DAVIDSON HOUSE: ‘Sugar shack’ soon to be vacated.

A committee of the Capitol Zoning District Commission learned Thursday night that the agency will be vacating its historic office on the Capitol grounds at 400 Battery Street to join other agencies in the Department of Heritage headquarters building.

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The CZDC, which oversees development in the historic Capitol and Governor’s Mansion neighborhoods, has occupied the Julian Bunn Davidson House, the last residential structure on the Capitol grounds, for two decades.

It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a representative of contemporary architecture of the 1950s. It was built by architect Julian Davidson for himself and his family. He was known for his commercial work. His firm’s credits included the Arkla and AP&L buildings in downtown Little Rock and the Majestic Hotel Lanai Towers. This was his only residential project. Full description here. It’s perched on a hillside, overlooking railroad tracks. Davidson was a train lover.

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The state acquired the house for agency use in 1966 but it became briefly notorious in the 1990s, thanks to then-Secretary of State Bill McCuen’s oversight of Capitol grounds.  The nomination of the house for the Historic Register explains:

McCuen, a Democrat, was a native of Fort Smith who went from a career as an elementary school teacher and principal to politics. In 1991, McCuen moved to the state-owned Davidson House and lived at the house rent-free for four years under a special provision by the Arkansas General Assembly for Capitol officials not from Little Rock.

 

During this time the house became colloquially knownas the “Sugar Shack” because of the alleged wild parties McCuen held at the residence.

McCuen left office at the end of 1994 and ultimately went to prison for financial misdeeds in office. He died of cancer.

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I must amend some of the Historic Register nomination. I’m reasonably sure that Mark Oswald of the Arkansas Gazette coined the “sugar shack” label for the house as he chronicled road trips McCuen took with attractive female friends while secretary of state. (Credit Oswald, too, for “Disco Dome,” his label for the gaudy blinking lights McCuen installed on the Capitol.) I once attempted to visit the McCuen crew at his house while I was a columnist for the Gazette, but no one answered the door. I could see an eyeball peering through a crack in a window shade. The encounter drew a John Deering cartoon depiction in the competing Arkansas Democrat.

All was forgiven the night in October 1991 when the Gazette went out of business. McCuen and his female friends provided a round of drinks for the newly unemployed members of the Gazette Capitol bureau and provided a tour of his bachelor pad.

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I liked this footnote in the National Register application:

It must also be said that McCuen was not alone in receiving free or reduced rent in the capital city of Little Rock, Arkansas. The state legislature frequently receives reduced rent during the legislative session. It must also be stated that the “Sugar Shack” was not alone in being a place of political deal-making or partying. At least one other location known as the “Chicken House” or shack predated the “Sugar Shack,” and was operated by the Arkansas Poultry Federation now known as the Poultry Federation following the “merger with organizations in Oklahoma and Missouri.” Yet, in this context, it must be stated that other locations existed around the Capitol Complex.

Indeed. And still.

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The space is now available. No word yet on who if anyone will occupy the house in the future or if it will be preserved. Its inclusion on the register does not prevent its demolition.