1920s and the home remained in the Gay family until the mid 1970s. The original house sat on a total of 8.5 acres. The house is said to have been the first in Montgomery to have electricity, powered by an AC Delco generator in a shed behind the house. The house originally had three fireplaces, although only one is visible within the house today and only two chimneys are visible from without.
After WB Gay died in 1941, the house was turned into a duplex, which is how it came to have two front doors. After Anna Griffith Gay died in 1958, the house sat vacant for many years until the Stanley Miller family purchased the house in 1977. By that time, the house had been vandalized and many of the fixtures were missing - including the exterior and many of the interior doors. Stanley Miller replaced the missing doors by trading plywood with a farmer who had covered one side of his barn with old doors. This is how the house came to have such a wide variety of door styles - including some doors that are older than the house itself.
The house has subsequently passed into the hands of a new owner - only the third in over 120 years of its existence!
William Gay was the great, great-grandson of Zachariah Landrum who was one of the first to receive a land grant in Montgomery County and received his land grant in Austin's Second Colony on April 10, 1831 in what we now call the Lake Creek Settlement. William Blaylock and Anna Griffith Gay had two children - William Blaylock, Jr and Landrum Griffith and three grandchildren - William Blaylock III, Landrum Griffith, Jr, and Betty Ann.
After WB Gay died in 1941, the house was turned into a duplex, which is how it came to have two front doors. After Anna Griffith Gay died in 1958, the house sat vacant for many years until the Stanley Miller family purchased the house in 1977. By that time, the house had been vandalized and many of the fixtures were missing - including the exterior and many of the interior doors. Stanley Miller replaced the missing doors by trading plywood with a farmer who had covered one side of his barn with old doors. This is how the house came to have such a wide variety of door styles - including some doors that are older than the house itself.
The house has subsequently passed into the hands of a new owner - only the third in over 120 years of its existence!
William Gay was the great, great-grandson of Zachariah Landrum who was one of the first to receive a land grant in Montgomery County and received his land grant in Austin's Second Colony on April 10, 1831 in what we now call the Lake Creek Settlement. William Blaylock and Anna Griffith Gay had two children - William Blaylock, Jr and Landrum Griffith and three grandchildren - William Blaylock III, Landrum Griffith, Jr, and Betty Ann.
