This house is the oldest known structure in the South University Neighborhood. It was built by a riverboat captain at it’s original location at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette Rivers, and moved to it’s present site in the 1920’s. The house was built with a “Widow’s Walk” roof to enable the captain’s wife to scan the river horizon for her husband’s boat returning from frequent trips to Portland.
Once moved to the SUN, this house became a parsonage for a short term. The minister then sold the house to a widow, Mrs. Burton, who raised her two children there. Mrs. Burton ran a dress shop from the workshop/garage. Her daughter, Mary Lou, later married George S. Turnbull, professor and Dean of the UO School of Journalism and they continued to live in the house making additions including the fireplace.
Other owners of this home include Veola Wilmot, a Eugene School District teacher, George Longfellow Eliot, a decorator, Mark Sponenburgh, a sculpture professor at the UO, and George Jette, a UO Professor of Landscape Architecture. Mr. Jette’s landscape designs landed photos of the house and gardens in a 1963 issue of Sunset magazine.