Travelin' Man

May 19-25, 2014

At home in the built environment  (III)

By W. Christopher Barrier

At home in the built environment  (III)Cammack Village did indeed start out as something unique---as late as the 1950’s, the presidential estate (a quarter mile on each side) was heavily wooded, and fenced, with a second fence producing a smaller field roughly in the middle, where the Cammack home was located, as well as a stable for at least one horse. A creek or two ran through what was known as “Cammack Woods.” On at least one edge of the Village, motorists have to traverse a piece of it to reach their Little Rock homes. And children cross and recross the City limits on the playground at Jefferson School.

Clearing the way for the Village streets and home sites apparently produced sufficient pine lumber to build the houses, which was processed through a drying kiln on the spot. The legend passed on by generations of grumbling home owners and house painters was that this process was completed too quickly, resulting in houses that still do not hold paint as they should over fifty years later. 

Still no answer …

I am still puzzled by the apparent connection between Cammack Village and Camp Robinson. The nearest connection by bridge would have been all of the way down town on both sides of the River and a fair amount of that path, again on both sides, would not have been paved. Maybe it was easier in a Jeep or a truck and maybe there were no good alternatives, but that still sounds like at least an hour’s journey each way. 

Nonetheless, since then, these little houses have given hundreds of home owners pallets upon which to apply their energy and imaginations. I would guess that well in excess of 80% of the houses in the original Village have been expanded significantly and many so dramatically as to make the original houses disappear behind brick, stucco and even wrought iron.

All of these phenomena are repeated in neighborhoods throughout our city and elsewhere and, if we will but pay a little attention as we hustle through our lives, and think about Mr. Newton, Mr. Cammack and White City, we will increase exponentially that sense of rootedness which is the treasured legacy of the southern home owner.

Chris Barrier is a real estate lawyer who has lived in the Heights, Cammack Village and Hillcrest virtually his entire life.