Supporters Fight to Keep the Beat Alive at Levon Helm’s Boyhood Home

The Levon Helm Boyhood Home remains an attraction in Marvell even though it has not gained status as a National Historic Preservation site. (Steve Lewis)

Boosters of the boyhood home of Levon Helm still feel the sting from a third rejection to get the farmhouse listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

They are coming to terms with the fact that the rustic dwelling the famed musician once called home may never be deemed worthy by the Arkansas Historic Preservation Program and the National Park Service.

Ann Bryan, who led the NRHP nomination effort, and Barbie Washburn, head of the Levon Helm Memorial Project, now believe the third try was doomed from the start although they were led to believe otherwise.

Why did Scott Kaufman, director of the AHPP, encourage them to make the third try if his office was going to classify the house as ineligible?

“I think another try is in order,” Kaufman wrote in a Jan. 30, 2024, email to Bryan, a member of the state review committee for Historic Preservation. This came after the committee voted unanimously to nominate the house a third time on Dec. 6, 2023.

However, the national designation that would raise the status of the project and expand its financial resources wasn’t going to materialize. Before submitting even more detailed documentation to the National Park Service last year, the AHPP designated the house ineligible.

Bryan and Washburn were stunned to learn that at an Aug. 23 meeting with Kaufman and Ralph Wilcox, national register and survey coordinator for the AHPP.

Technically, the nomination wasn’t rejected by the National Park Service; it was “returned” because the AHPP didn’t recommend it. Without that endorsement, the 2024 nomination was dead before the paperwork was submitted.

The now seemingly insurmountable obstacle, which was an issue noted in the unsuccessful 2023 nomination: The house was moved from its original location in the countryside and now resides in an “urban park” setting in Marvell, population 755.

“You can list moved properties [on the National Historic Register], but the setting has to be similar to where it was,” Wilcox said. “I’ve tried to be upfront with them about the importance of that.”

Feedback from the National Park Service indicated that the house lost historic significance because of the move to town: “Were it in its original location, it may have been feasible to make a case that the boyhood home had a significant influence on Helm’s career.”

Regardless, the house stands as the best existing historical structure linked with Helm’s formative years and humble beginnings along with his Arkansas heritage, which colored his distinctive musical voice.

Remaining Residence

The relocation of the house to Marvell united important touchstones of Helm’s life. Mark Lavon “Levon” Helm (May 26, 1940-April 19, 2012) considered Marvell his hometown although his family lived outside its city limits.

Originally located 8 miles north of town in the Turkey Scratch community, the four-room dwelling known today as the Levon Helm Boyhood Home is where he lived during part of his early childhood.

Helm grew up in a musical family of six that included two sisters and a brother who lived in several rural homes in the Marvell area, but the Turkey Scratch house is the only known survivor.

The NRHP nomination describes his boyhood home as an elevated, small, cypress, single-story, pier-and-beam building with a corrugated sheet metal roof. Before making its way to Marvell in 2014, the house was moved nearly a decade earlier from Turkey Scratch by Richard Butler Jr. and Jeremy Carroll to save it from demolition.

Their intention to restore the house fell by the wayside, and it was given to the Marvell Civic Club, which has served as its caretaker and guardian for the past 10 years.

The house now sits in Marvell where Helm finished grade school and formed his first band, the Jungle Bush Beaters, before graduating from high school in 1958.

The town also hosted musical gatherings that inspired Helm as a youngster in the crowd to pursue a career making music and later served as a platform for him to take the stage to play and sing for an audience.

The Levon Helm Down Home Jubilee, a free annual fall event in Marvell, was launched in 2015 to raise money through sponsorships to help restore the Turkey Scratch house. In 2018, the house was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with a grand opening a year later.

“Everybody got to see the finished project although we’re working on it every single year,” said Barbie Washburn, president of the Marvell Civic Club. “It’s a never-ending project.”

In 2020, the club received the Bootstrap Award from Arkansas Tourism for its work on the Levon Helm Project. The annual award recognizes an individual, organization or community that has achieved success despite limited resources.

The next goal of the project is to create a visitor center and gift shop in a tenant-sharecropper house that was moved next door to the Helm house.

The Levon Helm Boyhood Home, which features artifacts and memorabilia associated with Helm’s journey to fame, is promoted as a stop on the Arkansas Delta Music Trail: Sounds From the Soil & Soul.

“One of our pillars in Arkansas tourism is music and culture,” said Shea Lewis, secretary for the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage & Tourism. “That includes highlighting key Arkansans who contributed to the American music scene.”