Painting of 1902 house just perfect
As soon as Scotty Shepard saw the photo, he knew he’d found the perfect Christmas gift for his friends Paul Whannel and Brian O’Gary.
It was a photograph of a painting by Little Rock artist Glenda McCune that another friend had come across at Midtown Vintage Market. The oil painting depicted the “doll house,” a three-story Queen Ann Victorian built in 1902. It’s a well-known home with a unique history that originally stood just under a mile away from its current location on Spring Street.
“When I saw it I thought, I’ve got to get this painting for them,” Shepard says.
What made it such an ideal gift is that Whannel and O’Gary, who are married, live in the house.
Christmas came early, however, as Whannel spied the painting, which Shepard had already bought and which was supposed to be concealed, while at the market with Shepard earlier this month.
“All of a sudden I hear [expletive],” Shepard says, “and I thought, oh, he’s seen it and it blew my surprise.”
McCune taught art at Jacksonville High School for 37 years before retiring, and her work has been featured three times in the Arkansas Arts Center’s annual Delta Exhibition.
She always admired the structure and “20 years ago I went there with my easel and I drew it and I painted it” she says. She finished the piece from photos she took of the house, which is known as the Compton-Wood house and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.
The home was moved in 2000 from its spot at 800 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive by then-new owners Liz and Matthew Mentgen (Shepard actually saw the house being transported down Broadway). Arkansas Children’s Hospital owned the lot and wanted the property, but not the house, which was empty. Years before, the routing of Interstate 630 was altered to protect the home.
McCune saved the Oct. 9, 2000, Democrat-Gazette article about the moving of the house to Spring Street (written by former Paper Trails columnist Linda Sussman Haymes).
“I put it with the painting and, as the Lord is listening, about three months ago the spirit said, ‘Glenda, take this painting and have the article beside it and put it at Midtown Vintage,’” she says. “Sure enough, Scotty saw it.”
Whannel and O’Gary have lived in the house for about 2½ years.
“We fell in love with it when we were walking around the neighborhood,” Whannel says. “We didn’t know how beloved it was until we bought it and everybody came out of the woodwork and had a story about it.”
The painting “is currently pride of place in the living room,” Whannel says in a text. “Eventually the hallway will be a gallery of images of the house over the years, and it will hang at the end.”
email: sclancy@adgnewsroom.com