When did 가까이 become a noun?

ANSWER: I'm guessing sometime between 1992 and 2017.

In my 1992 edition of "Donga's New Korean-Korean Dictionary" (동아 새國語辭典), 가까이 is listed only as an adverb. But recently, while I was looking at a preview of Nam Yeong-shin's 2017 book 보리 국어 바로쓰기 사전, I noticed that he listed it as both an adverb and a noun.

Here are the two example sentences Mr. Nam gave for the use of 가까이 as a noun:

문 가까이에 물건을 두지마라.
"Don't put things close to the door."

개가 아이 가까이에 오지 않도록 해라.
"Don't let the dog get close to the child."

The Korean particle 에 attaches to nouns and pronouns and means "to," "in," "on," or "at," so since the example sentences show 에 attached to 가까이, that means 가까이 is being used in the sentences as a noun. It also suggests that the use of 가까이 as a noun was accepted in Korean society sometime between the publication of my 1992 dictionary and that of Mr. Nam's 2017 book.

Anyway, I am curious to know if Koreans think it sounds better to use 가까이 as an adverb or as a noun. In other words, which of the following sentences sound better? The As or the Bs?

A: 문에 가까이 물건을 두지마라.
B: 문 가까이에 물건을 두지마라.

A: 개가 아이한테 가까이 오지 않도록 해라.
B: 개가 아이 가까이에 오지 않도록 해라.

The following is a page from Nam Yeong-sin's (남영신) 2017 book 보리 국어 바로쓰기 사전, where he listed 가까이 as both and adverb and a noun.