Shirley Place

Shirley Place, located at 512 North Main Avenue in Northport is a historic house and now a city-owned museum. The house was built in 1837 and was most recently occupied by historian Marvin Harper.

The small Federal or Greek Revival styled house was constructed for James Shirley, Northport's town surveyor. The exterior is hand-pressed brick with painted wood trim. The front porch is a classical pe The house passed to his sister's family, after which it became known as the Shirley-Christian Home. Harper, the great nephew of James Shirley, purchased it in the early 1980s from his mother, Mattie Shirley Harper.

As one of the contributing structures to the Northport Historic District the property appears in the National Register of Historic Places. It is decorated for the city's annual "Dickens Downtown" festival.

Harper sold the house to the city in 1997 with the provision that he be allowed to stay in the house for the remainder of his life and that a trust be established for upkeep of the property. He often opened the home up for tours led by the Friends of Historic Northport and amassed a sizable archive of materials relating to the area's history.

After Harper's death in 2009 control of the property fell to the city's Shirley Place Advisory Board, which will proceed with plans already developed to expand the rear carriage house into a learning center. Evans Fitts has drawn up schematic plans for the renovations.

References

• Cobb, Mark Hughes (May 4, 2009) "History lives on at Northport's Shirley Place." Tuscaloosa News