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Our homes watch over the challenges and triumphs of our lives. Windows hold smudges from tiny hands. Silent walls see us make and repair mistakes with loved ones. If these

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Our homes watch over the challenges and triumphs of our lives. Windows hold smudges from tiny hands. Silent walls see us make and repair mistakes with loved ones. If these

Secrets in Stone

The stone cottages at Dorothea Dix Park

Our homes watch over the challenges and triumphs of our lives. Windows hold smudges from tiny hands. Silent walls see us make and repair mistakes with loved ones. If these walls could talk, we say. We know our walls keep secrets — not just ours, but those of prior residents, too.

In the case of three stone houses in Raleigh, perched high on Dix Hill with a view of downtown, it’s hard to say which walls hold the most secrets. For almost 160 years, the land was home to Dorothea Dix Hospital, site of the state’s first psychiatric hospital. For 89 of those years, these homes acted as silent sentinels of the property.

Black-and-white photo of the Dorothea Dix Hospital

The Dorothea Dix Hospital (circa 1910) faces the Raleigh skyline. Photography courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

“I think a lot about what these houses have seen over the years,” says Dorothea Dix Park’s executive director Kate Pearce, as she walks onto the porch of the Superintendent’s House. “For some of the patients, this was a place of torment — a place they were sent. Not everybody came here voluntarily.”

Pearce motions to a smaller stone house nearby. “When the Gatekeeper’s Cottage was built,” she says, “there was a lot of concern about people coming onto campus and passing through, gawking at patients and disturbing them.” Those days are long past. “Now, we’re able to flip the narrative to a place that welcomes all.”

• • •

When the Colonial Revival and Craftsman stone houses were built around 1923, architects strategically placed them around the property. There was a centrally located four-bedroom home with a majestic front porch for the superintendent and his family. There was a small cottage for the hospital’s gatekeeper. And there was a five-bedroom home with individual boarding house-style rooms for the physicians.

In the mid-’90s, when Raleigh’s Western Boulevard was extended through a portion of hospital property, the state moved the Physician’s House and the Gatekeeper’s Cottage to stand beside the Superintendent’s House. “These are three of the most beloved houses on the property,” Pearce says. “Together, we think of them as the gateway to the park.”

The Gatekeeper's Cottage at Dorothea Dix Park

Rebecca L. Withrow lived in the Gatekeeper’s Cottage with her parents, Diana and Glenn, while her Dad worked at Dorothea Dix Hospital. Rebecca serves others in the medical field now, too, as a mental health therapist. photograph by Charles Harris

Raleigh historian Ernest Dollar explains why the institution erected the homes almost 70 years after admitting its first patient: “During World War I, expansion of the hospital took a hiatus. But the Roaring ’20s was a very progressive era for North Carolina. We invested a lot in infrastructure, and were in this massive movement of self-improvement for society and our citizens.”

Part of that self-improvement involved building homes for the people who cared for North Carolinians experiencing mental health crises. They were meant to ease the burden of the caregivers, who spent their days working to ease the burdens of so many others.

• • •

Dorothea Dix, the New Englander who led a national movement in the mid-1800s to transform care for the mentally ill, advocated for North Carolina to fund a hospital for that purpose. The healing began at a location grounded in nature, on a hill, with a good view of the surrounding city and farms.

Black-and-white photo of the old Dorothea Dix Hospital

The campus was designed to provide patients with sunlight and access to the natural landscape. Photography courtesy of State Archives of North Carolina

Pearce says that throughout the park’s campus, buildings from the hospital days were designed with the patients in mind. “The architecture on campus reflects this philosophy of ‘moral medicine’ — giving patients access to natural light, fresh air, and outdoor spaces as therapeutic treatment,” Pearce says. “Even the original hospital was designed with narrow corridors so the rooms could have as much sunlight as possible.”

• • •

Rebecca L. Withrow, now a mental health therapist, was 6 when her father, Glenn Withrow, started a one-year position as a physician’s assistant at Dix Hospital. He moved the family — Rebecca; her three siblings; and her mom, Diana Barefoot — into the Gatekeeper’s Cottage. Rebecca and her 4-year-old brother shared bunk beds in their cozy bedroom just off the front porch. Pull-down stairs led up to the attic, a tiny space with windows overlooking Boylan Avenue. Diana called Dix Hospital’s maintenance department and asked them to make the stairs a little more permanent so the children could safely navigate upstairs. “We would go up with our art supplies and games and toys,” Withrow remembers. “It was our own little playroom.”

One night, Rebecca’s parents awoke the children and ushered them outside. “There was an ice storm, and everything was encased in ice. It was one of the most beautiful memories from my childhood,” she says.

Diana Barefoot, Rebecca L. Withrow, and Glenn Withrow on the porch of the stone house at Dorothea Dix Park

Diana Barefoot, Rebecca L. Withrow, and Glenn Withrow photograph by Charles Harris

Rebecca’s mom recalls spending hours on the front porch swing. “The grounds were really peaceful — like a park at the time, really gorgeous,” Diana says. “It was the best thing for people who needed a safe space.” From there, she could see her husband walking down for lunch each day, sometimes with a fellow employee and occasionally a patient.

“The patients picked pecans to sell,” Diana adds. Rebecca remembers her family picking them, too. “My dad would tie a rope around my brother’s cowboy boot and throw it up in the tree,” she says. “We’d pull on the rope, and when the pecans fell, we would run around and catch them, and then go back to the house to crack them open.”

• • •

Today, these newly renovated stone houses bear witness to Dorothea Dix Park’s mission to honor the hospital’s legacy of healing and wellness. Rather than serving as a residence, the Superintendent’s House is now the Park Conservancy’s office space. The Physician’s House is now used by community partners and an artist-in-residency program. The Gatekeeper’s Cottage is now the visitor center.

All three buildings extend a warm welcome — to everyone, just as Dorothea Dix wanted to offer healing to all who needed it. Outdoor classroom space on their interconnected front lawns gives a new generation of visitors a broader perspective of the land.

Dorothea Dix Park in Raleigh, NC

Today, Dorothea Dix Park offers an inviting green space where pop-ups and special events draw out members the nearby Raleigh community. Photography courtesy of VisitNC.com

“When we think about the history here, it’s easy to remember the hospital because that’s what you see,” says Pearce, who wants the park to tell this plot of land’s whole story. “It was also a Native American hunting ground. For 150 years, it was a plantation with an enslaved workforce. It was a Union Army encampment at the end of the Civil War. We’re mindful of the history of this place, and the layers of stories it holds.”

As a threshold to Dix Park, the walls of these now 100-year-old stone houses will witness younger visitors passing through their doors and peering out through their windowpanes. Ancestors of Dix residents may gather in the outdoor classroom space, where this ancient stone witnessed the lives of their loved ones. Here, all are welcome.

Stone Houses at Dorothea Dix Park
840 Umstead Drive
Raleigh, NC 27603
dixpark.org/stone-houses

This story was published on Oct 29, 2024

Robin Sutton Anders

Robin Sutton Anders is a writer based in Greensboro.