This report was written on October 2, 1985

1. NAME AND LOCATION OF THE PROPERTY: The property known as the William Henry Belk House is located at 200 Hawthorne Lane, Charlotte, N.C.

2. NAME, ADDRESS, AND TELEPHONE NUMBER OF THE OWNER OF THE PROPERTY:

North Carolina Medical Commission
Department of Human Resources
Box 12206
Raleigh, N.C., 27605

Telephone Number: 704/371-4119

3. REPRESENTATIVE PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE PROPERTY: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. A MAP DEPICTING THE LOCATION OF THE PROPERTY: This report contains a map which depicts the location of the property.

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5. CURRENT DEED BOOK REFERENCE TO THE PROPERTY: The most recent deed to this property is recorded in Deed Book 127, Page 3. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 127-038-01.

6. A BRIEF HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE PROPERTY: This report contains a historical sketch of the property, prepared by Dr. William H. Huffman, Ph.D.

7. A BRIEF ARCHITECTURAL DESCRIPTION OF THE PROPERTY: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property, prepared by Mr. Thomas W. Hanchett.

8. DOCUMENTATION OF WHY AND IN WHAT WAYS THE PROPERTY MEETS THE CRITERIA FOR HISTORIC DESIGNATION SET FORTH IN N.C.G.S. 160A-399.4:

 

A. SPECIAL SIGNIFICANCE IN TERMS OF ITS HISTORY, ARCHITECTURE, AND/OR CULTURAL IMPORTANCE: The Commission judges that the property known as the William Henry Belk House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations 1) the house completed in late 1924 or early 1925, was the home of William Henry Belk, a merchant and philanthropist of local and regional importance; 2) the architect of the house was Charles Christian Hook, an architect of local and regional importance, who specialized in the Colonial Revival – Classical Revival tradition, of which this house is a striking examples and 3) the house is one of the few mansions which survives on Hawthorne Lane, which was once an elegant residential street in Elizabeth, one of Charlotte’s oldest suburbs.

B. INTEGRITY OF DESIGN, SETTING, WORKMANSHIP, MATERIALS, FEELING, AND/OR ASSOCIATION: The Commission contends that the architectural description included in this report demonstrates that the property known as the William Henry Belk House meets this criterion.

9. AD VALOREM TAX APPRAISAL: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes an all or any portion of the property which becomes “historic property.” The current appraised value of the William Henry Belk House is $118,790. The property is zoned 06.

DATE OF PREPARATION OF THIS REPORT: October 2, 1985

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
1225 S. Caldwell St, Box D
Charlotte, N.C., 28203

Telephone: 704/376-9115

 

Historical Overview  

by
Dr. William H. Huffman
September, 1984

Sitting these days in the mammoth shadow of Presbyterian Hospital and surrounded by acres of parking, the Belk mansion on Hawthorne Lane, which used to be one of the most prominent structures overlooking the city, is now hardly noticed. Built in 1924 by William Henry (1862-1952) and Mary Irwin Belk (d. 1968), it was designed by one of the city’s greatest architects, C. C. Hook.

William Henry Belk’s rise from a farm boy in South Carolina who lost his father in the Civil War to the head of one of the South’s leading retail chains has been chronicled in LeGette Blythe’s William H. R. Belk: Merchant of the South. ¹ As a youth, he worked for twelve years in the B. D. Heath store in Monroe until, with $750 in savings, he opened his own dry goods business in the same town in 1888. After three years of operation, he persuaded his brother, Dr. John M. Belk (1864-1928) to become a partner in the business. Their marketing strategies, which were somewhat unusual at the time, resulted in success: selling good merchandise at moderate prices, for cash only; treating all customers with equal respect; and a no-questions-asked return policy. ²

After a few years, the brothers Belk decided it was time to branch out into that booming city of fifteen thousand, Charlotte, and they opened their first store here on September 25, 1895 in a rented store building just off the Square on East Trade Street. Despite predictions of some locals that these country merchants would never make it in the big city, the Belk Bros. store enjoyed a steady growth parallel to that of the city itself. ³ From the 1880s to the end of the Twenties, Charlotte experienced practically uninterrupted, rapid expansion driven by the prospering textile industry in the New South and the city’s strategic location as a rail hub, banking and distribution center.

In 1905, the business was doing so well the brothers bought a three-story building on East Trade to consolidate the store under one roof instead of having it operate out of several storefronts. The refurbished building with its fancy new facade opened in 1910 to live music at a gala grand opening. Fifteen years later, even greater expansion was called for, and in 1925, an adjacent building, destroyed by fire, was bought for that purpose. The new store built on the combined properties was double the width of the original, and five stories high, cost a quarter of a million dollars, and opened for business in 1927. ⁴ At the time, it was not only the largest department store in the Carolinas, but was also the flagship of an ever-expanding chain of forty-two Belk stores. The nay-sayers were no longer heard from. By the time of Henry Belk’s death in 1952, there were hundreds of Belk stores throughout the South, and of course, the chain continues to expand to this day. ⁵

Because of his preoccupation with making sure the business was successful, Henry Belk did not marry until he was fifty-three years old. On a Western excursion, he met Queens College graduate Mary Irwin, who was the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. John R. Irwin of Charlotte. They were married on June 9, 1915, at the bride’s home on N. Tryon Street. ⁶

A major force in the Belk’s lives was the Presbyterian Church. In addition to being very active in the church itself, a number of Presbyterian-related institutions were the recipients of their philanthropy; these included the Belk Chapel at Queens College, and Belk Hall at Davidson College. Thus it was that they also made possible the move of Presbyterian Hospital from Mint and West Trade Street to the site of the defunct Elizabeth College. About a year after settling in a house on N. Tryon near the Irwins, the Belks bought ten acres of the twenty-five-acre property (their tract included the president’s residence) for fifty thousand dollars, and endorsed a note for the remaining money needed by the hospital for the move. The main college building, located at the top of Elizabeth Avenue on the site bounded by Hawthorne, Caswell, East Fourth and East Fifth Streets was converted to Presbyterian Hospital, and the Belks took up residence in the former president’s home with their baby, William Henry, Jr. The campus setting was surrounded by middle and upper middle-class houses of the Elizabeth neighborhood, which had been developed originally from the 1880s to 1915. ⁷

Sometime in the early Twenties, a banker friend, Bob Dunn, suggested to Henry Belk that he ought to build a house on his spacious Hawthorne Lane property that was more suited to the excellent location (and presumably also to his position in the community) and promised that he would lend the money for the new place. Taking Dunn up on his offer, Belk hired one of Charlotte’s best-known architects, C. C. Hook, to design a large new house. Charles Christian Hook (1864-1938) began practicing architecture in 1893 after three years of teaching in the public schools. At various times he was in partnership with others in the city (Frank Sawyer, 1902-1907; Willard Rogers, 1912-1916; and with his son, W. W. Hook, 1924-1938). Beginning with design work for the new suburb of Dilworth in the 1890s, Hook went on to produce many of the city’s important landmarks, which included the old Charlotte City Hall, the Charlotte Women’s Club, the J. B. Duke mansion on Hermitage Road, and the Belk’s Trade Street facade of 1927. Among his many state-wide credits are the west wing of the state capital in Raleigh, the Richmond County courthouse, Phillips Hall in Chapel Hill and the State Hospital in Morganton. ⁸

Hook’s plans for the house were done by early 1924, and in March of that year, the builder, Thies-Smith Realty, took out a building permit and estimated the cost of construction to be $75,000. ⁹ The old residence was moved to the back of the property and turned to front on Caswell Road. (For many years, the Belks rented it to others; it was demolished in recent years. ¹⁰ ) After its completion in late 1924 or early 1925, the Belks moved with baby Henry into their grand new home. It certainly was a residence befitting the commanding location overlooking the city, and the social station of its owners. The 2 1/2-story, 16-room mansion had a laundry, playroom (with shower) and vegetable storage in the basement; on the first floor, a large entry vestibule led to a double ascending staircase, and also contained a living room, reception room, playroom, dining room, kitchen and two bedrooms; in addition to five more bedrooms, the second floor had 3 baths, a sewing and linen room, a maid’s room and a sleeping porch; the attic was a large open area that could be used for a number of purposes. ¹¹

During the remainder of their lifetimes, the Belks raised their six children, William Henry, Jr., Henderson, Irwin, Sarah, Tom and John at the Hawthorne Lane residence, all of whom lived at home until Irwin was married in 1948. The house was from beginning considered Mary Belk’s province, while the store was his, as she told it,

 

Mr. Belk told me soon after we were married that he’d make me a proposition – he would turn the house over to me entirely and I should run it as I thought best if I would agree to let him run the store in the same way. ¹²

Even the deed to the property was solely in her name, although this was a common practice for Charlotte businessmen, so that the home would not be lost if there were disastrous business losses. The Belks were a close-knit family in which traditional values were stressed, and the home was its focal point for over forty years. It was also the site of many social, philanthropic, church-related and civic gatherings during that time. After Mary Belk’s death in 1968, the house was donated to Presbyterian Hospital according to terms of her will, and it is now used for offices and receptions. ¹³

The Belk mansion is not only one of the city’s largest fine homes designed by the skilled and versatile C. C. Hook, but it is also associated with one of the area’s best-known families. For these reasons, its preservation would maintain a noteworthy legacy of a now-gone era.

 

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NOTES

¹ LeGette Blythe, William Henry Belk: Merchant of the New South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1958).

² Ibid., p. 63 et passim.

³ Ibid.

⁴ Charlotte News, October 3, 1910, p. 4; Charlotte Observer, May 1, 1927, p. 11.

⁵ Blythe, pp. 257-263.

⁶ Ibid., p. 112.

⁷ Ibid., pp. 199-200.

⁸ Ibid., p. 200; Charlotte , Sept. 17, 1938, p. 1; copy of C. C. Hook’s drawings on file at Presbyterian Hospital.

⁹ Charlotte Building Permit No. 5031, 12 March 1924.

¹⁰ Blythe, p. 200.

¹¹ Hook’s drawings, note 8.

¹² Blythe, pp. 200-201.

¹³ Will 68-E-174, 14 February 1968.

 

Architectural Description  

by Thomas W. Hanchett

The W. H. Belk Mansion is a two story beige brick structure in the Colonial Revival-Neoclassical tradition which stands at the crest of Elizabeth Hill overlooking downtown Charlotte. It was built for the William Henry Belk family who were then gaining a reputation as the leading department store merchants in the Carolinas. Its architect was Charles Christian Hook, one of the city’s best designers. The house is neither massive nor ostentatious, but rather a well-detailed example of 1920s upper-class architecture. Today its grounds have been paved to provide parking for adjacent Presbyterian Hospital, and a few partition walls have been moved, but the Belk Mansion remains in a very good state of preservation.

C.C. Hook was not Charlotte’s first professional architect when he arrived about 1890, but he was the first to make his entire career in the city. From the late 1880s through the 1920s Charlotte underwent a massive boom period that saw it become the center of a new Piedmont textile manufacturing region, and move from sixth place to first among Carolina cities. Hook designed many of the growing town’s most important buildings, including the first buildings of Queens College, the Charlotte City Hall on East Trade Street, and the Duke Mansion. His most important contribution to the Piedmont was his introduction in 1894 of a new architectural style then gaining popularity in the Northeast — the Colonial Revival. Hook believed firmly in its relative simplicity and the elegance it derived from its roots in ancient Greece and Rome. He wrote:

 

The true classic style of architecture, which at one time predominated in the South … is being revived. The most striking feature of the house will be its simplicity of design and convenience of arrangement. The so-called “filigree” ornamentation will not be a consideration, and only the true design will be carried out and thus give Charlotte another new style ….

Most of Hook’s Colonial Revival dwellings shared similar massing. The Gautier-Gilchrist House (1896), the Villalonga-Alexander House (1900-1901). and the Walter Brem House (1902), all in Dilworth, as well as the Z. V. Taylor House (later expanded as the Duke Mansion) in Myers Park all were basically two-story rectangular blocks. The main entrance was in the center of the long side facing the street. Roofs were usually hipped and featured narrow dormers. At the rear would be a one-story kitchen ell.

The Belk Mansion is an elegant restatement in brick and stone of this theme that Hook had been working with, usually in wood, for a quarter of a century. The basic hip-roofed block is seven bays wide and five bays deep. It is enlivened on the north side by a two-story gabled bay and a flat-roofed porte-cochere, and on the south side by a one-story segmental bay. The rear kitchen ell has a low mansard-like roof. All roofs are of long-lasting terra cotta tile, green in color. Four dormers pierce the front roof, with the center pair joined in such a way as to produce a Palladian effect. The dormers have projecting gable cornices with returns, pilasters, and round-arched windows with keystone-like decoration. The four dormer arrangement is repeated on the rear roof, and there is one dormer on each side roof. The house’s five chimneys are placed on the side and rear roofs to reduce their visibility from the street.

Below the roof is a wooden modillion cornice. Second-story windows are rectangular six-over-six-pane double-hung sash units and have no sill or lintel trim except for a stretcher belt course that extends around the building at sill level. At the center of the front facade a three-part window framed by brick pilasters accentuates the main entrance below. On the rear facade the second-story windows are grouped more informally than on the front, reflecting the presence of baths and sleeping-porches inside. At the center of the rear facade is a full-fledged Palladian window above the back porch.

The first-floor front windows are all actually French doors. The twelve-pane double units open out onto the front terrace. Each is topped by a round-arched fanlight and surrounded by a band of corbelled brick surmounted by a keystone. The wide entry bay has an elliptical fanlight, twelve-pane sidelights, and a pair of twelve-pane doors, all surrounded by a band of corbelled brick. A heavy one-story porch shelters the entrance and the two flanking French doors. It has heavy brick posts supporting a flat roof crested by an iron railing. Four Doric columns add to the decorative effect. The porch floor is covered with figured green tile and extends out beyond the roofed area to form a terrace across the entire front facade. The terrace wraps around the north side under the porte-cochere, which continues the post and column motif of the main porch. It also wraps around the south side where it is sheltered by a smaller porch. Both the side porch and the port-cochere have iron railings that make them useful as second-floor balconies as well. At the center of the rear facade is a glass-enclosed back porch which includes a small greenhouse added for Mrs. Belk.

Inside, the house boasted seven bedrooms for the family plus six baths. The first floor was arranged for entertaining. The spacious stair and entry hall was crossed by a transverse corridor, dividing the downstairs into four quadrants. The two across the front of the house held the living room, entry hall, reception room, and library. These main public areas were all connected by large sliding doors that could be thrown open to create one continuous space. The southeast rear quadrant held the dining room and behind it the kitchen spaces. The northeast rear quadrant held a pair of bedrooms with a connecting bath.

One comes into the entry hall through a small tile-floored vestibule. The hall has a wide, simple cornice. Heavy cornices with carved scroll brackets surmount the doorways to the living room on the left and the reception room on the right. A chair rail and molded baseboard extend around the walls of the hall, and the floor is of blond wood with two inlaid bands of dark wood near the walls. Radiators are set into the wall on either side of the front door and are covered with iron doors pierced in a rectilinear motif. Coming through the front door one is confronted by the horseshoe-shaped grand stair which rises to a landing beneath the Palladian window at the rear of the house. The balusters are of iron with a carved wooden handrail and slender turned wooden newel posts. Under the stair landing to the rear of the entry hall is the play room sheathed in knotty pine paneling. French doors allow it to be closed off from the entry hall, but when the doors are open there is an unbroken flow of space from the front door to the back entrance, located at the rear of the playroom. It is likely that this space was often left unimpeded, for it provided the visitor a glimpse of the Belk’s rear gardens. The narrower transverse corridor crosses the entry hall at the base of the stairs. It continues the parquet floor, chair rail, and cornice of the entry hall.

The northwest quadrant of the first floor, to the left of the entry hall as one enters, held the living room. It is now the Presbyterian Hospital uniform salesroom, but the elaborate cornice and the thin strips of molding applied to the walls to create vertical panels survive in excellent condition. It is said that the original pink marble fireplace remains intact behind wallboard at the end of the room. The southwest quadrant of the downstairs, on the right of the entry hall, contains the reception room and the library. Both are in good original condition, especially the library with its dark wood paneling and small glass-fronted built-in bookcases topped with dentilled cornices.

The southeast quadrant holding the eating and food preparation areas of the household was the largest, for it extends back into the kitchen wing. Guests entered the dining room through an archway at the end of the transverse corridor. The arch has been filled with a glass partition and a door in recent years, but otherwise the dining room is in excellent original condition and remains the most ornate room in the house. The segmental bay on the side of the house means the room is a more interesting space than the standard rectangular box. A heavy molded plaster cornice, said to have been imported from Italy, accentuates the room’s shape. The cornice features dentil molding and ornate modillions. Below it, paired strips of molding break the wall surfaces into panels. Behind the dining room were a breakfast room, pantry, kitchen, and porch. This area has been heavily altered in recent years. Most interior walls have been removed and new ones added to create a corridor of small offices. Only the tile exterior wall in the old kitchen hints at what was there. A small service corridor off the dining room does remain intact. It leads to the tightly turning servants’ stair which is hidden next to the grand stair.

The final downstairs quadrant contains two bedrooms. Each has a wood and tile mantel, and a coved molded cornice. The bathroom between the two has its original pedestal sink and high tiled wainscot, though other early fixtures are gone. A partition has been added in the center of one bedroom to break it into two office spaces, but this appears not to have harmed the cornice or the wide molded baseboard.

Upstairs, bedrooms open off a transverse corridor similar to the one on the first floor. There are five bedrooms and a maid’s room. Each pair of rooms, including the maid’s, had a connecting bath in Hook’s original plans. The spacious maid’s room is on one’s right at the back of the house as one reaches the top of the grand stair. Next to it, at the northeast rear corner is bedroom one which features a sleeping porch. Adjoining it on the front of the house is bedroom two. It has a large carved mantel of gray-white marble. This is perhaps the most important piece of stonework in the house, and is a good indication that this was designed as the master bedroom. Next to it, at the center of the front facade, is bedroom three. Much like the downstairs living room and dining room, it has thin strips of molding which break its wall surfaces into panels. Adjacent to this room is a small sewing room, entered off the corridor. It has an entire wall of linen storage cabinets and drawers added after the dwelling’s construction at Mrs. Belk’s suggestion. Bedroom four at the southwest corner of the residence rounds out the front rooms and has its own fireplace. Bedroom five is at the southeast rear corner. It has its own bathroom done in pink tile with a laundry chute hidden behind the medicine cabinet. This space is shown as a closet on Hook’s plans, and may have been added some time after the house was built.

A small service corridor is nestled between bedroom five and the grand stair. It contains the service stair, closets, and the stairway to the attic. The attic is a large low-ceiling room with painted rough-plaster walls. The dormer windows give plenty of natural light, and small closets line the room under the eaves. One of the closets holds an immense wooden crate full of spare pieces of plaster molding from the living room and dining room. The three-part front center dormer window provides a grand view through the trees toward downtown. Standing here it is not hard to imagine the time sixty years ago when William Henry Belk built the finest house on Elizabeth Hill and had it sited so that he could look out toward his growing department store.

Today Elizabeth Hill has changed greatly. The grassy campus of Elizabeth College has been replaced with the crowded brick buildings of Presbyterian Hospital. The Belk grounds have been paved for parking. Most of the houses that once lined the Elizabeth Avenue trolley line on its way up the hill from downtown have given way to business buildings. Yet one can still see some of the grandeur in the Belk Mansion, and in the nearby St. John’s Baptist Church (1925)and the James Staten Mansion (1912c). All use the same yellow brick and share similar stylistic use of motifs from ancient Greece and Rome. Each possesses individual architectural and historic significance, and together they remind us of those textile boom years when Charlotte became a leading city.

This report was written on May 30, 1976

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as Beaver Dam is located on N. C. Highway 73, east of Davidson, N.C., in the northern portion of Mecklenburg County.

2. Name, address, and telephone number of the present owners and occupants of the property: The present owner of the property are:

Dr. Chalmers Gaston Davidson
c/o Davidson College
Davidson, N.C. 28036

Telephone 892-8021 ext. 331

The present occupants of the property are:
Dr. and Mrs. Chalmers G. Davidson
Concord Rd.
Davidson, N.C. 28036

Telephone Unpublished

3. Representative photographs of the property: Photographs of the property are included in this report.

4. A map depicting the location of the location of the property: This report contains a map depicting the location of the location of the property.

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5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent reference to this property is found in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 9531 at Page 14. The Parcel Number of the property is 00727206.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains an historical sketch prepared by Dr. Chalmers G. Davidson.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Jack O. Boyte, AIA.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria set forth in NCGS 160A-399.4:

 

a. Historical and cultural significance:
The historical and cultural significance of the property known an Beaver Dam rents upon two factors. First, the house has strong associative ties with events and individuals of local and regional historical importance. It was erected by William Lee Davidson, II, the son of General William Lee Davidson who was killed in the battle of Cowan’s Ford on the Catawba on February 1, 1780. Major John Davidson, a signer of the controversial Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, lived in the house for several years. It served as the location for the meeting of the committee of the Concord Presbytery on May 13, 1835, which decided to locate nearby what later became known an Davidson College. Second, the house has architectural significance as one of the finer Federal Style plantation houses extant in Mecklenburg County.

b. Suitability for preservation and restoration: The house is in a state of excellent repair, having been restored to serve as the residence of the present owner.

c. Educational value: The house has educational value as an example of restoration, as an architecturally significant structure, and as a site of substantial associative historical value.

d. Cost of acquisition, restoration, maintenance or repair: The Commission has no intention of purchasing this property. Nor is it aware of any intention of the present owner to sell. It assumes that all costs associated with renovating and maintaining the structure will be paid by the owner or subsequent owners of the property.

e. Possibilities for adaptive or alternative use of the property: The Commission concurs with the present owner’s use of the property as a residence.

f. Appraised Value: The current tax appraisal value of the structure is $41,750. The tax appraisal value of the land is $7,380. The Commission is aware that designation of the property would allow the owner to apply for a special tax classification.

g. The administrative and financial responsibility of any person or organization willing to underwrite all or a portion of such costs: As indicated earlier, the Commission has no intention of purchasing this property. Furthermore, the Commission assumes that all costs associated with the structure will be met by whatever party now owns or will subsequently own the property. Clearly, the present owner has demonstrated the capacity to met the expenses associated with restoring the structure.

9. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places: The Commission judges that the property known as Beaver Dam does meet the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places. Basic to the Commission’s judgment is its knowledge of the fact that the National Register of Historic Places functions to identify properties of local and state historic significance. The Commission believes that the property known as Beaver Dam is of local and regional historic significance and thereby meets the criteria of the National Register of Historic Places.

10. Documentation of why and in what ways the property is of historical importance to Charlotte and/or Mecklenburg County: As noted earlier the property known as Beaver Dam is of local historic importance for two reasons. First, the house has strong associative ties with events and individuals of local and regional historic importance. Second, the house has architectural significance as one of the finer Federal Style plantation houses extant in Mecklenburg County.

 

 

Bibliography

An Inventory of Older Buildings in Mecklenburg County and Charlotte For The Historic Properties Commission.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Register of Deeds Office.

Records of the Mecklenburg County Tax Office.

Date of Preparation of this report: May 30, 1976

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill, Director
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
139 Middleton Dr.
Charlotte, N.C. 28207

Telephone: 332-2726

 

 

Historical Overview  

Dr. Chalmers G. Davidson

The historical significance of the 1829 house on Beaver Dam plantation derives from its connection with the Revolutionary War and Davidson College. The house was built by William Lee Davidson, II, the son of General William Lee Davidson who was killed in the battle of Cowan’s Ford on the Catawba on February 1, 1780, attempting to slow the progress northward of Lord Cornwallis. William Lee, II, was only one month old at the time of his father’s death. He acquired the original acreage (451 acres) by purchase in 1808 (Mecklenburg Deed Book 19, p. 538) a part of which had been a grant from the King to his mother’s uncle Robert Brevard. The plantation was later expanded to 785 acres. Davidson’s first home at this location was an unclapboarded log house, traditionally three stories high. In September of 1829, according to markings on the east chimney, he built the present house. On October 30, 1805, he had married Elizabeth Davidson, the youngest daughter of Major John Davidson of Rural Hill plantation in Mecklenburg County. No children were born from this union. Major John Davidson made his final home with his daughter Betsy and son-in-law William Lee Davidson. He was the last surviving “signer” of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. When further evidence of this controversial event was being collected in 1830, Major Davidson was called upon for testimony. Then in his 95th year, Major Davidson dictated and signed a lucid account of the events of fifty-five years previous stating that “I am confident that the Declaration of Independence by the people of Mecklenburg was made public at least twelve months before that of the Congress of the United States.” The letter was dated “Beaver Dam, October 5, 1830” and the original is now in the Mecklenburg Declaration MSS. in the Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Major John Davidson died at Beaver Dam on January 10, 1832, and was taken back to the family burying-ground at Rural Hill for interment beside his wife.

Beaver Dam is also intimately connected with the founding of Davidson College. William Lee Davidson, II, was a Presbyterian elder and a member of the committee of Concord Presbytery whose purpose it was to select a site for the “Manual Labour School” to be founded by the Presbytery. At the meeting of this committee on May 13, 1835, at the home of “William Lee Davidson, Esq., in north Mecklenburg … at candlelight after solemn and special prayer to Almighty God for the aid of his grace” they decided to purchase 469 acres from Mr. Davidson for $1521. This tract was not a part of his Beaver Dam plantation but some two miles east of it, lying partly in Mecklenburg and partly in Iredell County. As yet the “Manual Labour School” had no name. At a later meeting of Presbytery, August 26, 1835, it was decided to name the institution “Davidson College”

 

… as a tribute to the memory of that distinguished and excellent man, General William Davidson, who in the ardor of patriotism, fearlessly contending for the liberty of his country, fell (universally lamented) in the Battle of Cowan’s Ford.

There is no recording of a deed of sale in the Mecklenburg or Iredell courthouses, and the tradition is that the land was given by William Lee Davidson after the college was named for his father. Whether true or not, there is a record of the gift of $2000 by William Lee Davidson for the endowment of a professorship at Davidson College in 1839, so if he took the money originally it is obvious that he later gave it back. Davidson was much interested in the infant institution and served as one of the vice-presidents of its first Board of Trustees and as treasurer of the college. There are many references to his activities in the minutes of the Board of Trustees now preserved at the College. In his old age, he removed to the state of Alabama selling his North Carolina property. He died in Alabama on November 13, 1862, and in his will left the College eight thousand dollars, one thousand each, in addition, to the two literary societies, and one fourth interest in his estate after the special legacies were paid. The Board of Trustees adopted a testimonial of thanks for “his liberal pecuniary contributions and for many years of personal service rendered to the institution while he resided in its vicinity and now for the munificent bequest of which the board has just received official information.”

William Lee Davidson invested heavily in the production of silk while operating his Beaver Dam plantation. He planted mulberry trees and built silk houses. But the experiment was not a financial success and he abandoned it when he removed from North Carolina to Alabama. According to the Census of 1830, he was the owner of 25 slaves in Mecklenburg County. He owned 65 in Alabama in 1860. In politics, he was an old line Whig and served as state senator for Mecklenburg in 1818 but did not pursue a political career.

The most interesting account of the domestic life at Beaver Dam during the antebellum period comes from the pen of Mrs. “Stonewall” Jackson who was a great niece of Elizabeth (Mrs. Wm. Lee) Davidson and a frequent visitor. Mrs. Jackson’s father was President Robert Hall Morrison of the College.

 

Architectural Description  

by Jack O. Boyte, A.I.A.

During the middle years of the Eighteenth Century an early North Mecklenburg settler, Robert Brevard, received a land grant from the King of some 800 acres at the headwaters of Rocky River and lying along the Salisbury Post Road just north of the present Cornelius. In 1808 a large section of this land along Beaver Dam Creek was purchased by William Lee Davidson, II. Here this son and namesake of the renowned Revolutionary hero built a homestead for his bride of three years, Betsy Davidson (his second cousin). The young couple’s first house was a simple log structure said to be three stories high but probably two with a finished garret. For some twenty years they lived in this log house as their fortunes improved. Finally, in 1829, they built a new two story plantation manor house. This house stands today on a knoll beside the Concord Road just outside the village of Davidson essentially as it was when first erected and still called ‘Beaver Dam’ after 150 years.

The main body of the house is a two story rectangular log structure facing south. Interior and exterior finishes were smooth wood paneling and clapboard siding nailed to wood strips applied to the log surfaces.

A reconstructed one story lean-to wing covers the full width at the rear and a balancing porch with a shed roof spans the width of front. The front facade includes four bays on each floor. The front entrance door occurs in the right center first floor bay. Original strap hinges have been retained. The rear facade original balanced four windows on the second floor. At each gabled end original hand made brick chimneys rise from stone bases to single shoulders over second floor fireplaces. Above these shoulders the chimneys set out from the gable siding and extend to corbelled caps high above the ridge. Brickwork in both chimneys is remarkably well preserved. Laid in Flemish bond, the coursing shows typical queen closures at each corner. High in the brickwork of the east chimney the date of original construction, Sept. 1829, is cast in clear relief in one brick.

Exterior surfaces of the house were originally water sawn clapboard featuring fine hand beaded lower edges. This siding has been replaced with new work, fabricated to precisely match the original. Under the front porch roof, wall surfaces are covered with flush, tongue and grooved siding all of which is original.

The house rests on large corner foundation stones 12 to 18 inches above the ground. Originally open, the foundation walls have in recent years been filled in solidly with additional field stone, original massive hand hewn joists supported both floors and the second floor ceiling.

Initially the roof covering was probably hand split shingles smoothed with a draw knife. These have been replaced with new hand split cedar shakes. Windows on both floors were originally 9 over 9 light. These units have all been replaced with new sash closely matching the original. All windows now have louvered wood blinds.

While the exterior of the house has been carefully reconditioned with close attention to original materials, it is on the interior where one finds relatively undisturbed original construction with remarkably preserved and restored hand crafted wood finish work.

Inside the six panel front entrance door a wide hall connects all first floor rooms and features a carefully crafted open stair. The hall forms a wide foyer at the front with an original six panel pine door at the rear. This door has recessed flat panels on the hall side and beaded panel edges opposite. The hall a fine chair rail, molded crown mold and base. Wall and ceiling surfaces are wide, flush pine boards.

From the foyer one enters a large parlor on the left through a reproduced six panel pine door with original strap hinges. The parlor is dominated by simple yet skillfully detailed mantle. Narrow paneled pilasters rise at each side to a shallow multi-mitered mantle shelf, with a molded lip. A flat panel insert with beaded edges is centered over the fireplace opening.

Walls are all wide, smooth, tongue and grooved boards. At window stool height a molded chair rail surrounds the room. Below this rail removal of later paint revealed original stenciling on all four walls. Above a small crown mold the ceiling is wide boards, matching the walls. Door and window trim consists of planted three inch casing edged with a molded back bank. Floors are original six inch wide pine planks carefully cleaned and waxed. Molded base boards are applied to lower wall surfaces. To the right (east side) of the entrance hall another six panel door opens to a smaller dining room. This room also features a fine mantle similar to that in the parlor, but with fluted pilasters and center panel. Elsewhere, this room is trimmed in a manner like the parlor. To the left rear of the entrance hall the simply detailed stair rises in three runs to a wide second floor landing at the front. This stair has four inch square chamfered newel posts and two delicate, angular balusters on each tread.

A simple rounded rail with molded edges completes the balustrade. Under the stair an original closet with a small two panel door retains many of the early interior characteristics including aged pine surfaces, mortised and pegged shelving and exposed cut nail heads. At the rear of the stair hall and the dining room doors open to the lean-to wing. This wing has been reconstructed. However, records and tradition tell us that this wing contained two rooms opening from the rear hall. There is evidence that each room had a side wall fireplace and secondary chimneys occurred at the sides of the wing.

From the second floor stair landing an original low six panel door opens to the west into a large bed chamber. As with the first floor rooms, the chamber is dominated by a large carefully proportioned mantle. Chair rails and other trim are similar to those below. In this room two windows face the front, two flank the fireplace on the side wall, and two face the rear. A smaller bed chamber opens from the east side of the second floor hall. In this room the original fireplace has been closed. Trim and finishes are later additions. One window to the front, two at the side, and one at the rear provide light and ventilation here.

Beaver Dam is a vivid reminder of the earliest plantation days of Piedmont Carolina. The house exhibits little sophistication if compared to coastal towns of the Federal Period. But, in the context of place and time it was a fine house and represented a successful effort on the part of William and Betsy Davidson to add elegance to their lives.

The site for Davidson College, 469 acres belonging to William Lee Davidson two miles west of his resident plantation, was chosen by a committee of Concord Presbytery meeting in the living room of the Beaver Dam place in 1835. The 469 acres, according to family tradition, was given to the college by Davidson when the institution was named for his father.

During the years when the plantation flourished, William Lee and Betsy Davidson had a brick walled garden to the rear ornamented with rows of boxwood which “exceeds anything of the kind” to be seen according to the Charlotte Democrat of July 11, 1871. A rare feature of the plantation was an attempt by Davidson to grow and market silk. Even now there are mulberry trees here and there on the place to remind us of those days.

Title to the property passed through many hands over the years and finally in 1936 it was acquired by collateral descendants of the first owners. In recent years the house and grounds have been carefully restored and adapted for contemporary use. It represents an exceptional example of adaptive use for a significant part of Mecklenburg architectural heritage.

 

1.   Name and location of the property:  The property known as the Paul and Holly Beatty House is located at 215 Woodlawn Avenue, Charlotte, North Carolina.
2. Name and address of the current owner of the property:

VSW Properties, Irwin Avenue LL
638 Hempstead Place
Charlotte, N.C. 

3. Representative photographs of the property. This report contains representative photographs of the property
4.   A map depicting the location of the property.

Mecklenburg County Tax Map

5. Current Deed Book Reference To The Property. The most recent deed to this property is found in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 25062, page 897.  The tax parcel number for the property is 07321815.
6. A Brief Historical Essay On The Property. This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by William Jeffers.
7. A Brief Physical Description Of The Property.  This report contains a brief physical description of the property prepared by Stewart Gray.
8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400.5.
9. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or cultural importance.  The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission judges that the Paul and Holly Beatty House possesses special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg.  The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 

1) The Paul and Holly Beatty House is a well-preserved example of a vernacular interpretation of the Prairie Style four square plan house.  Never common, this house type  is now rare in all of Charlotte’s historic neighborhoods, especially in the city’s historic urban core.

2) The Paul and Holly Beatty House is a reminder of the early 20^th century residential nature of Charlotte’s urban core.

3)  The Paul and Holly Beatty House helps demonstrate the social economic diversity that once existed within the city neighborhoods like Woodlawn, unlike much of the residential development in Charlotte after World War II.  

4) The Paul and Holly Beatty House is an important surviving element of the Woodlawn neighborhood, an early streetcar suburb.

1. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or association:  The Commission judges that the physical description included in this report demonstrates that the property known as 215 Woodlawn Avenue meets this criterion.
2. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark”.  The current appraised value of the Paul and Holly Beatty House is $85,500.  The property is zoned UR-1.
3. This report finds that the interior, exterior, and land associated with the Paul and Holly Beatty House should be included in any landmark designation of the property.

Date of preparation of this report:           

            June 1, 2011

 Prepared by: 

            William Jeffers and Stewart Gray

The Paul and Holly Beatty House

Third Ward Contextual History

Until the twentieth century, Charlotte’s urban core was a mix of residential and commercial structures.  The most influential of the city’s population clustered along the two main thoroughfares of Trade and Tryon Streets while businesses and commercial structures were interspersed between them.  This pattern had been the norm, more or less, since the town’s founding.  However, as the twentieth century dawned, Charlotte began to undergo a transformation from a quiet courthouse town to a burgeoning metropolitan city.  As a result, the residential patterns of the urban core began to change in ways that would redefine the built landscape of the center city. 

            Charlotte was organized along a ward system.  Initially divided into four numerically named wards, each had a sizable collection of residential housing.  As the twentieth century progressed this collection of residential dwellings began to take a backseat to the industrial and commercial development that overtook the core.  This phenomenon is typified in the development of streetcar suburbs like Dilworth, and in the creation of the mill village of North Charlotte.  These new neighborhoods began to draw both the affluent and working class residents out of the center of town to points that then were clustered around the periphery of the city.  This transformation, however, did not occur overnight and each ward was affected differently by it.  Fourth Ward retained a strong residential pattern still evident today.  First and Second Ward also had a large number of residential housing.  However, both of these wards have lost much of their historical integrity.  This is painfully evident in Second Ward, where Urban Renewal destroyed the African American community of “Brooklyn,” eliminating all the residential structures of the neighborhood.

            Third Ward, like the other wards around it, also contained a combination of residential and commercial structures.  However, “what is now considered Third Ward is made up of two very separate areas.”[1]  The original section of Third Ward was an area that was bordered by, Morehead Street, Graham Street West, and Trade and Tryon Streets.[2] This section of Third Ward followed residential patterns similar to First Ward with a mixture of residential and commercial uses with fewer black residences.[3]

            The arrival of the Piedmont and Northern Railroad in the second decade of the twentieth century, precipitated a shift in land use in this ward; so much so that “the area became the least residential of the four wards, with warehousing and commercial uses as its heart and industry on Graham Street along the Southern Railway tracks.”[4]

            Following the patterns of other city wards, the edges of Trade and Tryon Streets contained commercial development.  This section of Third Ward, while lacking in residential structures, had several significant industrial and commercial structures such as the now demolished Good Samaritan Hospital (Bank of America Stadium currently resides on the property) and the demolished Piedmont and Northern Railroad depot.  This large railroad terminal, which precipitated the transformation of the ward towards industry, has also succumbed to the wrecking ball.  James B. Duke, president of both the utility company and the railroad, first utilized the site for the headquarters of the Piedmont and Northern.  Eventually, he expanded the structure, building the “headquarters for Duke Power at the front of the lot in 1928.”[5] Another example is the no longer extant Charlotte Supply Building.  Built in1924-1925, the Charlotte Supply Building was a supplier of textile machinery and served as “a well preserved warehouse building of the type that the railroads attracted to Third Ward.”[6]

Extant examples exist in the United States Post Office Building on West Trade Street.  The massive structure, with its signature limestone columns, was built in 1915.[7]  Another is seen in The Virginia Paper Company building on West Third Street.  Constructed in 1937, the building serves as a largely unaltered example of industrial architecture from the 1930’s and also underlines the wards transition from residential/commercial to an industrial area.[8]

Woodlawn Neighborhood

The second section of Third Ward is the residential area between the Southern Railway tracks and Interstate 77.  This area remained undeveloped during much of the city’s early history.[9]  The first structure built in this section was the Victor Cotton Mill (no longer extant).  Constructed in 1884, the mill was located near the intersection of Clarkson Street and Westbrook Drive.  Around 1907 the Victor Cotton Mill, now known as the Continental Manufacturing Company began, through a subsidiary known as the Woodlawn Realty Company, to develop the surplus land it owned in Third Ward into the neighborhood of Woodlawn.

            “The Development of the Woodlawn Neighborhood was part of the phenomenal growth that Charlotte experienced in the early years of the twentieth century.  Between 1900 and 1910, the city’s population grew 82%, from 18,091 to 34, 014.”[10]  As a result, the physical boundaries of the city began to expand out what was considered to be the original four wards.  In order to accommodate these new citizens, real estate developers such as F.C. Abbott, George Stephens, and B.D. Heath built neighborhoods that were linked to the city by the expanding streetcar systems.[11]

            The Woodlawn Neighborhood was one of these new streetcar suburbs.  While located inside one of the city’s original four wards, the neighborhood was advertised as a suburb, perhaps due to the developing success of Charlotte’s first true streetcar suburb, Dilworth.[12]  With streetcar lines radiating outward from the center of town, new neighborhoods began to develop along the lines.  Woodlawn was one such neighborhood, and it was served by the West Trade Street streetcar line.[13]  The fact that the neighborhood was situated so close to downtown may have been a marketing tool for local developers.  An advertisement in the October, 10, 1911 Charlotte Observer proclaimed that “Woodlawn is the nearest suburb to the business part of the city, yet NONE is prettier.”[14] Many of the original parcels of land in Woodlawn were bought by J.W. McClung, a realtor who office was located at 25 South Tryon Street[15] and who also lived in the neighborhood on Woodlawn Avenue.[16]  The parcels were then sold to prospective homeowners.

The Paul and Holly Beatty House

            The residence at the Paul and Holly Beatty House (located at 215 South Irwin Avenue) serves as an example of this.  Constructed by Robert M. Usher, a local contractor whose office was located at 701 North Brevard Street[17], this rare Prairie style structure was the home of Paul B. Beatty and his wife, Holly.[18]  Paul Beatty was an Assistant Wire Chief for the Western Union Telegraph Company.[19]  This middle class, turn of the century, Charlotte family had four children; three girls and one boy.  As Virginia Woolard, a childhood resident of Woodlawn recalled, her mother and Holly Beatty were good friends.  As a result, Virginia spent many days with the Beatty family.  In particular, she recalled that ‘the Beatty children were very musical.”[20]  She also remembered that the Beatty’s large, two-story house at only “had one little bathroom upstairs and one on the back porch.”[21]  Eventually, the Beatty family moved to East Boulevard and the Dallas and Mary Sawyer family moved into the residence.  In keeping with the middle class character of the neighborhood, Dallas Sawyer was a salesman for American Bakeries.[22] His wife Mary was the office secretary of nearby Harding High School (known today as Irwin Avenue Elementary School).[23] After the Sawyer family left the residence became a boarding house, portending an eventual shift from its original middle class conception to a working class neighborhood.

City directories generally list the occupations of a municipality’s residents in the directory.  Along with the Beatty and Sawyer families, Woodlawn also had salesmen, painters, secretaries, entrepreneurs, and county policemen (to name a few) as residents further highlighting the transition from a solidly middle class neighborhood into one that was a combination of middle and working class families.^[24]  As Virginia Woolard would confirm, “we were working families, we just worked and worked.  Our lives were not dramatic; it was just the everydayness of things.  We went to church, went to school, and sort of minded your own business.”^[25] 

Woodlawn, as a neighborhood, never grew past its original layout.  It was built as a white middle class community.  Early deeds confirm as much stipulating that all lots “shall be used for resident purposes and by people of the white race only (a common stipulation in the Jim Crow South); and that no dwelling shall be erected thereon which shall cost less than $1000.00.”[26]   Plotted initially along four streets, “it appears that soon after the small neighborhood was built it began to lose its original identity.”[27]  Sanborn Maps show the neighborhood listed by the name Woodlawn.  However, by the 1940’s, it would seem that trend was reversed.  Virginia Woolard, who grew up in the neighborhood, recalled that she never knew of the area specifically as “Woodlawn.”  Generally, people would refer to the street on which they lived as a geographic reference rather than using a neighborhood moniker.[28]  As she stated, “when I was growing up I was not aware of the word ‘Woodlawn.’  I didn’t have any concept about any name where we lived.”[29] 

Still, there was a sense of community amongst the residents of the area.  One of the reasons for this was the fact that the neighborhood was pedestrian friendly.  There was only one main thoroughfare on Trade Street.  All of the other streets were basically closed off and devoid of heavy traffic.  As a result people moved around the neighborhood freely.  As Virginia Woolard related, “I enjoyed visiting, we would go back and forth between each other’s houses.”[30]  The neighborhood had an abundant tree canopy and considering its proximity to downtown Charlotte one “had the sense that you were somewhat isolated” from the rest of the city because of it.[31] 

While Woodlawn Avenue continued to serve as a reminder of the neighborhoods origin, development south of downtown along the new Woodlawn Road eventually necessitated a change from Woodlawn Avenue to South Irwin Avenue so as “to avoid confusion with the robust roadway to the south.”^[32] The lack of neighborhood identity, coupled with an explosion in suburban construction in the postwar decades of the 1950’s and 1960’s began to force a steady decline in the area.  Furthermore, office and commercial zoning that were arbitrarily put in place along the thoroughfares rendered many existing residences obsolete.  By the 1970’s most of the once closed off streets in the neighborhood were opened up allowing vehicular traffic free reign in the area, destroying the “walkable” feel of Woodlawn’s original design.  As middle class families began to leave the neighborhood, it gradually became dominated by working class families, many of whom were evicted from the Brooklyn and First Ward neighborhoods as a result of Urban Renewal programs.[33]  By the 1980’s Third Ward itself had become known as one of the city’s worst neighborhoods, “populated with liquor houses and ‘fancy houses’ for prostitutes.”[34]

            The ward, however, would experience a renaissance.  The catalyst for this change began in 1975, when Third Ward was designated as a community Development Target Area.  Under that program Third Ward benefited from housing rehabilitation, as well as street, sidewalk, landscaping and park improvements.[35]  Another key to the revival was the removal of a metal scrap yard between South Cedar Street and the railroad tracks.[36]  New residential development along Cedar and Clarkson Streets, as well as other small scale projects served as further inducements for this transformation. 

            Even with all this new development, the Woodlawn neighborhood of Third Ward still retains much of its original historic integrity; that of a early twentieth century, middle class Charlotte neighborhood.  Woodlawn represents the apex of center city, middle class, residential construction in the early twentieth century.  By the 1920’s, residential building trends had shifted away from the center city to suburbs like Colonial Heights and Middleton Homes.  And with the near complete loss of historic residential buildings in the center city, it becomes difficult for the public to understand the pre-World War II history of center city Charlotte based on the current built environment.[37] Therefore, this dearth of historic residential resources in Charlotte’s urban core gives the surviving neighborhoods — and individual structures within them — historic significance if they have retained their original integrity.  Considering the fact that Charlotte has excellent preserved examples of the upper class experience in Fourth Ward, Eastover, and Myers Park; coupled with the white, working class experience of the North Davidson community and the African American experience in communities like Cherry, the importance of highlighting Charlotte’s middle class experience becomes even more paramount.  Local landmark designation of the Paul and Holly Beatty House can serve as a means to rectify this imbalance because it is a residential structure with high historical integrity that highlights the middle class experience of center city Charlotte in the early twentieth century. 

[1] Dr. Thomas W. Hanchett, The Center City:  The Business District and the Original Four Wards, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, http://cmhpf.org/educationneighhistcentercity.htm (Accessed April 10, 2011).

[2] See Hanchett, The Center City.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Hanchett, The Center City.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] See Hanchett, The Center City.

[8] See CMHLC, Survey and Research Report on The Virginia Paper Company Building, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, http://cmhpf.org/SurveyS&RVirginia.htm, (Accessed June 8, 2011).

[9] See Hanchett, The Center City.

[10] Stewart Gray, Survey and Research Report on the Woodlawn Avenue Duplex, Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission, http://cmhpf.org/SurveyS&RWoodlawn.htm, (Accessed April 10, 2011).

[11] See Gray Woodlawn Avenue Duplex.

[12] Ibid.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Charlotte Observer, October 10, 1911.

[15] See Ernest H. Miller, Charlotte City Directory, 1911, (Asheville, N.C.:  Piedmont Directory Company, Inc., Publishers, 1911) p. 283.

[16] See Ernest H. Miller, Charlotte City Directory, 1912, (Asheville, N.C.:  Piedmont Directory Company, Inc., Publishers, 1912) p. 294.

[17] Miller, Charlotte City Directory 1911, p. 408.

[18] Mecklenburg County Deed Book 277, p. 82.

[19] Hill’s Charlotte City Directory, Volume 1942, (Richmond, VA:  Hill Directory Co., Inc., Publishers 1942).

[20] Bill Jeffers, Interview with Virginia Woolard, May 2011.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Hill’s Charlotte City Directory, Volume 1947, (Richmond, VA:  Hill Directory Co., Inc., Publishers 1947).

[23] Hill’s Charlotte City Directory, Volume 1950, (Richmond, VA:  Hill Directory Co., Inc., Publishers 1950).

[24] See the 1933, 1943, 1945, 1948, and 1950 volumes of Hill’s Charlotte City Directory, (Richmond, VA:  Hill Directory Co., Inc., Publishers).

[25] Bill Jeffers, Interview with Virginia Woolard.

[26] Mecklenburg County Deed Book 241, p. 486.

[27] Gray, Woodlawn Avenue Duplex.

[28] See Stewart Gray, Conversation with Virginia Woolard, October 2006. (Notes on file with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission). 

[29] Bill Jeffers, Interview with Virginia Woolard, May 2011.

[30] Ibid.

[31] Ibid.

[32] Gray, Woodlawn Avenue Duplex.

[33] See Third Ward Neighborhood Association, A Third Ward Future, p.7.

[34] Gail Smith, “3^rd Ward, Voices of Vision,” Mecklenburg Neighbors, July 22, 1989, p. 12.

[35] See Third Ward Neighborhood Association, A Third Ward Future, p.7.

[36] See Gail Smith, Mecklenburg Neighbors, p.13.

[37] See Gray, Woodlawn Avenue Duplex.

Architectural Description

 

The Paul and Holly Beatty House is a ca. 1911 two-story hipped-roof house that faces west  and is set back approximately 30’ from the granite curbed street.  The four square plan house is a vernacular interpretation of the Prairie Style.   The four square is a house type that developed late in the nineteenth century as a reaction against the ornate and asymmetrical designs of the Queen Anne Style.   Four square houses are generally cube like, and are usually topped with a hipped roof.  The houses are two stories tall, two bays wide, and usually consist of four rooms on each story.  With the wide adoption of indoor plumbing and central heating, the plan was widely adopted across the county.  In the South, the four square largely replaced the one-room-deep I-house.   The four square plan greatly influenced the development of the Prairie Style.  And while high style examples of the Prairie Style (limited to the Mid-West) frequently employed other less cubic house forms, the four square form was almost universally employed in the vernacular examples of the Prairie Style that were built in great numbers across the country.  Elements typically found on the vernacular Prairie Style include, deep overhanging hipped roofs,  substantial half and full height masonry porch piers, and significant second-story window configurations, and hipped dormers.  The four square’s success can be partially attributed to the phenomenal proliferation of the Craftsman Style bungalow.  The bungalow form is a one-story or one-and-one-half-story house form.  Where a two-story house was desired in a bungalow neighborhood, a four square plan was often employed.  By the 1920s, the four square plan was largely abandoned in favor of the popular two-story massed Colonial Revival style.

The neighborhood is a mix of single family houses and small multi-family residential buildings.  Like the Paul and Holly Beatty House, most of the buildings in the neighborhood date from the first half of the 20^th century.  Now called “South Irwin Avenue,” the street was originally named “Woodlawn Avenue” and was the center and namesake of the small Woodlawn Neighborhood.  Several lots along Woodlawn are now vacant.  Located to the northwest of the Paul and Holly Beatty House is the Woodlawn Avenue Duplex and a very similar brick quadruplex.  Other than these multi-family buildings, the neighborhoods historic inventory is limited to single-family houses.  Along Woodlawn and in much of the neighborhood all of the houses and apartments are set close to the street, and sidewalks line both sides of the street.  The neighborhood is dominated by mature oak trees.

The front elevation is two bays wide and is dominated by a full-width porch with a low-pitch hipped roof. The porch is supported by continuous brick foundation with three integrated brick half-height piers topped with simple concrete caps.  The pier placement is not symmetrical.  The southmost piers adjoin brick cheekwalls that step down and border replacement wooden steps.  The foundation is pierced by a small three-light sash window.  The brick piers connect to balustrades composed of original chamfered  top rails and simple original narrow balusters. 

The corner piers each support three tapered Craftsman Style posts.  The middle pier supports two posts.  The posts rest on simple wooden bases.  The posts are topped with simple wooden caps with quarter-round trim.  The posts support a boxed beam with a narrow band of cyma trim, probably covering a joint where boards are joined.  The boxed beam is topped by wider cyma trim where the boxed beam meets the soffit.   The deep soffit is sheathed with beaded board.  The house’s low pitched roof, deep soffits, four-square plan, and lack of Craftsman Style architectural features identify it as a vernacular interpretation of the Prairie Style.

The porch shelters a wide one-over-one window and a replacement door.  The is topped with a single-light transom.  The door is bordered on both sides by narrow one-over-one windows.  The porch features simple clapboards used on all of the exterior walls.  The courses of clapboards terminate in corner boards with a moulded round-over detail.   The clapboards on the porch are topped by two-wide wide frieze boards.  The horizontal joint between the boards is covered by narrow cyma trim.  The porch wall is topped with wider cyma trim.  The porch ceiling is beaded board.

The front elevation features two angled bay windows symmetrically set on the second story.   Each bay features a center two-over-two window flanked by narrow one-over-one windows.  The deep overhang of the principal roof shelters the bays.   The clapboard siding terminates in built-up cornerboards with an applied quarter-round.   The low pitched hipped roof features a subtle bell-cast shape.  Centered above the façade is a wide low hipped-roof dormer.  The bell-cast roof design is most distinctive on the relatively small roof of the dormer.  The dormer features two diamond-light windows bordered by short louvered vents.  The dormer is sided with wood shingles.    A corbelled internal chimney centered on the house’s front axis pierces the roof at the junction of the dormer and the principal roof.  A second internal chimney is located to the rear of the roof ridge.

 

The north elevation is two bays wide and features a projecting rectangular bay window in the rear bay on the first story.  The bay window is composed of a center one-over-one window bordered by two narrow one-over-one windows.  Four sawn brackets support the bay window.  The corner boards feature quarter-round trim.  The short sides of the bay are sheathed with clapboards.  The bay window is topped with a nearly flat roof.  Other first story fenestration on the north elevation is limited to a single tall one-over-on window.  The second story is pierced by two shorter two-over-two windows aligned with the first story fenestration.  A small single-light center-tilt window is located between the double hung windows. The clapboards on the north, south and rear elevations rise from a drip cap that rests on a simple water table board. 

 

The south elevation is three bays wide.  Its fenestration mirrors the internal functions of the house, and contrasts with the formal symmetry of the façade.  On the first story, moving from the front of the house, the first bay contains a single tall one-over-one window.  The middle bay contains a single-light center-tilt window set low in the wall.  The last bay contains a replacement two-sash casement window.  The new window is roughly of the same dimensions as the window it replaced, however, a taller double-hung window may have occupied the bay.  On the second story the three bays all contain two-over-two windows that are shorter than the one-over-one windows that pierce the first story.  The window in the middle bay is lower than the other two, reflecting the location of an interior stair landing.

A two-story wing extends from the rear of the house.  According to the owner, the house originally featured a small one-story back porch.  At one point the roof featured a handrail.  Later a second story was added for a sleeping porch.   The porch was in poor condition and was replaced with the present narrow wing.  The hipped-roof wing features an enclosed recessed porch on the first story.  Wide posts are infilled with panels and fixed windows.  The second story features a recessed porch.  The hipped roof is topped by a small hipped dormer.

Interior

The interior of the Paul and Holly Beatty House has retained a high degree of integrity, and is receiving a complete renovation.  Plaster walls and ceilings have been repaired, and all woodwork has been stripped of paint.  All windows and a set of interior sliding doors have been repaired. 

The front door opens into a foyer containing a turning staircase with a landing.  The stairs; handrail, balusters, treads and trim are pine, and were originally stained dark.  The handrails are deeply moulded and terminate in square newel posts.  The posts feature a band of cyma recta trim and simple cap with more cyma recta trim.  Balusters are turned with an unusual four-bead detail in the middle of the turned section.  The handrail terminates on the second story in a two piece newel pilaster.  A turned pendant hangs from the newel pilaster.   

The foyer opens into a dinning room.  The dining room connects to a living room via sliding panel doors.  The rooms feature tall baseboards topped with moulded cyma recta trim, picture moulding, and narrow pine flooring.    All windows and doors are bordered by fluted jam trim, and feature moulded casing caps.  Door trim features starter blocks. The living room contains a simple large fireplace surround.  In contrast to the pine woodwork throughout the house, the mantle is crafted from walnut.  The mantle surround is composed of a deep box shelf supported by Doric columns that rise from square bases.  The columns rest on a concrete hearth that was once tiled.  The firebox is surrounded by replacement tile.  The simple design of the fireplace surround reflects the vernacular Prairie Style architecture of the house.  While impressive and well crafted, the other interior architectural features are not specifically related to the Prairie Style.  The woodwork elements found  in the Paul and Holly Beatty House were utilized for decades in Charlotte, from the late Queen Anne Style homes of the turn of the century to the late Craftsman Style homes of the 1930s.  

The front rooms on the second story both contain fireplaces.  The room over the foyer features an oak two-shelf fireplace surround with a large mirror set between the shelves.  The shelves are supported by short  posts with moulded trim.  The firebox contains a cast iron coal grate.  The bedrooms feature pine six-horizontal -panel doors with original hardware, and short six-panel closet doors. The front room over the living room features a pine fireplace surround with fluted pilasters.  The second story hallway contains a recessed fuse box is covered by a panel door, and features the same trim installed around windows. 

The remodeled rear wing is connected by a new door opening on the second story.  The remodeled wing feature new woodwork that replicates the woodwork found in the original sections of the house.  

 

100, 102, 104, and 106 Main Street, Huntersville 

This report was written on 25 February 1992

1. Names and locations of the properties: The properties known as the commercial row of four buildings are located at 100, 102, 104, and 106 Main Street, Huntersville, in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.

2. Names, addresses and telephone numbers of the present owners of the properties: The owners of the properties are:
100 Main Street
Ms. Sara Marlene McCraw
Photography Unlimited, 100 Main Street
Huntersville, North Carolina 28078

Telephone: (704) 875-9718
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-11
Deed Book 4781, Page 0061

104 Main Street
Mr. Cecil D. Bradford and wife, Beverly C.
P 0. Box 797
Huntersville, North Carolina 28078

Telephone: (704) 875-6775
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-09
Deed Book 3726, Page 0930

102 Main Street
Mr. Joyce Lee Hager
10400 Sam Furr Road
Huntersville, North Carolina

Telephone: (704) 892-5300
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-10
Deed Book 3694, Page 0496

106 Main Street
Mr. Jerry Kornegay and wife, Emily
1210 Yuma Street
Charlotte, North Carolina 28213

Telephone: (704) 875-6080 (Business)
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-08
Deed Book 5144, Page 0214

3. Representative photographs of the properties: This report contains representative photographs of the properties.

4. A map depicting the location of the properties: This report contains maps which depict the location of the properties.

 

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5. Current Deed Book References to the properties: The most recent deeds to the Tax Parcels, as listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Books, are given above in item 2.

6. A brief historical sketch of the properties: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the properties prepared by Ms. Paula M. Stathakis.

7. Brief architectural descriptions of the properties: This report contains brief architectural descriptions of the properties prepared by Ms. Nora M. Black.

8. Documentation of how and in what ways the properties meet criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400.5:

 

a. Special significance in terms of history, architecture, and /or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the properties known as the Commercial Row of Four Buildings does possess special significance in terms of Huntersville and Mecklenburg County. The Commission bases its judgment on the following considerations: 1) the town of Huntersville was chartered on March 9, 1887; 2) Huntersville was a railroad town with Main Street parallel to the tracks; 3) Huntersville’s commercial district began developing next to the railroad tracks as early as 1877; 4) the building at 100 Main Street is a good example of the location of early banks at important intersections as well as the use of the classical style to draw customers; 5) the building at 102 Main Street served the town as a grocery store for much of the 20th century; 6) the building at 104 Main Street is a fine example of an early two-story commercial structure; 7) the building at 106 Main Street is an example of changes that occurred among storefronts in typical commercial rows; and 8) the four buildings, when viewed together, are the last remnant of historic fabric that comprised Huntersville’s once-thriving commercial district.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship materials feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural descriptions by Ms. Nora M. Black included in this report demonstrate that the commercial row of four buildings meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised value of the improvements, the current appraised value of the land included in the Tax Parcels, and the total appraised value of the properties are given below. The properties are zoned CB.

 

100 Main Street	102 Main Street
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-11	Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-10
Improvements = $13,550	Improvements = $15,850
Land = $4,900	Land = $5,360
Total Appraised Value = $18,450	Total Appraised Value = $21,210

 

104 Main Street	106 Main Street
Tax Parcel Number: 019-041-09	Tax Parcel Number: 01 9-041-08
Improvements = $13,960	Improvements = $17,940
Land = $3,830	Land = $3,830
Total Appraised Value = $17,790	Total Appraised Value = $21,770

Date of Preparation of this Report: 25 February 1992

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill in conjunction with Ms. Nora M. Black
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
The Law Building, Suite 100, 730 East Trade Street
P 0. Box 35434
Charlotte, North Carolina

Telephone: 704/376-9115

 

Historical Overview of Commercial Row  

by P.M. Stathakis

The town of Huntersville is situated fourteen miles north of Charlotte and was chartered on March 9, 1887.¹ Like other small towns in Mecklenburg County, Huntersville was a railroad town and it grew as a function of the Atlantic, Tennessee and Ohio Railroad (now the Norfolk Southern Railroad) whose tracks run parallel to Main Street. The track of the A. T.& O. was relaid in 1874; the town that would be known as Huntersville began its development along these tracks in 1877.² Huntersville was originally called Craighead, N.C. and was later named for a member of the Hunter family. ³

Huntersville was important in the late nineteenth century as a center for higher education. The Huntersville High School Academy, established in 1878, was one of the first of two high schools in western North Carolina. ⁴ In 1898, Anchor Mills established a plant in Huntersville, adding an element of economic diversity to the predominantly rural region. ⁵ Some of the more progressive citizens of the town, caught up in the general climate of boosterism of the times, argued in favor of industrial growth for their town as early as the 1880s. Anyone who has taken even a casual interest in the development of Huntersville has encountered a letter written by William Joseph Ranson to Ellen Viola Hunter in 1888, in which Ranson declares that “Huntersville has the factory fever”. ⁶ In spite of the school and the cotton mill, Huntersville remained a small town and retained its rural character throughout the twentieth century.

A small commercial row grew up along these railroad tracks in the late nineteenth century. What is significant about Huntersville and its small commercial row is that it is exemplary of the rural town in Mecklenburg County. Its development along the railroad connected the town to distant markets and made the town an important commercial center for area farmers and the distribution center for the area cotton crop. The Main Street of Huntersville is similar to the Main Streets of other small Mecklenburg towns, because, like Matthews or Pineville, it is arranged along a railroad. Travelers who went to Huntersville by train arrived in this commercial center of town. The principal stores occupied one side of one block (to the west of the railroad tracks).⁷

The building on the corner of Main Street and Gilead Road, 100 Main Street, was the site of the North Mecklenburg Bank. Other banks subsequently occupied this building: The Bank of Huntersville, The Bank of Cornelius and First Union National Bank. ⁸ First Union National Bank sold the building in 1976. ⁹ It is currently used as a photography studio.

The building immediately south of the bank, 102 Main Street, once housed Smith’s Grocery Store. It was purchased by B. H. and Glenna Smith in 1944 from the Kerns family. ¹⁰

The building adjacent to Smith’s Grocery, 104 Main Street, was once Mullen’s Drug Store. The land was purchased by Allen Porter Mullen in 1947. The deed indicates that the land was vacant when he bought it. ¹¹ Earlier deeds for this property note that this lot was originally two parcels, one of which was known as the Post Office building lot. ¹² Mention is also made in an early deed that a structure (referred to as a “building”, “house”, and “frame structure” within the same document) stood on this lot in 1907 and that the new owner was restricted from demolishing it until 1908.¹³

The fourth building in this row, 106 Main Street, was once J. R. McCurdy’s dry goods store. McCurdy bought the property in 1906. According to earlier deeds, a store owned by John and James Woodsides operated on this site as early as 1887.¹⁴

Long time Huntersville resident Kate Ranson Cornue recalls that “downtown” formerly occupied three blocks on Main Street. The businesses she remembers are a meat market, Cross’s General Store (later the Ranson Brothers Grocery), J. R. McCurdy’s Dry Goods, Sam Holbrook’s Grocery Store, Mullen’s Drug Store and a barber shop. A long hitching rack used to stand in front of these businesses for shoppers traveling by horse and cart. ¹⁵

Now the commercial row sits as an adjunct part of the town. Main Street began to lose its vitality in the 1920s as automobiles became more popular and affordable to the public. The commercial activity shifted to the west, first along NC 115 (Old Statesville Road) and later along the I-77 corridor.

 

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NOTES

¹ Legette Blythe and Charles Brockman, Hornet’s Nest: The Story of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County,(McNally of Charlotte, 1961): 421.

² Richard L. Mattson, Historic Landscapes of Mecklenburg County: The Small Towns. Unpublished manuscript. (July 1991), p. 3. The A. T.& O. Railroad was originally laid in the area in the 1850s. It was removed for use elsewhere during the Civil War, and relaid in 1874.

³ Kate Ranson and Thomas Williams, eds. The Mecklenburg Gazette Magazine Supplement “A Huntersville Album” December 13, 1979.

⁴ Blythe and Brockman, p. 421.

⁵ Mattson, p. 5.

⁶Ranson and Williams.

⁷ Mattson, p. 5 .

⁸ See deeds 4781-61, 1-23-84; 436-366, 1-7-21; 862-335, 3-735; 3863-50, 7-29-76, in Mecklenburg County Court House, Register of Deeds.

⁹ Deed 3863-50, 7-29-76.

¹⁰ Deed 1136-61, 11-2-44. Historic Structures short data report by Mary Beth Gatza, 3-15-88.

¹¹ Deed 1228-123, 1-16-47.

¹² Deed 1156-563, 5-17-45.

¹³ Deed 226-108, 6-27-07.

¹⁴ Deed 216-497, 10-19-06.

¹⁵ Kate Ranson Cornue, Mecklenburg Gazette “I Remember When”, Clippings File: Huntersville. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Library.

 

Architectural Sketches: Commercial Row of Four Buildings on Main Street Huntersville, North Carolina  

Prepared by: Ms. Nora M. Black

Most of the commercial buildings that made up the railroad frontage of the town of Huntersville have been demolished over the years. The few early buildings remaining on quiet Main Street seem far removed from the rush of traffic on Interstate 77 or even busy Gilead Road. But it wasn’t always so quiet on Main Street. Once the trains stopped in Huntersville, discharging noisy passengers and taking on travelers from the surrounding countryside. Once the farmers from north Mecklenburg County came to Huntersville to sell their crops, buy their supplies, and negotiate a loan for seed and fertilizer with the local banker. In the book, North Carolina Architecture, the author has said, “Main Street, North Carolina, developed rapidly in the period from 1900 to 1930, assuming a character it retained throughout most of the century. The small towns … depended on sales and manufacturing of local staples, cotton and tobacco, and forest products; their buildings and their businesses provided the link between the still agrarian society and the national marketplace.” ¹ Huntersville was no exception to the Main Street development just described.

The composition and character of the early town of Huntersville was determined to a great extent by the building types and materials found in the Main Street buildings. Main Street was given over to commercial development at its intersection with Huntersville-Concord Road; residential development was pushed away from the railroad tracks. In cities such as nearby Charlotte, the open-plan department store stood as the emblem of an emerging consumer society at the beginning of the 20th century. The composition of Huntersville, lacking a single store that covered most of a block, obtained a grander visual effect by having several narrow twenty-five to thirty foot wide stores integrated into large blocks sharing party walls. The use of brick as a building material provided a greater measure of safety from fires than the timber and weatherboards used for early commercial structures. The freestanding narrow retail stores, with their deep shadowy back sections fifty to sixty feet from the large storefront windows, are typical of the vernacular buildings found in crossroad towns and railroad villages across America. Faint echoes of high-style sources are abstractly simple ornamental details … Often only minor features such as brick patterning at the eaves … are indicative of the particular period.” ²

Although the four buildings present an unbroken front, each is different in style and material. That difference is apparent to even the most casual observer walking down Main Street in Huntersville.

 

Architechtural Sketch: 100 Main Street  

The building at 100 Main Street is located on the west side of Main Street at the intersection of Huntersville-Concord Rd. The front, or east, facade of the building faces Main Street; the rear, or west, facade faces Maxwell Avenue. The building, containing 1,275 square feet, is located on a rectangular-shaped lot (roughly 30′ wide on Main Street by 102′ deep) owned by Ms. Sara Marlene McCraw and houses “Photography Unlimited”. A wide sidewalk runs along the north side of the building facing Huntersville-Concord Rd.

The building at 100 Main Street is a vernacular interpretation of the classical style. The use of the classical style for banks at the turn of the century was the beginning of a departure from the standard commercial style of building commonly used for early banks in North Carolina. As Bishir points out, ” Banks were typically located on prominent downtown sites, often at major intersections. Such buildings were planned to take good advantage of their sites, with architectural emphasis on the side as well as front elevations.” ³ The north side of the former bank is the only side wall exposed in the commercial row of four buildings; classical ornament continues along this side. The ground plan is a linear plan that is three units deep. The building presents a symmetrical, one story, three bay elevation to Main Street. A parapet above the cornice conceals the flat roof from view.

The building is constructed of dark reddish-brown brick laid in running bond. The mortar in the recessed joints is colored to match the bricks. A simple sheet metal cornice with a wide frieze decorates the front (east elevation) and the long north side. Below the frieze, a molding trims the building at the height of the tops of the doors and windows. Wide brick pilasters terminate at the molding. The front of the building has three metal vents in the parapet between the concrete coping and the cornice; the north side has four vents. The owner was having the trim painted dark gray at the time this report was prepared.

The flat roof is pitched only 11 degrees from the front to the back. The tin roof was “rolled off like a sardine can lid by Hurricane Hugo” ⁴ in 1989. The tin roof was replaced with a rubber membrane material. A brick chimney on the north side of the building still serves the building’s heater.

The large plate glass windows in the storefront and the side of the building are topped with fixed, multiple-pane sash. Two windows on the north are double hung wooden sash; each sash contains a single large pane of glass. Windows on the rear facade have brick infill.

The front elevation is three units wide with the widest units being the two rectangular windows on either side of the front door. The front door forms the center unit. Brick pilasters with concrete bases define the entry. The front entry has a wooden door with one lower wooden panel and a large panel of glass; the age of the hardware varies. A granite threshold meets the concrete sidewalk.

Parts of the interior of the building at 100 Main Street have been modernized. The rooms have original painted moldings and wooden six-panel doors. Walls are of plaster. Although the exterior looks like a one-story building, a sheetrock ceiling was laid in by a previous owner. The installation of that ceiling created a second floor which the current owner uses for storage. The second floor can only be reached by means of a disappearing stair. The new ceiling could easily be removed to restore the building to the original one-story layout; however, almost all of the pressed tin ceiling panels have been removed from the second floor ceiling leaving the supporting wood and roof sheathing exposed.

Original mosaic tile with a Greek fret or meander border defines the customer area of the bank. The original wood flooring of the teller area was still in place until Hurricane Hugo rolled the tin roof off the building. The water that came in during the storm damaged the tongue-and-groove flooring; it was warped beyond repair. Because the wood actually laid on the ground (and had suffered some termite damage over the years), the insurance company required the owner to have a concrete slab poured in the areas that were originally wood. Most of that concrete is covered with carpet at this time.

The front door opens to a large rectangular room that originally served as the banking area. A gas furnace, with a manufacture date from the 1930’s, provides heat. The current owner believes that the original heating system used coal due to the large amount of coal fragments found at the rear of the building. A partition near the rear runs the width of the building. The door to the vault is on the north side of the partition. The single metal outer door conceals two narrow paneled inner doors. Extra tongue-and-groove flooring provided material for vault shelves for the builders. A door on the south side of the partition opens to a hallway. A small bathroom and a back room (now used as a darkroom) take the rest of the space at the rear of the building.

The building at 100 Main Street anchors the balance of the commercial row with simple, classical elegance. The current owner plans to continue using the building as a photography studio. Under her ownership, it would be maintained in its present style.

 

 

Architectural Sketch: 102 Main Street, Huntersville, North Carolina  

The building at 102 Main Street is located on the west side of Main Street. The front or east facade of the building faces Main Street; the rear or west facade faces Maxwell Avenue. The building, containing 2,100 square feet, is located on a rectangular-shaped lot (roughly 35′ wide on Main Street by 102′ deep) owned by Mr. Joyce Lee Hager. It houses “Measurement Controls, Incorporated,” a company which assembles gas meters. Number 102 shares party walls with 100 Main Street and 104 Main Street.

The building at 102 Main Street is built in a simple commercial style. Although it presents two separate entry bays, Number 102 appears to have been constructed as a single unit. According to the Mecklenburg County tax records, the ground plan is linear. The building presents a slightly asymmetrical one-story, two-bay elevation to Main Street. A parapet with a coping of one course of rowlock brick conceals the flat roof from view. The building is constructed of rough textured red-orange brick laid in running bond with white mortar joints. A soldier course of brick spans the metal header over the storefront windows and recessed entries. Recessed panels of brick over each storefront were designed to hold signs. There is a single metal vent centered in each storefront above the soldier course of brick.

Most of the large display windows in the storefront are covered with plywood or waferboard. Only two windows in the north storefront are uncovered. A small window with a sliding panel has been installed in the covering of the southernmost window. Brick bulkheads, used to support the weight of the windows, are original. The low bulkheads extend across the front of the building and into the recessed entrances. There are vents in the bulkheads on each side of the recessed entrances. Some painted glass panels (possibly structural glass) are visible over the northern storefront. Window openings on the rear facade are of the same size, but vary in finish. The extreme south window has an infill of concrete blocks; the next window is an industrial style with metal frame; beyond that is a window covered with plywood with an insulated duct running through its center; and the extreme north window has an infill of concrete blocks. There are brick chimneys on both the north and south party walls.

The front elevation consists of two storefronts with each defined by a three part, window-recessed door-window arrangement. The door of the north storefront forms the center unit. The original double door, evidenced by the width and divided transom above, has been reduced to a single door. The door of the south storefront is covered. A window air conditioning unit has been installed in the transom area. Both entries have concrete pavers laid on a slight rise from the sidewalk. Same width boards cover the ceilings of the recessed entries.

 

Architectural Sketch: 104 Main Street, Huntersville, North Carolina  

The building at 104 Main Street is located on the west side of Main Street. The front or east facade of the building faces Main Street; the rear or west facade faces Maxwell Avenue. The building, containing 2,325 square feet, is located on a rectangular-shaped lot (roughly 25′ wide on Main Street by 102′ deep) owned by Mr. Cecil D. Bradford and wife, Beverly C. Bradford. It is vacant and shares party walls with 102 Main Street and 106 Main Street.

The building at 104 Main Street is older than the two buildings previously discussed. Mecklenburg County tax records list 1906 as the year built; however, officials at the Tax Office indicated that it could have been built earlier. It is built in a commercial style typical of the late 1800’s to early 1900’s. This is evidenced by the corbelled brick cornice and arched windows of the upper story. According to the Mecklenburg County tax records, the ground plan is linear. The building presents a symmetrical two-story elevation to Main Street. A parapet with a corbelled brick cornice of four courses of brick conceals the flat roof from view. It appears that the upper courses of the cornice were once covered with a skim coat of concrete. The building is constructed of smooth mixed color bricks (ranging from red to red-orange to brown) laid in common bond with sixth course headers. The courses of headers are mostly dark brown and black as if they had been fired near the center of the kiln. A rowlock course of brick spans the former display windows and recessed entry. Slight variations in the size of the bricks are evident.

The large display windows in the storefront are covered with plywood. Brick bulkheads, used to support the weight of the windows, are constructed of newer brick and, although old, do not appear to be original. The low bulkheads extend across the front of the building and into the recessed entrances. The vent system in the bulkheads is distinguished by the use of a rowlock course of brick with every other brick missing. The bulkheads form engaged columns at the corners of the recessed entrance. The column is continued in wood to the frieze board. The second floor has two large window openings covered with painted plywood. The window openings are topped by segmental arches of two rowlock courses of brick and have sills of two courses of brick. Window openings on the rear facade are of the same size and finish.

The front elevation is defined by a three part, window – recessed door window arrangement. The double door forms the center unit. Like the windows, the doors are covered by plywood. The entry has square pavers laid on a slight rise from the sidewalk. The recessed entry has a beaded board ceiling.

The rear elevation has two arched windows on the second floor similar to the front elevation. On the first floor, arched windows flank the arched double doors. The southernmost window opening is covered with a door rather than plywood.

A coat of smooth stucco covers the back wall from the ground to the second floor window sills. A white aluminum gutter and two downspouts drain the water from the roof.

The second floor side elevations do not appear to have any openings or windows. The side parapets step down in three steps from the front of the building to the rear and are corbelled in the same manner as the front parapet. There is a single brick chimney with a corbelled top on the north party wall.

The building at 104 Main Street is unique in that it is the only two story building in the Huntersville commercial row. In fact, Mrs. Bradford remarked that 104 Main Street is “Huntersville’s only skyscraper.” ⁶

 

 

Architectural Sketch: 106 Main Street, Huntersville, North Carolina  

The building at 106 Main Street is located on the west side of Main Street. The front or east facade of the building faces Main Street; the rear or west facade faces Maxwell Avenue. The building, containing 1,553 square feet, is located on a rectangular-shaped lot (roughly 25′ wide on Main Street by 102′ deep) owned by Mr. Jerry Kornegay and wife, Emily Kornegay. It is currently used to store laundry equipment. Mr. Kornegay believes that it served the town as a laundromat for approximately thirty years, closing in 1988. ⁷ Number 106 shares party walls with 104 Main Street and 108 Main Street (not included in this report).

The building at 106 Main Street is a simple commercial style of the early 1900’s with a couple of facade changes. Mecklenburg County tax records list 1924 as the year built; however, officials at the Tax Office indicated that it could have been built earlier. According to the Mecklenburg County tax records, the ground plan is linear. The building presents a symmetrical one-story elevation to Main Street. just as 104 Main Street, the front elevation is defined by a three part, window – recessed entry with door – window arrangement. A parapet with a coping of one course of rowlock brick topped with concrete conceals the flat roof from view. The building is constructed of smooth yellowish to red-orange brick laid in common bond with sixth course headers. As seen in 104 Main Street, the header courses are mostly dark brown and black as if they had been fired near the center of the kiln. Mortar used matches the tone of the bricks. A decorative panel of brick is set three courses below the coping of the front parapet. It consists of a rowlock course and a soldier course of brick turned on the diagonal. The decorative panel spans most of the front of the building. Two stretcher courses of corbelled brick add even more texture to the wall. A recessed panel of brick at the center of the storefront was designed to hold a long, narrow sign.

A metal canopy spans the width of the building. Since it is not original, it could easily be removed to show the entire storefront without the visual isolation now imposed on the upper portion of the facade. The large six-panel display windows with thick wooden muntins are not original. Brick bulkheads, used to support the weight of the windows, were added at some point. A single rowlock course of brick provides a sill for the windows. The brick of the bulkheads is newer than the brick of the rest of the facade. Mortar used in the bulkhead joints is white. It is a machine made brick with an incised wave pattern. The low bulkheads extend across the front of the building and into the recessed entrance. A steel door with a small square opening (unglazed) has been installed for security. A wooden panel covers the ceiling of the recessed entrance. Each side has a three panel display window. There is a single low step from the sidewalk to the concrete floor of the recessed entrance and another step at the threshold.

Window openings on the rear facade, covered with painted plywood, have segmental arches of two courses of rowlock brick. The two window openings flank the arched double doors. At some point, a portion of the arch over the double doors was closed with incised brick like that found in the bulkheads on the building’s front; replacement doors were installed in the smaller opening. The newer, incised brick also replaced the smooth red-orange brick between the doorway and the north window. There are two metal chimneys near the rear of the building. Side elevations of 104 Main Street are not visible since the adjoining buildings are two-story structures.

The front door opens to a room that encompasses almost the entire building. The only enclosed areas, rest rooms and a small mechanical room, are in the south corner at the back of the building. The floor is of concrete with some traces of floor paint still visible. The plaster walls are painted yellow and white. White panels with narrow battens cover the ceiling. Rows of washers and dryers line the room. A gas unit heater hung from the ceiling provides heat. A sodium vapor street lamp provides light. There is a column in the center of the building, but it is not structural. It enclosed water pipes for the two rows of washing machines in the center of the building. Dryers lined the side walls.

 

Conclusion  

The Main Street commercial row of four buildings in Huntersville is an intact example of the growth of a commercial architectural style from the last years of the 19th century into the middle of the 20th century. It is vital to an understanding of Huntersville’s development because of its orientation to the railroad tracks. The finishes and decorative details of the four buildings are restrained and simple in contrast to the architectural details found in urban centers of the same period. It is not so hard to imagine the turn of the 21st century with light rail passenger trains stopping in Huntersville across the street from a revitalized commercial row. Noisy commuters could walk to a small grocery for dinner supplies. They could stop at a photography studio to pick up their kid’s graduation pictures. A pharmacy could supply a bottle of aspirin while the laundry/ dry cleaner could have clean shirts waiting. These four handsome buildings, three in use everyday, remain as a core providing development opportunity in Huntersville.

 

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Notes

¹ Catherine W. Bishir, with photography by Tim Buchman, North Carolina Architecture. (Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1990), 400.

² Carole Rifkind, A Field Guide to American Architecture. (New York, 1980), 193-195.

³ Bishir, 403-405.

⁴ Interview with Ms. Sara Marlene McCraw, 15 February 1992.

⁵ B. Clarkson Schoettle, ‘Keeping Up Appearances: Storefront Guidelines,’ Main Street: A Publication of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, 1983,1-16.

⁶ Telephone Interview with Mrs. Beverly C. Bradford, I 1 February 1992.

⁷ Interview with Mr. Jerry Kornegay, 15 February 1992.

This report was written on 28 February 1990

1. Name and location of the property: The property known as the W. D. Beaty House is located at 2400 Park Lane in Charlotte, N. C.

2. Name, address and telephone number of the present owner of the property: The owner of the property is:

Mrs. Mary B. Kelly
2716 Dellinger Circle
Charlotte, North Carolina 28213

Telephone: (704)596-5747

Tax Parcel Number: 055-294-06

3. Representative photographs of the property: This report contains representative photographs of the property.

4. A map depicting the location of the property: This report contains maps which depict the location of the property.

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5. Current Deed Book Reference to the property: The most recent deed to this property is listed in Mecklenburg County Deed Book 6061 at page 689. The Tax Parcel Number of the property is 055-294-06.

6. A brief historical sketch of the property: This report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared by Ms. Mary Beth Gatza.

7. A brief architectural description of the property: This report contains a brief architectural description of the property prepared by Ms. Mary Beth Gatza.

8. Documentation of why and in what ways the property meets criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400.5:

 

a. Special significance in terms of its history, architecture and /or cultural importance: The Commission judges that the property known as the W. D. Beaty House does possess special significance in terms of Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on the following consideration: 1) the W. D. Beaty House was owned by the second son of James M. Beaty, early 19th century Mecklenburg County landowner; 2) the ca. 1880 W. D. Beaty house is architecturally significant as representing a late 19th century interpretation of the National Folk (post-railroad) house form; 3) the two story I-house has elaborate Folk Victorian details such as cornice returns, brackets, and flat, jigsaw cut trim; 4) interior details such as the curved stair are examples of a high level of local craftsmanship; and 5) the property is of similar construction to 1880’s houses in Gaston County by Lawson Henderson Stowe, builder.

b. Integrity of design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling, and/or association: The Commission contends that the architectural description by Ms. Mary Beth Gatza which is included in this report demonstrates that the W. D. Beaty House meets this criterion.

9. Ad Valorem Tax Appraisal: The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on all or any portion of the property which becomes a designated “historic landmark.” The current appraised value of the improvements is $35,640. The current appraised value of the 2.19 acres is $21,600. The total appraised value of the property is $57,240. The property is zoned R-12.

Date of Preparation of this Report: 28 February 1990

Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill in conjunction with Nora M. Black
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission
1225 South Caldwell Street, Box D
Charlotte, North Carolina 28203

Telephone: 704/376-9115

 

Historical Overview  

M. B. Gatza
September, 1989

William D. Beaty (1838-1905) was the second son of landowner, James M. Beaty (1800-1889). ¹ James M. Beaty owned 632 acres, on three separate tracts, and no less than three dwelling houses when he died in 1889. ² As his share of the estate, W. D. Beaty received a 64 1/2 acre tract along the Catawba River, which included a house, but he may never have resided there. W. D. Beaty married Mary E. Kinkaide in 1869, and together they had at least six children. ³

W. D. Beaty purchased 98 1/2 acres in 1891 from J. W. S. and Martha Todd for $1500, and this house was most likely standing on it at the time. The deed of 1891 has a clause which reads (in part):

 

“…the said Martha I. Todd …doth… release… unto the party of the second part… all her right of dower and of the homestead in the above described land…”

Evidently, she was a widow, and probably acquired this property through her husband. The property could have transferred to her automatically upon his death, and therefore, no deed was recorded. Her maiden name and previous married name are unknown. They were living alone together by 1870, and in 1880, they were housing three boarders and one servant (a cook). ⁴

In 1905, W. D. Beaty passed away, leaving a will which mentions, among other things, the house. He bequeathed to his

 

“wife, M. E. Beaty … all my land (98 acres) on which I now live, all my household and kitchen furnishings, horses, mules, cattle of all kinds, all notes and any money…”

He further stipulates,

 

” at the death of my beloved wife, my son J. C. Beaty [is to receive] 65 acres of land of off [sic] the South end of my place, the same to include the dwelling in which I now live and outbuildings at his death to be divided among his children.”

The remaining 34 acres was to go to his daughter, Mrs. Fanny B. Ridnehour, with instructions to sell the mineral rights, if she should ever be offered a good price. One-half interest in the mineral rights on Fanny’s tract was to belong to James C. ⁴ Family tradition tells of a former mine on the property, however, it is not known if gold or any other mineral was ever extracted from the site. ⁵

After the death of Mary Beaty, James C. Beaty did take possession of the residence and 98 1/2 acres. He married Margaret Harris (“Hattie”) McConnell in 1897, and together they had twelve children, at least eight of whom lived to maturity. ⁶ James C. Beaty was a farmer, and grew cotton, corn and other crops on the land. In his later years, he ran a telephone switchboard out of the house, presumably serving the Paw Creek and Berryhill areas. He died in 1923, at the age of 53, of Bright’s Disease.

Hattie Beaty continued living in the house for about seven years. Around 1930, she traveled to Michigan to be with a daughter, Isabell, who was residing there with her husband, Lawrence Otis Dawley. While in Michigan, Hattie met and married Joseph F. Forrest in 1931. She returned a few years later, without her husband, and resumed occupancy at the homeplace. During the 1920s and 1930s, a son, James Fredrick Beaty is known to have resided in the house. At least two of his six children were born in the house (in 1926 and 1932), however, he never held title to it. ⁷

When Hattie died in 1942, she left the property to her children and the only son of her daughter Isabell, Otis Dawley. Several of the heirs sold off their portions of the land, which has resulted in a small subdivision surrounding the house. Mr. Dawley still resides in the house, which is now being restored by a daughter of James Fredrick Beaty.

 

 

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NOTES

¹ Population Schedules of the Eighth Census of the United States, 1860: North Carolina (Washington: National Archives Microfilm Publications), Mecklenburg County.; Interview with Mary Frances Kelly, Charlotte, North Carolina, August 1989; Robert H. Swain, “Descendants of James Morris Beaty of Paw Creek, N. C.” Charlotte, N. C., 1987. (Typewritten).

² “Petition for Partition,” Mecklenburg County “Orders and Decrees” Book 4, p. 1.

³ Interview with Mary Frances Kelly; Tenth Census: 1880.

⁴ Mecklenburg County Deed Book 77, page 254; Population Schedules of the Ninth Census of the United States, 1870: North Carolina (Washington, National Archives Microfilm Publications), Mecklenburg County; Population Schedules of the Tenth Census of the United States, 1880: North Carolina (Washington, National Archives Microfilm Publications), Mecklenburg County.

⁴ Will Book O, p. 346, Mecklenburg County.

⁵ Interview with Mary Frances Kelly.

⁶ The eight adult children of James C. and Hattie Beaty were: William Harvey (b. 1898), Robert Lee (b. 1900), Nellie Jane (b. 1902), James Fredrick (b. 1903), Mary Isabell (b. 1905), Agnes, James C., Jr., and Calvin McConnell Beaty. One boy and two twin girls, Catherine and Cathleen, died in infancy.

⁷ Interview with Mary Frances Beaty.

 

Architectural Description  

M. B. Gatza
September, 1989

The W. D. Beaty House faces east, now toward Park Lane, on a very suburban street. At the time it was built, around 1880, it would have been at the end of a long dirt drive and overlooked fields or woodlands. The closest thoroughfare is Tuckaseegee Road, about a quarter of a mile away.

The house stands two stories tall and three bays across, with two exterior end chimneys and a two-story rear ell. The side-gabled roof is of moderate pitch. The exterior end chimneys are laid up in five-course common bond brick and have corbelled bases (now concealed beneath stucco) and freestanding stacks. Two, four-light, fixed-sash windows are found in the attic level astride each chimney. Six-over-six double-hung sash windows are found elsewhere throughout the house. The splayed front door surround features a glazed transom and sidelights. The individual lights in the door surround have clipped corners, and from a distance give the impression of being curved. Originally weatherboarded, the house was sheathed in asbestos shingle during the middle years of the twentieth century. The roof is covered with asphalt shingles.

The house retains much (if not all) of its elaborate trim. A wide frieze runs the length of the cornice on both the main block and rear ell, and holds scroll brackets. The brackets are repeated on the front porch, and are supplemented there with sawn corner brackets. Delicate, chamfered posts support the hipped porch roof.

On the interior, the most striking feature is the graceful curved stair. Thin balusters climb the length of the stair, leading from a bold, turned newel post. The stair ends, however, are plain. The door and window surrounds are simple, and consists of a plain, two-part molding. A narrow door decorated with wood graining was found in a room upstairs, but is thought to have originally been located on the first floor. Two exterior doors, also wood-grained, were found hanging on an outbuilding. One was obviously the front door, as the applied molding echoes the pattern of the glazing on the door surround. The interior wall surfaces are of plaster applied over sawn laths.

There are side porches on both the north and south elevations of the rear ell. The one to the north is L-shaped and shields the ell and also the rear elevation of the house. Neither porch is original to the house, although they have probably replaced earlier porches in the same configuration. Both porches consist of concrete bases, plain wooden posts and hipped roofs.

Based on physical evidence, it is thought that the house dates from c. 1880. While the attic-level windows and curved stair would suggest an earlier date of construction, examples of both features dating from the 1880s have been found in neighboring Gaston County. There are a handful of houses in southeast Gaston County known to be the work of a local builder which share some distinguishing features with the Beaty House . ¹ It is entirely possible that this builder, Lawson Henderson Stowe, also worked in Mecklenburg and constructed this house as well.

 

 

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NOTES

¹ Namely, the curved staircase, two-story rear ell, bracketed cornice and elaborate porch trim. Of the four houses in Gaston County attributed to Stowe, at least two contain a curved stair, two have a two-story rear ell, and all have a bracketed cornice with a clearly-defined frieze. While none of these features by themselves constitute sound evidence, the combination suggests that this house dates from the same decade as the Gaston County examples, and is probably of the same hand.