I was invited to speak at the event unveiling a new historical plaque concerning the Conrad House and the door at the Joint Judicial Center on Friday (part of why the blog has been fairly quiet recently). The presentation will be printed in an upcoming version of the Journal. As usual, I took some questions from the audience at the end of my lecture. That's always a good way to see what I might have overlooked in my first pass through a topic. While I don't know if anyone at the presentation who asked questions will follow up with my blog, here are a few answers to their questions (and others).
Due to the more recent nature of many of the questions and heavy reliance on the Winchester Star, you may need to have your Handley Regional Library card barcode handy and create a free account at newspaperarchive.com to access the full articles linked here.
The Property Layout:
The property consisted of four lots in total originally: two faced Cameron Street, and two faced Kent Street, with property lines dividing it equally east-west and north-south. When the house was built, it was fairly common for larger homes in Winchester to span multiple lots (essentially they built as they pleased on the two acres they had available). The Kurtz Building lot, carved out later, is not in line today with the original lot configuration, being tighter to the building than the original lot size. The north-south line bisecting the property most likely is in line with the original lot configuration.
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| 1947 Sanborn Map, pre-demolition |
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| Current (2025) property line configuration |
The Conrad Family Descendants and Relatives:
From the direct line of Conrads who lived in the house, Bobbie Conrad, the last family member, did not have any children. However, as mentioned in the presentation, most of the early Conrad family generations consisted of multiple children (often around 7-9 surviving to adulthood). The progenitor of the line, Frederick Conrad, had a daughter who married into the Young family (hence "Young" recurring as a middle name multiple times). Daniel Conrad had at least two sons who continued the family line, including Robert Y. Conrad, who had nine children survive, including a daughter who had children with the Fauntleroy surname. Major Holmes had a daughter who married into the Smith family. Some other articles have indicated a marriage of a Conrad family daughter into the Hollis family, as well as relatives living in New York and Georgia. It's very possible branch line descendants are out there, but no longer under the Conrad surname!
Sale Prices:
The original sale of the two acres of the property to H.B. McCormac in 1928 was for $40,000 (about $733,000 in 2024 dollars), and it was purchased by the City of Winchester for $125,000 in 1959 (about $1,347,000 in 2024 dollars). The prices were reported by the Winchester Star on January 15, 1959.
Retail Merchants Associate Fund Match and Referendum:
Ben Belchic of the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society proposed a citizen referendum on whether the house should be torn down on December 11, 1962. The same article notes the City had no funds allocated at the time for demolition, so the Retail Merchants Association offer of $45,000 if the City would match those funds was likely extremely tempting. A letter to the editor on January 9, 1963, called for the Retail Merchants Association to offer that $45,000 to improve the deplorable and unsafe conditions of the sidewalks before razing the historic house, rather than further endanger shoppers by making them traverse a block to reach the stores.
Tenants in 1969:
The tenants in the six apartments in the Conrad House were given their 60-day notice of lease termination on February 24, 1969, meaning they had to vacate by May 1 of that year. The move was in preparation to begin the process of demolishing the building, though as we know it took about a year to actually see the walls come down. That article quotes a price of $648,000 (around $5,538,000 in 2024 dollars) to demolish the house, level the lot, and install a gate mechanism to create the parking complex.
The Exact Time of Death:
The Winchester Star reported the final wall of the Conrad House fell at 9:44 a.m. on April 28, 1970.
The Two Halves of the Parking Lot:
The lot, which was slated to open for use on July 1, 1970, was described as having "two parts." This refers broadly to the metered versus designated spaces lots, roughly the north-south division along the property line as mentioned in the presentation. The article in the Winchester Star on June 5, 1970, actually described the division as three types of parking: the Cameron Street side was "transient meter parking," intended for short stays, up to three hours per meter. The Boscawen Street side was intended as all-day parking, up to 10 hours on the meter. The final portion, on the Kent Street side adjacent to the bowling alley, was designated for monthly rented spaces. The final tally was expected to be 210 parking spaces.
While I had a good question about the Admiral Byrd House on Amherst, we will save that for a future investigation to give it more space. It is an interesting house that has (so far) not had a significant amount of historical coverage, likely because it was a relatively modern building (especially when compared to the Conrad House) at the time of its demolition.
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