Historic Sites Survey - Phase One

2011

Historic Sites Survey PHASE ONE

The Zachary-Tolbert House

Cashiers Historical SocietyCashiers, North Carolina

Cash i er s Hi stor ic Si t e s Survey

— Phase one —

By Laura A.W. Phillips, Architectural Historian | May 2011

Prepared for the

Cashiers Historical Society

Tabl e of Con t en ts

Introduction 1

Project Description 3

Project Methodology 5

Background History: Phase One 7

Overview of Survey Results 13

Inventory of Surveyed Properties 15

Map 16

Property Listings 18

Recommendations for Future Work 115

Bibliography 117

About Laura Phillips 121

Acknowledgments 122

About the Cashiers Historical Society 123

1

In t roduct ion

A few yeArs Ago the CAshiers historiCAl soCiety begAn tAking a more proactive role in raising awareness for our valley’s historic buildings. With the advice of top preservation professionals, we began by making a list of buildings in our village that are at least fifty years old located within a mile or so from the central crossroads of Highway 107 and Highway 64. Our list includes forty-nine buildings, each needing close examination and careful recording. This kind of study is called a “Historic Sites Survey.” We were grateful to have received a generous grant from the Cashiers Community Fund to proceed with the project.

Laura A. W. Phillips, Architectural Historian, was chosen as our consultant. She explains her “Project Description” and “Project Methodology” on pages 3 and 5. Work on the project began on site in Cashiers during early winter 2010 and was completed in May 2011. I was fortunate to be able to assist Laura on the narrative section of her surveys which added greatly to my knowledge of the people and buildings of Cashiers. I think that history is best told in stories, and when the stories of the people who lived in a building are coupled with the architectural description, you have the whole story.

For a number of decades, there have been sporadic historic sites surveys conducted in sections of Jackson County, North Carolina, the last being in 1990. Our current historic survey work in Cashiers is the first time that a survey has been made available to the public. It is a document that can be revised and expanded in the future. Currently work is underway to produce a map with a heritage tour that highlights many of the properties included in the survey.

This year the Cashiers Historical Society is presenting a photographic exhibit by the well-known Appalachian culture photographer, Tim Barnwell. This exhibit is called Faces and Places of Cashiers Valley. It features photographs of eight Cashiers Valley historic properties along with people connected to those buildings and a mountain memory from each of them

The exhibit debuted at the Zachary-Tolbert House in June 2011 and is traveling to other venues throughout western North Carolina.

We hope these initiatives will educate and entertain readers with the flavors and stories from our village’s past.

— Jane Gibson Nardy, Cashiers Historian Fall 2011

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P ro ject D e s cr i p t ion

From December 2010 through April 2011, the Cashiers Historical Society (CHS) undertook a survey of historic sites in Cashiers. The survey was conducted with the understanding that knowledge of the full extent of the community’s historic resources and how they reflect Cashiers’ history is not only important to the activities of the CHS, but also to community planning. Such knowledge can help ensure that Cashiers’ future will retain those distinctive characteristics that make the village the special place that it is.

The CHS contracted with architectural historian Laura A.W. Phillips to conduct the survey and then provided project support in a variety of ways. The CHS viewed this survey — which focused on properties along US 64 and NC 107 and the immediate environs in Cashiers — as the initial phase of what may evolve into a broader survey.

The goals of the survey were four-fold:

1. To record existing buildings and their known history as a record for the CHS archives;

2. To provide resource material for future academic research and community planning;

3. To establish a format and standard for future surveys conducted by the CHS; and

4. To provide data on historic properties in Cashiers to the Jackson County Historical Commission and the State Historic Preservation Office to expand the Jackson County Historic Sites Survey.

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P ro ject Met hodol ogy

The methodology used in conducting the Cashiers Historic Sites Survey incorporated the guidelines developed and used by the State Historic Preservation Office for historic architectural surveys. In this way, not only would the survey follow approved methodology, but this methodology would allow the results to be integrated easily into the statewide historic sites survey database.

Prior to conducting the survey, the consultant read various materials to gain a preliminary understanding of Cashiers’ history.

The CHS was actively involved in pre-survey organization. This included project publicity, the creation of a list of potential properties to record, along with a map showing their locations, and the compilation of contact information for possible sources of oral history for each property. The CHS also made available materials from the Society’s archives.

With this information in hand, the consultant explored Cashiers, focusing on the US 64 and NC 107 corridors. Ultimately, forty-six properties that were at least fifty years old were recorded as part of the survey. Each was photographed and mapped, and for several, site plans or floor plans were created. A survey field form was completed for each property. While on site and/or after, contacts were made with potential sources of information for each property. A file folder was created for each property, which became the repository for that property’s field survey form, photo proofs and at least one five-by-seven photo print, Access database form, tax records and map, interview notes, and copies of any published information and photos on the property.

At completion of the survey, a report of the survey findings, including a narrative on the physical character and historical background of each was prepared, along with a map of the project area showing the locations of all surveyed properties. It should be noted here that the scope of the project did not allow for in-depth research on each property. Rather, known historical data and oral interviews were collected, with the knowledge that additional research could be conducted in the future, if warranted. Finally, the consultant gave a community presentation of the survey findings.

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Backgroun d Hi story — Phase one —

The following is not intended to be a full history of Cashiers Valley. Rather, it is drawn from previously published accounts of Cashiers’ history and from information gained while conducting the historic sites survey. It is intended to provide a context for better understanding the recorded properties. At the same time, it demonstrates that knowledge of those properties helps inform our understanding of the community’s history and the forces that shaped it.

Located in the Blue Ridge mountains of southwestern North Carolina, Cashiers today is a village whose 241 year-round residents (2010 U.S. Census), increase in number exponentially during the summer months as seasonal residents and visitors take advantage of its resort opportunities. However, this was not always Cashiers’ character.

The Cashiers area was part of the Cherokee Nation until a treaty in 1819 opened it to settlement. Land grants were offered, and the promise of inexpensive virgin land attracted settlers, who began arriving in the 1820s. Among the earliest were the Norton, Zachary, and McKinney families. In 1839, Jonathan Zachary became the first appointed postmaster of Cashiers Valley. However, this was rugged country with little accessibility except for Indian and trading paths, and the population grew at a snail’s pace.

By 1850, only eleven households were reported in Cashiers Valley. Just two Cashiers houses, both on NC 107 South, date from the pre-Civil War years. These are the vernacular Zachary-Waddell House and the Greek Revival Mordecai Zachary (Zachary-Tolbert) House. The original section of the vernacular Minnie Cole House may also date from the mid-nineteenth century, although it may also have been constructed later in the nineteenth century. In 1855, Wade Hampton III — a South Carolina state legislator, future Confederate General, and later governor of South Carolina — along with his brother and his brother-in-law, purchased land in the Cashiers area, which they used for hunting and for a refuge from the South Carolina heat. The house that the Hampton family enjoyed no longer stands.

The Civil War years were difficult, not because any battles were fought in Cashiers, but because the mountain people had divided allegiances, creating much internal conflict that made living peaceful and prosperous lives impossible. After the war, several families from South Carolina’s low country began arriving in the Cashiers area to escape the summer heat, like the Hampton family had been doing since prior to the war. They often boarded with local families until they could build their own homes, and with this, the seeds of Cashiers’ summer resort character were planted.

In 1881, the name of the village changed from Cashiers Valley to Cashiers. Several houses, including the Monroe Hooper House and the George M. Cole House, were built during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Around 1880, the Methodist Episcopal Church,

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otherwise known as the Northern Methodist Church, built a small sanctuary on US 64 East. That congregation eventually withered, and in 1931, the building was sold to the Cashiers Baptist Church, who remodeled it somewhat and continued using it until the 1960s. Between 1884 and 1886, the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd was built across the road from the Hampton estate. Although it burned in 1892, construction on a new church began almost immediately, and the present, Gothic Revival-style frame church was dedicated in 1895. By the 1890s, several small stores, including the ca. 1892 Evan Pell Store, operated in the community, and usually the post office was located in a store.

The early twentieth century saw the advent of commercial logging after railroads had been built to within a reasonable distance from Cashiers. This new industry and farming employed many of the local people. Several houses of particular interest were constructed during he first two decades of the twentieth century. Around 1908, Alexander Stevens Bryson built a two-story frame house on US 64 West. In addition to serving as the Bryson home, the house was where tolls were paid for using the private turnpike between Cashiers and Highlands. Thus, it took on the name Toll House. Douglas A. Baumgarner built a two-story, Craftsman-style house on Cashiers School Road ca. 1915. In addition to being their home, the Baumgarners operated the large house as the Cashiers Hotel, the first known hotel in Cashiers. Around the same time, Newton Bryson built a modest one-story frame house on Valley Road. Its nearly square form, hipped roof, and front porch were typical of some houses built during the early twentieth century.

The first period of strong development appears to have begun in the 1920s. Two buildings of significance to the community were erected during that decade. In 1925, Owen B. Van Epp built a one-story frame bungalow from a pre-fabricated mail-order house kit that he purchased from the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan. With the construction of this house, Cashiers’ hard-working summer physician established a permanent, and much-needed, presence in the community. Around 1928, a two-story frame building in the center of Cashiers was constructed for Genevieve Wright’s store. She served as Cashiers’ postmaster from 1928 until 1965, longer than anyone else in Cashiers’ history. For most of those years, the post office was located in her store.

Around 1920, a small group of developers built Cashiers Lake with the intent of selling lots surrounding it for homes. The development of homes was not successful at that time, but Cashiers Lake has remained a place of enjoyment near of the center of the village. In 1927, an act was passed by the General Assembly to incorporate the Town of Cashiers. The primary reason for this action was to establish a law that made it illegal to permit livestock from running at large within the incorporated community. This reason suggests not only that at that time, Cashiers was still a loosely knit community with few, if any rules, but also that there was a desire — at least among some of the residents — to become a more sophisticated village. The boundary of the incorporated community formed an octagon, starting at a stake at the southeast corner of the ca. 1916 Cashiers School and running one mile to the north, south, east, and west and the same distance to intermediate points. As it happened,

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many local citizens were not happy with the new laws that came with the incorporation, and before too many years had passed, the village returned to an unincorporated status, which it still remains. However, the octagon boundary continues to be used, informally, for some planning purposes.

The 1920s and early 1930s saw progress in the development of Cashiers as a summer resort community. The Hampton estate, one of the community’s early summer places, was sold to Dr. William S. and Carolyn Hampton Halsted in 1890. Both the Halsteds died in 1922, and in 1924, Sylva industrialist E. Lyndon McKee purchased the property. Hoping to capitalize on the beauty of the property, he built a small inn, but it was destroyed by fire in 1932. Refusing defeat, McKee immediately began construction of the larger, present, High Hampton Inn, completing it in 1933. This project not only employed many local men during its construction, but after its completion, it provided work to both men and women in the Cashiers community who filled a variety of positions at the inn and estate.

High Hampton established a high standard which other local inns and groups of vacation cottages could only hope to attain. It also represented an unusual aspect of Cashiers’ development — that despite being in the midst of the Great Depression, a number of impressive construction projects took place during the 1930s. Around 1930, Warren Alexander and T.S. Lance constructed a group on small buildings on US 64 East that has come to be known as Alexander Gardens. These buildings included four houses, a cabinetmakers shop, a hardware store (no longer standing), a gas station, a barber shop, and a restaurant. The collection is distinctive in large part because all but one of the buildings have half-round log novelty siding, a play on the rustic image of mountain buildings. Just east on US 64, Charles B. Fugate built the two-story Cottage Inn in 1932 and soon added a collection of frame vacation cottages around it. Also in 1932, the Pine Grove Laundry was built adjacent to the Cottage Inn. This large building provided an essential service to the operation of area inns and nearby Camp Merrie-Woode. Still farther east on US 64, Chattanooga resident Fred Lupton built an impressive Colonial Revival house ca. 1933 that was designed by prominent Chattanooga architect William Crutchfield. It now serves as the centerpiece for the Cedar Creek Racquet Club. At the same time, Dr. James K. Stoddard built a U-shaped, wood-shingled mansion off US 64 West on the outskirts of Cashiers. And in the mid 1930s, adjoining the High Hampton Inn property on NC 107 South, Bryan and Virginia Hanks completely remodeled a two-story, nineteenth-century house into a wood-shingled Colonial Revival dwelling that recalled in many of its features Colonial New England houses. By doing this, Mr. and Mrs. Hanks demonstrated one method of historic preservation that was popular during the period in America.

Cashiers began to operate in two parallel, but often interdependent, universes. While the 1930s witnessed the rise of the resort community, the same years, and later, saw a continuation of the construction of buildings that served the needs of the community’s year-round, working-class residents. Thad and Pearl Cloer built a bungalow near the crossroads of US 64 and NC 107 around 1930. The one-story frame structure with a clipped-gable roof and an engaged

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front porch was thought by some at the time to be the prettiest house in Cashiers. Thad Cloer and several of his sons ran a sawmill for the Andrew Genette Lumber Company of Asheville, and son Andrew Cloer was a preacher who became pastor of the Cashiers Baptist Church. Just west of the crossroads on US 64 West, Chris Passmore erected several buildings ca. 1937. At the center was a general store and Esso gas station, which Passmore and his wife, Edith, operated. The one-story frame building with a front-gable roof, large shop windows, and a recessed entrance was typical of small rural stores built during the period. Immediately west of the store, Passmore built a bungalow for his family’s residence. Immediately east of the store, Passmore also built a diminutive frame building with large shop windows that he rented to Howard Zachary for his Gulf filling station.

An event of particular significance to the layout of Cashiers occurred in the 1930s. Heading south from the crossroads, old NC 106 — which was characteristically curvy — was straightened. While the new road provided a quicker drive to High Hampton Inn, it cut through numerous properties and changed the orientation of many houses away from the main road. Some of the curves of the old road were left, but were renamed in sections, such as Cashiers School Road and Valley Road. Thus, many houses that had faced the main road now faced secondary roads.

A variety of houses and other buildings were constructed in the 1940s. At the beginning of the decade, Warren Alexander built a large, two-story frame building on NC 107 South. This investment property contained a variety of shops on the first floor, as well as Cleo Hunter’s garage and wrecker service, while several apartments were located on the second floor. North Carolina Highway Department area supervisor William Dillard and his wife, Edna, built a one-story frame house in 1941 on US 64 West. The house, with a broad front-gable roof and a small entrance porch, is very plain, yet it is typical of numerous working-class houses built in the 1940s both before and after World War II. The house remains in Dillard family ownership and occupancy. By contrast, Gideon Timberlake built a summer cottage in 1942 on NC 107 South near the south end of Cashiers. Like the Dillard House, it is a modest, one-story frame dwelling that remains in family ownership. However, its board-and-batten siding, distinctive gable-end trim, and setting among a thicket of trees and rhododendron clearly label it as a summer cottage of the affluent rather than the year-round residence of a working-class family.

Actually, few buildings were constructed in the early part of the decade, because the war effort made supplies extremely scarce. However, after the war, construction activity resumed. In 1946, Henry and Dorothy Conkle built a one-story frame gift shop on NC 107 North that they named the Carolina Mountain Shop. The high-end shop catered, especially, to summer tourists and residents and, more than half a century later, it remains a successful operation in a facility that expanded in several stages through the years. Immediately east of the Carolina Mountain Shop, a modest one-story frame house was built the following year for Melbourne and Gladys Smith, the parents of Dorothy Conkle. English-born Gladys Smith was known for the English preserves she made in a small building behind the house and sold

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at the Carolina Mountain Shop. The 1940s also saw the construction of the Cashiers Café on NC 107 South. Expanded in the 1960s and renamed Tommy’s Café, it is still affectionately labeled the “Town Hall” by local people, because for half a century, it has served as a popular gathering place, where residents catch up on the latest news, hold meetings, conduct business, and enjoy good, affordable food.

Toward the mid 1950s, the desire among Cashiers’ year-round residents grew for a multi-purpose community center. Thus began a long, hard project that was participated in by numerous residents. Creating a community center was truly a community project. People contributed in a variety of ways, such as donating materials, providing labor, and cooking to feed the workers. Along the way, there were many fish fries and square dances and other events to raise money for the project. Of course, these efforts and events also served to strengthen the bond among neighbors and a commitment to the village in which they lived. In July 1958, a square dance was held in the new Cashiers Valley Community Center, the first time the building was open to the public. With a gym/auditorium, thrift shop, and various spaces for activities and community offices, the Community Center has thrived, becoming a landmark in the community.

Meanwhile, by the mid 1940s, much of the village, though not the surrounding countryside, had become electrified, and with electricity came a boom in the construction of summer homes that intensified during subsequent decades. As this construction progressed, Cashiers’ character as a resort community solidified.

Today, a strong community spirit remains, which serves both the year-round and the summer residents well. In fact, it is a testament to the Cashiers spirit that the community now has such amenities as a new post office, a new library, expanded recreational facilities, walking paths, and a village green with facilities for outdoor concerts and other events.

Sources:

Cashiers Area Chamber of Commerce. The Cashiers Area: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow. Charlotte: Fine Books Publishing Company, 1994.

CLRSearch. Cashiers, NC, 2010 Population Growth and Population Statistics. http://www.clrsearch.com/Cashiers. Accessed May 9, 2011.

Nardy, Jane Gibson and Jan Blair Wyatt. Cashiers Valley. Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.

Williams, Max R. ed. The History of Jackson County. Sylva, NC: Jackson County Historical Association, 1987.

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O vervi ew of Survey R e sults

Forty-six properties were recorded as part of the Cashiers Historic Sites Survey. These did not include three of the most historically significant properties in Cashiers — the Mordecai Zachary (Zachary-Tolbert) House, the High Hampton Inn Historic District, and the Church of the Good Shepherd — which are already listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Of the forty-six properties, eighteen had been surveyed previously as part of the initial Jackson County Historic Sites Survey, which was conducted more than twenty years ago. For these, the survey was really an update that compared the physical status of the properties when they were first recorded with their current appearance. The remaining twenty-eight properties were newly surveyed.

Most of the historic properties surveyed were built as single-family dwellings. However, the number also includes two churches, one school, five stores, a post office, three gas stations, a laundry, a community center, a barber shop, two restaurants, a group of vacation cottages, and other resources. These represent a century of Cashiers’ development — from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century — and help to tell the story of the community’s history. A descriptive inventory of the surveyed properties follows.

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In ven tory of Survey ed P ropert i e s

The following inventory is keyed numerically to the survey map. Additional photographs and information on each property are included in the property files maintained by the Cashiers Historical Society and by the Western Office of the North Carolina Division of Archives and History in Asheville.

(26) Laurelwood Mountain Inn 66

(27) Melbourne and Gladys Smith House 68

(28) Carolina Mountain Shop 70

(29) Fred Lupton House 72

(30) Monroe Hooper House 75

(31) Pine Grove Laundry 77

(32) Cottage Inn 79

(33) Alexander Gardens 83

(34) Woodpecker Shop 85

(35) John Rogers Pure Oil Station 87

(36) West Café 89

(37) Curt Woods Barber Shop 91

(38) Warren Alexander House 92

(39) Buck Marshall House 94

(40) T. S. Lance House 96

(41) Ralph and Bessie Bumgarner House 98

(42) Howard Zachary Gulf Station 99

(43) Passmore Grocery and Gas Station 100

(44) Chris and Edith Passmore House 101

(45) Cashiers Valley Community Center 103

(46) William and Edna Dillard House 105

(47) Toll House 107

(48) (former) Cashiers Baptist Church 109

(49) Dr. James K. Stoddard House 111

(1) Zachary-Tolbert House 18

(2) Timberlake-Haymaker House 20

(3) Tall Pines 21

(4) Hanks House 22

(5) Zachary-Waddell House 25

(6) High Hampton Inn Historic District 28

(7) Church of the Good Shepherd 30

(8) Hawkins-Menninger House 32

(9) Dr. Owen B. Van Epp House 34

(10) (former) Cashiers School 36

(11) George M. Cole House 38

(12) Baumgarner-Madden House 40

(13) House (25 Flash Point Drive) 42

(14) Minnie Cole House 43

(15) Evan Pell Store 45

(16) Genevieve Wright Store and Post Office 47

(17) Newton Bryson House 49

(18) Bryson-Bumgarner House 50

(19) Alexander Building 52

(20) Fowler House 54

(21) Cashiers Café 56

(22) Roxie McCall House 58

(23) Charles Hooper House 60

(24) Charles Hooper Grocery 62

(25) Thad and Pearl Cloer House 64

pagemap # map # page

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1. Zachary-Tolbert House (Mordecai Zachary House)1940 NC Hwy 107 S | Mid-nineteenth century

Mordecai Zachary (1822-1896) was the eleventh of the fourteen children of Colonel John Alexander and Sallie Zachary, who were among the first white settlers in Cashiers Valley in the early 1830s. In 1846, John Zachary deeded to his three youngest sons, including Mordecai, 640 undivided acres. Family tradition states that Mordecai — who was said to have been a skilled carpenter and mason — began building his two-story frame house in 1842, when he was only twenty years old and even before he owned his land outright, and that construction continued over a period of ten years. Tradition also claims that he built the plain-style furniture in the house. According to the 1850 U. S. Census, Mordecai was still living in his parents’ household at that time. No documentary evidence reveals exactly when the house was built or why, if construction began in 1842, Mordecai was still living at home eight years later, or why he built such a large house at such a young age and well before he married. Again, it is family tradition that offers the only clues, suggesting that the house may have been built as an income-producing venture to house summer residents from South Carolina initially. Regardless, it eventually served as the home of Mordecai Zachary and his family. And although the exact date of construction is not known, it is clear from the stylistic character of the house that it was built in the mid-nineteenth century.

On February 18, 1852, Mordecai Zachary married Elvira Keener, whose father was the first Methodist minister to the Cherokee in the Qualla Boundary. By 1860, Mordecai’s property had grown to include 302 acres, fifty-two of which were under cultivation. In addition to

Hilary Lindler

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being a prosperous farmer, Mordecai Zachary operated a sawmill and a grist mill and, during the last half of the 1850s, he was the postmaster for Cashiers Valley. Between 1853 and 1874, thirteen children were born to the Zacharys.

In 1873, Zachary sold his house and associated property in Cashiers and the family moved to the Qualla Boundary. After that, the house was used primarily as a summer residence by its owners. Armisted Burt of South Carolina purchased the property and owned it until 1881. The Parker family then owned the property until 1909, when Robert R. Tolbert Jr. of Abbeville, South Carolina purchased it. Members of the Tolbert family retained ownership of the house until the end of the twentieth century. In 1997, Thomas C. and Wendy Dowden purchased a tract of 5.21 acres that included the house. They later donated the property to the Cashiers Historical Society. The house and the 1920s kitchen behind it have been restored and are open to the public.

The Zachary-Tolbert House is a large, two-story frame dwelling of vernacular Greek Revival style. Features indicative of the style include the low hipped roof; boxed cornice; symmetrical façade; two-tier portico with flush-sheathed siding, sidelights and transom surrounding the doors at both levels, and first-floor entrance highlighted with classical pilasters and entablature; and center hall plan with four large rooms per floor. Remarkably, the interior has never been painted, and details are very simple.

The use of the Greek Revival style for the Zachary-Tolbert House was extremely rare for this area of the mountains, which was relatively isolated in the 1850s due to natural topography and lack of improved roads. Instead, most buildings of the period in this area were simple utilitarian frame or log structures with little detailing. How Mordecai Zachary acquired knowledge of the Greek Revival style is not known, although family tradition suggests that wealthy planter Wade Hampton III may have provided him with information on the style that was so popular for plantation houses in South Carolina. The Zachary-Tolbert House is one of the few substantial, frame, extant antebellum structures surviving in Jackson County and is one of the few surviving Greek Revival dwellings west of Asheville. As such, it was listed (as the Mordecai Zachary House) in the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Sources:

Cashiers Historical Society. “Valley Insights: the National Register of Historic Places in Cashiers Valley.” Vol 2, 2010.

Cashiers Historical Society. “The Zachary-Tolbert House Museum.”

Harris, Ellen Pratt. Mordecai Zachary House National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North, Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1999.

Nardy, Jane. E-mail to Laura Phillips, May 12, 2011.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Jane Nardy (local historian and Zachary descendent), May 12, 2011.

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2. Timberlake-Haymaker House1884 NC Hwy 107 S | 1942

Gideon Timberlake was the first owner of this mountain cottage, which was constructed in 1942 by a contractor from Dillard, Georgia. The Timberlake’s daughter, Martha, married a Haymaker, and the house remains in family ownership.

Hidden from the road by mountain greenery, the house is a one-story frame dwelling with a brick-pier foundation, board-and-batten siding, and a side-gable roof with exposed rafter ends. A small, louvered-wood vent is set within the peak of the south gable. An interior brick chimney rises from the roof ridge near the north end of the house; a smaller brick stove stack pierces the west slope of the roof. The Minimal Traditional-style house has a five-bay façade, whose three-bay center section rises slightly higher than the outer two bays. A shed-roofed porch, possibly an addition, has slender wood posts and a balustrade with diagonally crossing boards. The porch shelters the batten front door, a six-light casement window to the south of it, and a pair of six-over-six sash windows north of it. All other windows are six-over-six sash, except for a single and a pair of six-light casement windows on the rear of the house. A wood deck extends westward from the south end section of the house. Perhaps the most distinctive architectural feature of the Timberlake-Haymaker House is found in the gable ends. At the base of each gable, a horizontal board cuts across the vertical wall battens and flares upward and downward at each end.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with assistant to Gideon Timberlake Haymaker (grandson of Gideon Timberlake and CEO of Seaside National Bank, Orlando, Florida), March 18, 2011.

Ann McKee Austin

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3. Tall Pines1836 NC HWY 107 S | Ca. 1950; ca.1960

The Erskines may have been the original owners of this one-story frame house. However, its current appearance owes to the remodeling undertaken by William C. and Bettie Stiefel around 1960, shortly after they purchased the property. According to their son, the Stiefels replaced the original asbestos-shingle siding with rough vertical-board siding. And because the rich pine paneling in the living and dining rooms made those areas rather dark, the Stiefels installed sliding-glass doors on the front of the house and added a front deck with a Chinese Chippendale balustrade. Later the Stiefels added faux shutters to the horizontal two-over-two sash windows. Other features of the L-shaped house include a concrete-block foundation, a gable roof, and a rusticated-ashlar stone chimney on the north side. A large garage is attached to the rear of the house by an enclosed hyphen.

Downhill from the rear of the house is a screened gazebo. This rectangular structure has a lattice skirt, a wood floor surrounded by a Chinese Chippendale balustrade, and wood corner posts with braces at the top to help support the side-gable roof, whose gables are covered with lattice. A screened door is on the east side.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Dr. W. C. Stiefel Jr., March 3, 2011.

Laura Phillips

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4. Hanks House1905 NC Hwy 107 S | Nineteenth century; 1935-1936

The original house was probably built in the nineteenth century — perhaps as early as the mid-nineteenth century — by a member of the pioneering Zachary family. By 1913, George Robert McCall occupied the house and operated a general store there. A 1935 photograph shows that at that time the house was a two-story frame dwelling with weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, a one-story shed-roofed front porch, and two small second-story windows above the porch.

After spending several summers vacationing at the nearby High Hampton Inn, Bryan and Virginia Hanks purchased the house and three acres ca. 1935. Bryan Hanks was a lawyer in New York, Miami, and Fort Worth. In 1937, not long after he had acquired the Cashiers property, he became president of the Florida Power and Light Company. Eventually growing to include 600 acres, the property remained in Hanks family ownership until 1983.

Bryan and Virginia Hanks hired local contractor Tobe Clarke to enlarge and completely remodel the old house into a rustic, Colonial Revival dwelling. An example of one form of historic preservation in the 1930s, the house is the only known example in the Cashiers area of an old house being converted to a 1930s’ image of a colonial American home. The basic form of the house — pre-additions — remains the same, along with its gable-end stone chimney, but otherwise nothing is visible of the original house. A 1935 photograph shows that the front porch was removed, large six-over-six sash windows — single, doubled or tripled — were punched into the walls, the house was expanded to the rear, and the whole was re-sided with poplar-bark shingles. The work was completed in 1936, and for nearly a half century, the Hanks family continued to enjoy summers there.

Ann McKee Austin

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Bryan and Virginia Hanks had two children. Their son, Larry, died in an accident at the age of eighteen, but their daughter, Nancy (1927-1983) became a prominent national figure in the arts world. Graduating from Duke University in 1949, she almost immediately began to fill a variety of positions of responsibility with the federal government and with Nelson Rockefeller and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. Her greatest role was as the second Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, a position she held from 1969 through 1977. Hanks took the fledgling organization, established in 1965, and oversaw vast increases in its federal funding and, consequently, and in its impact on arts in America. One measure of the public recognition of her work is that from 1970 to 1981, she received twenty-seven honorary doctoral degrees. Additionally, the U.S. government designated the Old Post Office building on Pennsylvania Avenue as the Nancy Hanks Center. Throughout Hanks’ life, the Cashiers home remained her cherished retreat, and she entertained many dignitaries there, including Nelson Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger.

After Nancy Hanks died in 1983, developer Bud Darden and some others purchased the property. In 1984, Darden founded the initial Chattooga Club at the Hanks House. In 1988, John and Kathleen Rivers purchased the Chattooga Club property and for several years used the Hanks House as Chattooga’s first clubhouse. John Rivers expanded the vision of the club, developing it into the premier, family-oriented, gated, mountain community it is today. He remains the owner, doing business as the Chattooga Development Corporation. The house is used for special events.

A short gravel driveway leads from NC 107 South to the Hanks House. Metal roosters atop stone posts stand guard at the entrance. After entering the property, the driveway immediate splits. To the east and around a planted circle is a low, one-story frame building with a combination of poplar bark and board-and-batten siding, a gable roof covered with standing-seam metal, and an engaged front porch supported by tree-trunk posts. Originally the Hanks’ garage, the building may have been constructed early in their ownership. It was remodeled in recent years to serve as a two-bedroom guest cottage for the Chattooga Club. The other arm of the driveway heads south and runs immediately in front of the Hanks House, returning to the road beyond the house. As it did when the Hanks’ purchased the property, the house stands close to the road, separated from it by a line of fir trees and other vegetation.

The front of the Hanks House looks as it did in the 1930s, except that a gabled entrance stoop with plain posts has been added. The roof is sheathed with standing-seam metal and a long, shed-roofed dormer rises from its rear slope. Broad shed rooms lined with windows run across the rear of the house and beyond it to the south. A large, exterior stone chimney rises from the center of the shed-roofed section. Behind the chimney is a stone patio bordered by large boxwoods. Set back from the south end of the façade is a low, one-story, kitchen wing that connects with the shed-roofed section at the rear of the house.

Inside, the single-pile house gives the feel of a cozy, New England colonial dwelling. A heavy, paneled front door opens to a tiny vestibule that faces the rear of the stair enclosure. To the left (north side) of the vestibule is the living room. To the right (south) is a door to a

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bedroom. The two front rooms of the house have wood floors, board-and-batten walls, and a paneled ceiling with exposed ceiling joists. Doors are heavy, with three layers of vertical boards and wrought-iron hardware. The shed rooms across the rear of the first story differ in having board-and-batten ceilings as well as walls. The first floor has two simple wood mantels. Between the front bedroom and the rear shed rooms, a transverse hall leads to the kitchen. An enclosed stair to the second floor rises east-to-west at the center of the house. Upstairs, the bedrooms have built-in-closets and wrought-iron hardware. The north bedroom has boad-and-batten-sheathed walls and ceiling, while the south bedroom has flush-boarded walls and ceiling. At the south end of the first floor, a winding stair leads down to the ground floor, where there are two main rooms: a small room with a game table at the south end, and north from it, a large living area. Floors are tile, walls and ceilings are board and batten, and in the main room, a large stone fireplace with a stone mantel shelf is at the center of the east wall. Small wood lockers line the west wall of the room.

Immediately behind the house is a well-manicured, eighteen-hole bent-grass putting course which, near the house, includes a rustic pergola. John Rivers added the putting course in 1995 for the use of Chattooga Club members.

Sources:


Inventory of the Nancy Hanks Papers, 1894-1987 (bulk 1945-1983), Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/

rbmscl/hanks/inv. Accessed March 4, 2011.

Nardy, Jane to Laura Phillips. E-mail, March 5, 2011.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “History of the Hanks House.” Typescript, 2009.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interviews with Linda Pridgen (manager of Chattooga Club), April 25 and 26, 2011.

Phillips, Laura A. W. to Linda Pridgen. E-mails, April 27, 2011.

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5. Zachary-Waddell House1942 NC Hwy 107 S | c. 1840/1860/1925

(Original location prior to 2012: 1940 NC Hwy 107 S )

The early history of the Zachary-Waddell House is not clear. However, clues can be taken from both documentary and physical evidence. Around 1838, Col. John A. Zachary of Surry County — the progenitor of the Zachary family in the Cashiers area — acquired a substantial land grant and moved his family to Cashiers. The house site is part of the 640-acre tract that John Zachary deeded to his three youngest sons — Mordecai, Woodward, and Jonathan — in 1846. For several reasons, Mordecai is believed to have been the son who held possession to this portion of the land. In 1892, it was Zachary and his wife, Elvira, who sold six acres of the property to J. L. McGee and R. E. Ligon. Brothers Woodward and Jonathan Zachary are known to have lived elsewhere. And, family stories tell of having to go across the road to cook for the summer people who were staying in the large, two-story home (Zachary-Tolbert House) where Mordecai and Elvira Zachary and their family lived most of the year. Physical evidence suggests that the Zachary-Waddell House was built no later than the mid-nineteenth century.

After the house left Zachary ownership in 1892, it changed hands several times until 1925, when Georgia (Georgie) P. Belknap (Bellnap) and Charles Waddell Jr. purchased the property. At that time, dormers were added to both sides of the rear ell and, then or later, a bathroom was added to the upper floor on the south side of the ell. Part of the side porch was enclosed on the north side of the ell to create a kitchen and, later, a small shed porch was added to the rear of the kitchen. Using it as a summer residence, the Waddell family retained ownership of the house until ca. 2010.

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An impressive line of tall pine trees separates the current NC 107 South from the old road, which the Zachary-Waddell House faces. Stone steps lead up a knoll from the old road to the house. The house is a one-story, frame, vernacular dwelling that appears to date from no later than the mid-nineteenth century, although modifications to the house have been made through the years after then. A rear ell was added later in the nineteenth century, and it was modified in the 1920s.

The front, main body, of the house has a stone-pier foundation, weatherboard siding, a side gable roof with boxed eaves, and a single-shoulder stone chimney on the south end. The weatherboarding does not appear weathered enough to be original, but when it was replaced is not known. The ell retains areas on the north and south sides of weatherboards with beaded edges, which are probably original. A shed-roofed porch with chamfered posts carries across the façade and wraps around the north side of the house. The east bays on the north side of the ell have been enclosed to form a kitchen, but the date of that change is not known. An added shed room and small porch extend eastward from the east end of the ell kitchen. Although the style of the main, wraparound porch is appropriate for the time of the house’s construction, it is a replacement of the original porch, which would have covered only the façade. When it was rebuilt is not known, but the materials do not look especially old, so it likely dates from the twentieth century. A shed-roofed porch with plain, square posts shelters the rear of the house to the point where it connects with the ell. The porches have V-shaped, wood, eaves gutters, which appear to be of recent origin.

The five-bay façade of the house features a central entrance with a replacement door and two nine-over-nine sash windows on either side. Batten shutters attached at the top of the windows lift outward and upward and are attached to the porch ceiling when open. When closed, a cast-iron strap attached diagonally to the window casing holds the shutter tight to the house. Windows on the north end of the main body of the house are six-over-six sash; paired six-light casement windows that flank the chimney on the south end of the house are twentieth-century replacements. First-story ell windows are nine-over-six sash, except for the six-over-six sash windows of the kitchen and a small, six-light window near the rear of the south side of the ell. On the upper half-story of the ell, gabled dormers with six-over-six sash windows were added to either side of the ell in the twentieth century. A window in the east gable end of the ell is six-over-six sash. On the upper half of the south side of the ell, between the two dormers, a gabled addition extends approximately one-and-a-half feet beyond the main ell wall. With a single, south-side window, it housed the bathroom.

The interior of the house reveals much nineteenth-century material along with some replacement or added fabric. The front part of the house follows a hall-and-parlor plan — two rooms of unequal size divided by a board partition with a single door between the two rooms. In this case, the larger south room measures approximately 16 x 18 feet, while the smaller north room measures approximately 16 x 14 feet. The partition wall is of double thickness: the hand-planed vertical boards on the south side are probably original and the horizontal boards on the north side are probably added.

The front rooms have random-width floor boards and random-width, hand-planed, flush-boarded walls and ceilings. The west, front, door is four-paneled and appears to be a replacement.

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The rear door is an impressive, heavy, hand-planed, six-raised-panel door. It may be original, although it seems a bit too high style for this vernacular house and may have been re-used from another house. The partition wall has a batten door, and most of the other interior doors in the house are of this type. Windows (as well as the door between the north room and the ell) have three-part surrounds typical of the early-nineteenth-century Federal-style period. Long, threaded bolts used to secure the exterior shutter straps run from the exterior of the house through to the interior window casings. The larger of the two front rooms has a fireplace at the south end with a simple, hand-planed surround, which appears to have a modified mantel shelf. Window seats and shelving on either side of the fireplace date from the twentieth century.

A batten door at the rear of the smaller front room opens to the ell, which is one-step down from the main floor level. It is likely that originally the ell was divided into two rooms on the first floor. The west room remains intact, but the east, rear, room has been subdivided into a transverse hall and two smaller rooms. Doors from the hall open to a bathroom at the south end and to the added kitchen at the north end.

The original walls and ceilings of the first story of the ell have flush-board sheathing. In the large, west, room, two doors open to the exterior. The north, four-paneled door does not appear to be original. However, the hand-planed, four-panel door that opens from the south side of the room to the rear porch of the main body of the house probably is original. The northeast corner of the main ell room holds the mostly open, winding stair to the upper floor. Beneath the stair is a small closet with a short, hand-planed, two-panel door. A batten door opens from the main ell room to the rear section. Across the transverse hall from the batten door, a hand-planed, four-panel door to a bathroom is probably original, although not original to this location. At the north end of the hall, a batten door opens to the kitchen with its unfinished walls. It is on the south wall of the kitchen — originally an exterior wall — that early, beaded-edge weatherboards can be seen. A door from the south wall of the kitchen opens to one of the subdivided rooms at the rear of the ell. That room has both flush-board and beaded-board walls. Another batten door opens to the small, added, shed room and porch at the rear of the ell.

The upper floor of the ell is not a full story, so it has knee walls and a sloping ceiling. It is divided into two main rooms, plus the added bathroom between the two and a small closet in the rear room. A batten door divides the two rooms. The walls and ceiling of the west room are board and batten. On the west wall, a hatch door opens to the unfinished attic of the front of the house. The walls and ceiling of the east room are flush boarded. Two dormers open into each of the rooms. They are lined with beaded boards. A small, six-light window at floor level on the north wall of the west room is no longer open to the outside, but shows what the original windows in the upper floor of the ell were like.

A single outbuilding stands behind the house. It is a dilapidated, twentieth-century shed with vertical-board siding, a double-leaf door on the west side, a shed roof, and an open shed extension on the north side.

Sources:

Nardy, Jane. E-mails to Laura Phillips, March 9, 10, and 19, 2011.

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6. High Hampton Inn Historic District1525 NC Hwy 107 S | 1933 (Inn)

In 1855, Wade Hampton III, — a South Carolina state legislator, future Confederate General, and later governor of South Carolina — along with his brother and brother-in-law, purchased land in the Cashiers area, which they used for hunting and for a refuge from the South Carolina heat. The Hamptons’ property grew to 450 acres, which was transferred to General Hampton’s three unmarried sisters in the 1880s. In 1890, they sold it to their niece, Caroline Hampton and her husband, Dr. William Stewart Halsted. She was a nurse and a superb horsewoman, and he was the first Professor of Surgery at Johns Hopkins and the developer of several important medical procedures still followed today. The Halsteds increased their Cashiers acreage to 2,200, and named their estate High Hampton. The Halsteds’ primary home was in Baltimore, but they continued to enjoy summers at High Hampton until their deaths in 1922.

E. Lyndon McKee purchased the High Hampton property in 1922, and it remains in McKee family ownership. McKee was president of the Sylva Paperboard Company, and his wife, Gertrude Dills McKee, became North Carolina’s first woman state senator in 1931. After their purchase, the McKees began creating High Hampton Inn by joining the Hampton and Halsted houses with a small hotel addition. They also began converting some of the estate outbuildings into vacation cottages, building more later. Two lakes and a golf course were added, and High Hampton soon became a popular summer retreat for families who returned year after year, even during the Depression.

The first inn was destroyed by fire in May 1932, but construction began on the present inn almost immediately. The McKees chose prominent Hendersonville architect Erle Stillwell

High Hampton Inn

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to design the new inn, and construction was underway by October 1932. The contractor was Builders Supply and Lumber Company of Sylva. The project employed thirty local men, which was a real boon to the struggling economy of the Cashiers area. The new High Hampton Inn was completed in 1933, and it continues to operate as a resort with the same high standards it has always had. Approximately 1,300 acres remain with the property.

High Hampton’s buildings reflect the influence of the rustic Adirondack style. Its collection of rustic buildings is second only to that found in Linville in Avery County. With the extinction of the chestnut tree in the 1930s, the existence of High Hampton as the oldest chestnut bark-shingled inn in Western North Carolina is all the more significant.

High Hampton presents a vast recreational landscape of sloping lawns, two lakes, a golf course, and mountain scenery that offers swimming, boating, fishing, golf, tennis, hiking, shuffle board, croquet, horseshoes, horseback riding, and relaxation. The inn is the focal point of the resort. It is a two-and-a-half-story, L-shaped building with a stone foundation, chestnut-bark siding, and a gable-roof. A one-story, hip-roofed porch stretches across two-thirds of the façade, wraps around the west elevation, and features an extended porte-cochere. The porch has natural supports of stocky, bark-covered limbs and a crossed-twig balustrade and frieze. The interior of the inn continues the rustic style of the exterior. The lobby and dining room make up the first floor. The remarkable lobby measures 38 feet by 104 feet and the walls and ceiling are sheathed in clear-chestnut board-and-batten. The focal point of the lobby is a massive, central chimney of stone from nearby Whiteside Mountain. Each of the four sides of the chimney has an arched fireplace with a white pine mantel. A stair with a stickwork balustrade rises from the lobby to the second and third floors, where thirty-three bedrooms line both sides of long, narrow corridors.

Thirteen rustic cottages and several other buildings erected prior to World War II are casually arranged in the landscape around the inn.

The High Hampton Inn Historic District, consisting of approximately thirty acres, was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.

Sources:

Cashiers Historical Society, “Valley Insights: the National Register of Historic Places in Cashiers Valley.” Vol 2, 2010.

Fullington, Martha, et al. High Hampton Inn Historic District National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1991.

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7. Church of the Good Shepherd1448 NC Hwy 107 S | 1892-1895

When the Episcopal Church in North Carolina extended its missionary efforts west of the Blue Ridge, it was The Reverend John A. Deal who traveled to Cashiers Valley. There he found a small community of settlers and several South Carolina families who summered in the cooler mountains. With the help of General Wade Hampton, his family, and friends, Deal established a mission called the Church of the Good Shepherd. During the summers that followed, Deal conducted Sunday services in the Hampton’s one-room schoolhouse. After that building burned, the Hamptons and their friends contributed the funds necessary to build a proper church. The cornerstone was laid on August 14, 1884, and construction was completed in 1886. A cemetery was created behind the church.

A fire on August 21, 1892, destroyed the first church building, but the small congregation soon began construction on a new church, and it was dedicated on September 2, 1895. Now more than a century old, the Church of the Good Shepherd is the oldest church structure in Cashiers. In addition to being substantial contributors toward the construction of both the first and second church buildings, the Hamptons donated the church bell, which was made at the McShane Bell Foundry in Baltimore in 1892. The Hamptons also provided funds for a clergyman who led church services during the summer months and taught Cashiers Valley children when the public school was not in session.

After several decades, the congregation dwindled, due in large part to the death of members, and services ceased for a short period. However, during the mid 1920s, after needed repairs to the building, summer services resumed. After Bishop M. George Henry appointed Henry Conkle as Church Warden in 1948, the church and its congregation were greatly revitalized. Under Conkle’s strong leadership, a rectory was built to house visiting clergy during the

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summer. The opportunity to stay in the mountains for a period of time during the summer while serving the Church of the Good Shepherd enticed many clergy to Cashiers, and the congregation once again began to thrive. After thirty-one years as Church Warden, Henry Conkle resigned in 1979, having left an indelible mark on the church. In 1981, the first winter services were held, and in 1982, The Reverend John S. Hines was called as a full-time vicar. Two years later, he became rector of the church when Good Shepherd became a parish, no small accomplishment in such a small community.

In 1985, an annex was added to the church to provide a larger sacristy and rector’s office. Next, a parish hall was built adjacent to the church and dedicated in May 1990. Most recently, a building program to add Christian Education space, and to modernize the rector’s office, administrative space and other support facilities was undertaken in 2002. The building was dedicated in 2004.

The weatherboarded frame Church of the Good Shepherd, with its steeply pitched gable roof and lancet-arched doors and windows, exemplifies the Gothic Revival style popular in church construction — especially for Episcopal churches — during the second half of the nineteenth century. The interior, with its center aisle, beaded-board sheathing, and massive oak trusses supporting the roof, reflects additional characteristics typical of frame Gothic Revival churches. The well-preserved structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986.

Sources:

Humphries, Carolyn A. Church of the Good Shepherd National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1986.

“Welcome to Our Historic Church of the Good Shepherd,” Cashiers, NC, 2008.

Cashiers Historical Society, “Valley Insights: the National Register of Historic Places in Cashiers Valley.” Vol 2, 2010.

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8. Hawkins-Menninger House905 NC Hwy 107 S | First quarter twentieth century

The date of construction of the Hawkins-Menninger House is not known, although the surviving features of the original structure suggest that it was likely built during the first quarter of the twentieth century. It was the home of the Reverend William Thomas Hawkins and his wife, Emily, and their family. Tom Hawkins, who came to be known as the “Shepherd of the Hills,” was a circuit-riding Methodist minister who preached the gospel to the people of Cashiers, Bull Pen, Fairfield, and Pine Creek. His death is shrouded in mystery. The story goes that one afternoon in 1930, the seventy-two-year-old minister went in search of one of his cows who was missing. Hawkins never returned home, and an extensive search failed to locate him. Eighteen years later, his remains were discovered near Fowlers Creek, seven-and-a-half miles from Cashiers. Although various theories have circulated as to his demise, the circumstances of his death have never been determined.

In the 1940s, Edwin Arnold Menninger (1896-1995) purchased the property from Genevieve Hawkins Wright, daughter of Tom and Emily Hawkins, and her husband, Joseph Wright. Born in Topeka, Kansas, Menninger was the brother of renowned psychiatrist Karl Menninger. While in college, Edwin suffered an accident that caused him to lose his right eye and right hand. Still, he excelled. Although he was not interested in medicine like his father and brothers, he found his own calling in journalism. Edwin Menninger worked for the Herald Tribune in New York, and in 1922 bought a newspaper in Florida, where he moved with his family. This allowed him to devote time to his interest in flowering trees. He became a prolific writer on flowering plants and trees, and from the 1940s through the 1970s, he published at least twelve books on the subject. Although Florida was Menninger’s permanent home, he and his family summered in Cashiers from the 1940s through the 1980s.

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The Hawkins-Menninger House is now the Orchard Restaurant. The original house has been almost surrounded by additions — a large, institutional kitchen and multiple dining rooms. Only the front of the original house remains visible. It is a one-story, frame, vernacular dwelling with a side-gable roof, an ivy-covered stone chimney on the north gable end, and a hip-roofed front porch with plain posts that shelters an asymmetrically arranged three-bay façade. At present, the house has modern wood-shingle siding like that used on the additions, a standing-seam metal roof, and three-over-one sash windows. The interior retains narrow-board oak flooring and beaded-board ceilings, but otherwise has been altered.

The restaurant stands on a large lot, with a parking area and a large lawn with the remains of an orchard on the north side. It is accompanied by several outbuildings. On the north side of the entrance drive is a rustic carport with wood posts set on stone plinths and a gable roof sheathed in standing-seam metal that has widely overhanging eaves. East of the restaurant’s rear wing is a one-story frame house with wood-shingle siding, irregularly placed one-over-one sash windows, and a low-pitched side-gable roof sheathed with standing-seam metal. A garage entrance is at the south end of the house, while an off-set screened porch extends from the north end. South of the house is a single-bay frame garage with vertical-board siding, a broad gable roof, and an off-center roll-up door. Northeast of the restaurant is a small frame building — probably a shed or pump house — with wood-shingle siding, a metal-sheathed gable roof, and a two-light window at one end.

Sources:

Amazon.com: Edwin Arnold Menninger: Books. http://www.amazon.com. Accessed March 9, 2011.

Hawkins, Keven. E-mail to Laura Phillips, March 9, 2011.

Kansas Historical Society: Menninger Family Archives: Edwin A. Menninger. http://www.kshs.org/p/menninger-family-archives/13786. Accessed March 9, 2011.

Law, Soyrieta Van Epp. Status Quo. Stuart, Florida: Southeastern Printing Co., 1971.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Keven Hawkins (great-great grandson of Tom Hawkins), February 24, 2011.

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9. Dr. Owen B. Van Epp House790 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1925

In her book, Status Quo, Soyrieta Van Epp Law, the daughter of Owen and Winifred Van Epp, relates information about her family and their time in Cashiers beginning in 1920. Owen Van Epp received his medical degree from Cleveland Medical College in 1898, and after remaining in the north for nearly two decades, he and his family moved to West Palm Beach, Florida around 1915.

On the advice of friends, the Van Epps decided to summer in the mountains of western North Carolina, where Dr. Van Epp could provide needed medical services and the family could enjoy time in a beautiful and cool environment. In June 1920 and for two summers thereafter, they traveled to Cashiers Valley and rented the north end of the Minnie Cole House. In 1923 and 1924, after the Halsteds of High Hampton had died, the Van Epps leased that estate with the intention of purchasing it. However, the sale did not occur, and Dr. Van Epp decided it was time to build his own home in Cashiers.

According to Soyrieta Van Epp Law, her father ordered a pre-fabricated mail-order house kit from the Aladdin Company of Bay City, Michigan. The house had four bedrooms, living and dining rooms, a kitchen, the first-known indoor bathroom in the area, outer and inner offices for Dr. Van Epp, and front, side, and back porches. There were fireplaces and a furnace, and a Delco plant provided electric lights.

Owen Van Epp died in 1932, and Winifred Van Epp followed in 1947. The current owner of the house is a direct descendant of Dr. and Mrs. Van Epp. She uses the house for her interior design business, Monday’s House of Design.

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The one-story frame dwelling originally was oriented toward the old road — now Cashiers School Road — that passed it on the west. What is seen today from the property’s entrance off NC 107 South was originally the rear of the house. The house primarily is sided with weatherboards, but the east end also has wood-shingle siding. The house features a front-gable roof, and asymmetrically placed gabled wings extend from the north and south sides. A rusticated, ashlar-cut stone chimney rises on the south side near the west façade. Porches are located on the west façade and south side and are distinguished by their tree-trunk posts. The west porch has a hipped roof; the south porch has a shed roof. A documentary photograph shows that the west façade porch originally had a plain balustrade. This has been replaced with a twig balustrade, which extends beyond the porch to the west, forming a deck. On the east side of the house, tree-trunk posts support a deck with a twig balustrade. The south porch has no balustrade. The house’s fenestration provides expansive natural lighting. Doors are fifteen-light French doors, two of which are double-leaf. Windows vary in type. The east side has six-over-one sash windows. The west side has a six-over-one sash window and a multi-part picture window. Large, multi-part picture windows are also on the south side. The north side has grouped windows that are six-over-six, nine-over-nine, and twelve-over-twelve sash, all with multi-light transoms. The house also has several smaller windows. The interior has a large stone fireplace and walls that are sheathed with vertical-board paneling.

A single-bay frame garage with weatherboard siding, a front-gable roof, and a double-leaf door stands southeast of the house. West of the house is a stone barbeque pit. A frame shed stands in a wooded area northwest of the house.

Sources:



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10. (Former) Cashiers School 766 Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1916

2013 note: The Cashiers Historical Society purchased this building in May 2012, and it currently serves as the organization’s administrative offices.

Ca. 1924 is the date of construction usually given for this school. However, ninety-year-old Jeanne Pell Wright, daughter of Hampton Pell, on whose land the school was built, claims that her brother started first grade there in 1916. The previous school was a weatherboarded log building. In 1984, Lois Henderson McCall wrote, “Finally our school elders got us a nice new schoolhouse. It was a big building a little ways up from our first one. We thought it was the finest in the world and there was a lot of us to go to school by that time. It taught up to the eighth grade.” Since the school closed, the building has been used for a variety of shops and offices.

The school building originally faced west, toward what is now Cashiers School Road. A documentary photograph shows that at that time, it had a hip-roofed porch with exposed, curved rafter ends and plain posts. The porch sheltered a three-bay façade, which consisted of a central double-leaf door flanked by a pair of two-over-two sash windows. A wing extended to the south. When the road was straightened, probably in the 1930s, so that NC 107 ran along the east side of the building, the school was re-oriented to the east.

Today, the main body of the building is a one-story frame structure with a concrete-block foundation, weatherboard siding (with some German siding on the south side), and a gable-front roof with exposed, curved rafter ends. A brick chimney rises through the north slope of the roof. Four windows are on the north side, while two (originally three) are on the south side. The current one-over-one sash windows are smaller replacements of the original tall,

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multi-paned sash windows. A handicap ramp with a white-painted balustrade runs along the north side of the building. After the re-orientation of the structure, the east end had a three-bay façade with a central door and flanking windows. These have been replaced by modern fenestration of a different type and placement. A gable-roofed porch on the east end has square posts and a horizontal-rail balustrade. A screened opening in the porch gable holds the original school bell. The upper façade has two small three-over-one sash windows and a louvered-wood ventilator in the peak of the gable. There are two extensions from the rear, west end, of the building. The first, an enclosed, hip-roofed section with exposed, curved rafter ends was probably originally the school’s front porch, as seen in the documentary photograph. Extending westward from it is a later addition, which has a gable roof, a pent eave around the three exposed sides, and a large picture window in the west end. The interior has been substantially remodeled.

Sources:


Nardy, Jane to Laura Phillips. E-mail correspondence, March 14, 2011.


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11. George M. Cole House220 Cashiers School Road | Ca. 1890

George Monroe and Sarah Amanda “Mandy” Zachary Cole were married in November 1877. Eight months later, Alexander Zachary deeded forty acres to his son-in-law. In 1885, Cole added three-quarters of an acre to his property. When the Coles built their hilltop house is not known. Initially, they lived with Mandy’s parents. Although it might be assumed that they began construction on the house soon after purchasing the forty acres from Mandy’s father, the Queen Anne-style-influenced architectural character of the house suggests a more likely construction date of 1890 to 1905. An 1890 penny found inside a wall of the house during a 1990s remodeling suggests that the house was built in 1890. Regardless, it remains today the largest and fanciest house in Cashiers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

By 1880, two children, Frank W. and Olive Kidder had been born to George and Mandy Cole; two additional daughters, Rosa and Gracie, came later. One of Kidder’s disappointed suitors, Felix Eugene Alley, composed “The Ballad of Kidder Cole,” which immortalized her in Cashiers’ popular history.

George Cole operated a general store on his property. Some say it was free-standing and was located downhill from the house by the road. Others say it was attached to the house, presumably the one-story wing with its own entrance that extends from the north side of the house. Cole served as Cashiers Valley Postmaster from 1889 to 1893 and again from 1907 to 1915. Typical of the time, the post office was located in the store. From 1916 to 1920, Cole held the office of Jackson County Sheriff.

Mandy Cole died in 1929, and George followed in 1937. The house remained in family ownership until 1946, when it was sold to Robert H. Tate. He owned the property until 1977, and since then it has had several owners.

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The George M. Cole House stands on a hill, set back from Cashiers School Road on a large lot. A documentary photograph shows that the two-story house has changed little since its earliest years. Resting on a stuccoed foundation (probably of brick), the house has weatherboard siding and a side-gable roof sheathed with asbestos shingles. A stone chimney projects from the roof ridge. A remodeled entrance forms the center of the three-bay façade. The door has been replaced, as have the flanking sidelights. Windows are two-over-two sash. The first story of the façade’s south bay projects with a three-sided bay window. This projecting bay is repeated at the west end of the north side of the house. Between the two bay windows runs a wraparound porch with a gabled entrance bay. Originally, the porch had chamfered posts. These have been replaced with turned posts. Although the current porch balusters are turned, like the originals, they appear to be replacements. The second story of the house has three gabled dormers across the façade. Like the gabled entrance bay, the dormer gables are sheathed with decorative wood shingles. All of the roof components of the house have curved rafter and purlin ends. A one-story ell projects from the rear of the house. Extending from the north side of the ell is a one-story wing with its own gabled entrance porch and flanking windows. The porch posts and balustrade and the front door have been replaced to match those of the main house.

Five outbuildings and secondary structures — all constructed in recent decades — accompany the house on its lot. Behind the house to the southwest is a weatherboarded frame, two-bay garage with a gable roof and dormers on the north side. The garage has been designed to coordinate with the house. Directly southwest of the garage is a frame shed with a gable roof, an entrance on the east side, and an open shed on the west side. Along the rear property line behind the house are two more small sheds. The southernmost of the two is a small metal structure with a flat roof and a door on the east side. The other is a small frame building with weatherboard siding, a gable roof, and a door on the east side.

The fifth secondary building — a one-story frame cottage — is located north of the main house. It has weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, and a six-bay, symmetrical façade of two units. Each has a gabled porch — treated like the porches of the main house — sheltering an off-center door. Each porch has a window on either side of it.

Sources:

Jackson County Historic Survey entry for the George Cole House. 1990.

Lamb, Shirley. National Register Study List Application for The Old Tate Inn. 1994.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “Brief History of the Cole-Tate House, Cashiers, North Carolina.” Unpublished typescript.


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12. Baumgarner-Madden House158 Cashiers School Road | Ca. 1915

Douglas A. Baumgarner’s first wife was Gracie Cole, daughter of George and Mandy Cole. The Coles lived just down the road to the south, and it was probably from her parents that the Baumgarners acquired their property. Before building their own house, Doug (pronounced “Doog”) and Gracie lived with her parents. Claudia Norris, daughter of Julia Norris — who lived with the Baumgarners and later married Doug — was born in the Baumgarner house in 1916, placing its date of construction shortly before that. In addition to residing in the house, the Baumgarners operated it as the Cashiers Hotel, believed to have been the first hotel in the community. The hotel is said to have had eight bedrooms and two bathrooms. From 1915 to 1928, Doug Baumgarner also served as postmaster, immediately succeeding his father-in-law in that position. By 1930, Doug and his second wife, Julia Norris, had moved to Pickens, South Carolina.

The next owners of the house were Robert L. Madison Jr. and his wife, Lillian. Education was important to this family. Robert’s father, Robert Lee Madison, is credited as the founder of Western Carolina University. Robert and Lillian both taught in the Cashiers School.

Tom and Irona Madden purchased the property in 1943, and it remains in Madden family ownership and occupancy. According to one of the Maddens’ sons who grew up in the house, it was originally sided with wood shingles. Around 1950 Tom Madden replaced the wood shingles with asbestos shingles. The present owner, Donnie Madden, and her deceased husband, Dean, replaced the asbestos shingles with vinyl siding in the 1990s. Originally the front porch had a flat roof with a balustraded deck and a door that led to the deck from the second story. It now has a low hipped roof, no balustrade, and the door from the second story has been converted to a window.

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Historic survey photos made in 1990 show that there have been other alterations. Still, the house remains a rare two-story representative of the Craftsman style in the Cashiers area. One defining characteristic of the house is its front-facing gable roof with its widely overhanging, braced eaves. Two brick stove stacks rise from the south slope of the roof. The three-bay façade features a central entrance and paired one-over-one sash windows. Central attic vents in the front and rear gables originally had an unusual chevron pattern of wood louvers; these were covered after 1990. Typical of the Craftsman style, the front porch has tapered wood posts set on brick plinths. The balustrade is added. On either side of the house, shed dormers rise from the roof. However, the three original windows of each dormer have been covered with vinyl. Two side windows and a door have also been covered with siding. A one-story addition extends across the rear of the house.

The Baumgarner-Madden House occupies a prominent position on a large lot at the southwest corner of Cashiers School and Zeb Alley roads. Accompanying the house are two outbuildings and a small structure. Immediately south of the house stands a two-bay garage with vinyl siding and a broad, front-gable roof. Directly behind the garage is a two-bay metal carport with an arched roof. Southwest of the garage and carport is a large, metal building with a low-pitched, side-gable roof and two large, roll-up, garage doors on the north side. Dean Madden was in the construction business, and the building, as well as the paved parking area north of it, was associated with that business. All outbuildings appear to date from the last quarter of the twentieth century.

Sources:


Jackson County Historic Survey photos, June 1990.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interviews.

Mary B. Bryson (niece of Douglas A. Baumgarner), February 18, 2011.

Ed Madden (son of Tom and Irona Madden), February 18, 2011.

United States Census, 1910, 1920, 1930. http://search.ancestry.com. Accessed May 1, 2011.

Western Carolina University. “Robert Lee Madison.” http://www.wcu.edu/1780.asp. Accessed April 1, 2011.

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13. House35 Flashpoint Drive | Ca. 1930

This one-story frame dwelling likely dates from the 1920s or early 1930s and may have been associated with the development of Cashiers Lake. Vance Alexander (1860-1937) was an early owner and perhaps the builder. Shirley Rice’s family purchased the house in 1961 from Homer Littleton and retained ownership of the property until 1986.

The vernacular house has a stone foundation, weatherboard siding, and a metal-sheathed hipped roof with small cross gables — each with a six-light fixed window — on the north façade and east side. A brick chimney, or stove stack, pierces the west slope of the roof. The façade has asymmetrical fenestration with a near-center entrance, a single window east of the door, and a triple window west of the door. A shed-roofed porch with square posts and picket-fence-like balustrade extends across the façade. The front door and all of the house’s one-over-one sash windows appear to be replacements of the originals. On the east side of the house there are two single windows; on the west side there is one triple window and one single window. A shed addition or enclosed porch runs across the rear of the house and has a glass door and two windows of different sizes. A wood deck extends from the rear of the house.

Behind the house is a small, frame, storage building with weatherboard siding, a shed roof, a four-panel door on the east side, and a small window on the north side. (The rear and south sides were not seen.)

Sources:

Hawkins, Keven to Laura Phillips, E-mail correspondence, March 8, 2011.

McCarley, Marcia to Laura Phillips, E-mail correspondence, March 18, 2011.

Laura Phillips

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14. Minnie Cole House619 NC Hwy 107 S | Second half nineteenth century

Locally known as the Minnie Cole House, this dwelling was associated with Minnie’s mother, Elizabeth Henrietta Coats Bryson Allison Pell, before her. In 1866 Elizabeth Coats married J. Newton Bryson. They had two children who were born in South Carolina. At some point between 1870 and 1874, the Brysons moved to Cashiers. Newton Bryson died in 1874, and the following year, Elizabeth Bryson purchased 225 acres in Cashiers from the estate of A. D. McKinney. It is believed that the house stands on that land. However, whether Elizabeth built the house or whether it had been built at some point prior to her purchase of the property is not known. One tradition places its construction prior to the Civil War. The house, itself, offers few solid clues, because it is a vernacular dwelling of a type that could have been built during a wide range of years. Additionally, the house has been substantially remodeled in recent years. Nevertheless, at some point — potentially as early as 1874 — the house became the home of Elizabeth Bryson and her children.

In 1878, Elizabeth was named Cashiers Valley Postmaster, a position she held until 1880. It is said that she also earned money by being a tailor of men’s garments. In 1880, Elizabeth gave birth to her third child, Minnie, and in 1882 she married Minnie’s father, Samuel N. Allison. In 1885, Allison died, leaving Elizabeth a widow once again. In 1890, Elizabeth married her third, and last, husband, Evan F. Pell. Pell built a store across the road from the house, and it survives as the Cornucopia Restaurant.

In 1901, Evan Pell died, and Elizabeth remained a widow for the last thirty years of her life. Elizabeth’s daughter, Minnie, who was twenty-one when Evan Pell died, continued to live at home. When Minnie married Frank Cole in 1903, they shared the home with Elizabeth. In 1928, as her mother had fifty years earlier, Minnie Cole served as Cashiers Postmaster.

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The following year, Frank Cole died, and two years later, Elizabeth Pell died at age eighty-three. Minnie continued to reside in the family home for the next thirty-seven years, until her death in 1968 at the age of eighty-eight. For the next twenty years, the house changed hands several times. No longer a private residence, it now serves as the office of McKee Properties.

Architecturally, the Minnie Cole House is composed of several sections. The one-and-a-half-story center section is probably the oldest. It is of log construction with weatherboard siding. The steep gable roof faces the road. A stone chimney, largely covered with vines, rises slightly offset from the center of this section of the facade. Nine-over-nine sash windows flank the chimney on the first story, while on the upper story, the chimney is flanked by a six-over-six sash window on the south side and an altered six-light window on the north. The primary, west-facing door at the south end of this section dates from the late-twentieth-century. Originally, the door was located around the southwest corner, facing south onto a porch.

The remaining sections of the house — all one-story — are likely of frame construction. Weatherboard siding covers most of the one-story sections, although there is also some wood-shingle siding on the west façade. A long wing extends southward from the one-and-a-half-story section. Originally, a porch with chamfered posts stretched across the front of the entire wing. However, in recent years the porch was enclosed and large picture windows were punched into the new wall. An offset, interior stone chimney rises from the south end of the south wing. There have been several alterations to the rear. At the north end of the house, two gable-roofed wings with a wood deck between appear to be additions of recent vintage.

Sources:



Nardy, Jane. “Minnie Cole House Timeline Documented.” Typescript.


Jeanne Pell Wright (granddaughter of Evan Pell), April 29, 2011.

Junetta Pell (niece of Jeanne Pell Wright), April 30, 2011.

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15. Evan Pell Store16 Cashiers School Road | 1892

According to the present owner, Evan Pell built his store ca.1892, making it the oldest surviving commercial building in Cashiers. After Pell’s death in 1901, several others operated a store in the building. Local tradition claims that at various times the building also served as a school, post office, tack shop, and private dwelling. Since 1979, it has been the Cornucopia Restaurant.

Photographs from 1914 show that the original part of the diminutive, one-story frame store has changed little since that time. The narrow, rectangular building has weatherboard siding and a metal-sheathed, front-gable roof. A brick stove flue rises through the roof ridge. The three-bay façade consists of a central, double-leaf, paneled door with a two-light transom. Flanking the entrance are two six-over-six sash windows. What makes the building unusual is the hipped pent roof across the façade that shelters the front entrance and windows. It is supported underneath by diagonal struts and has large, slatted, triangular braces at each end. A slatted feature that echoes the slatted end braces of the pent roof ornaments the peak of the gable. Whether or not it is original is not know. However, it has been in place since before the present ownership began in 1979. An added, white picket fence extends across the front of the building and its north shed.

Several gabled and shed-roofed additions on the sides and rear have been added since 1979 to accommodate the needs of the building’s restaurant use. However, these have been designed so that the original character of the building is still clearly visible. Around 2000, a large, open pavilion was added on the north side of the original building, attached to it by an earlier shed addition. The pavilion has a metal-sheathed, front-gable roof supported by heavy wood posts with arched braces, a shed extension along either side, and a twig balustrade. The gable

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ends, as well as the ends of the side shed roofs, are sheathed with bark shingles. Each gable has a large sash window in the center. A small frame outbuilding with weatherboard siding, a low-pitched gable roof sheathed with corrugated metal, and a door on the east side stands at the rear of the property.

Sources:


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Brien Peterkin (owner), April 4, 2011.

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16. Genevieve Wright Store & Post Office572 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1928

The Cashiers Post Office has had many locations since a post office was first established in 1839. From then until 1878, members of the Zachary family served as postmaster. From 1889 to 1893 and again from 1907 to 1915, George M. Cole was postmaster, operating out of the store by his house on what is now Cashiers School Road. In 1915, Cole’s son-in-law, Douglas A. Baumgarner, took over as postmaster, holding that position until 1928. During those years, the post office was held at his home, which was also the Cashiers Hotel, on Cashiers School Road.

In 1928, Genevieve Hawkins Wright (1895-1976) became postmaster, holding that position until 1965, longer than anyone else in Cashiers’ history. For most of the those years, the post office was located in the store building that she and her husband, Joseph Lawrence Wright, built at the present-day junction of NC 107 South, Valley Road, and Cashiers School Road. Exactly how long before Genevieve Wright became postmaster her store was built is not known. However, the two events may have happened at about the same time, for the architectural character of the building is consistent with a ca. 1928 date of construction.

Initially, the post office was located in the rear of the store. As the mail load increased, the post office pushed forward, taking up more and more store space. By the late 1950s or early 1960s, the post office had consumed all the store space. Because Genevieve Wright had more income from her position as postmaster and from renting her building to the US Postal Service than she did from her store business, she built a small brick post office across the road and ceased operating her store. For two more years, until she retired at age seventy, Genevieve Wright continued as postmaster. Since the post office moved, various commercial establishments have occupied the store building.

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The two-story frame building has German siding and a front-gable roof with exposed rafter ends and corner braces. The roof is covered with standing seam metal. Within the peak of both the front and rear gables is a louvered-wood vent. A brick stove stack rises from the middle of the building. Most windows are six-over-one sash. However, 1989 photographs show that at that time the windows were six-over-six sash. The four-bay façade has an orderly arrangement of doors and windows, except that a door at the south edge that opens to the interior stair, skews the remaining fenestration to the right (north). That fenestration consists of a glass and wood-paneled door with a window on either side. The two second-story windows are positioned directly above those on the first story. A metal-sheathed pent eave, supported by three large wood braces, provides shelter to the façade’s first story. The north side of the building has two windows on the first story. The south side has no windows. A shed-roofed porch with plain wood posts, added since 1989, carries across the entire south side. The rear of the building has two windows of different sizes and a door on the first story and two windows on the second story. The interior has had some alterations, but most of the walls and ceilings have narrow beaded-board sheathing.

Sources:


Hawkins, Keven to Laura Phillips, E-mail correspondence, March 14 and 15, 2011.

Jackson County Historic Survey photos, October 1989.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “Genevieve Hawkins Wright’s Applesauce Cake.” Laurel Magazine, February 2010.

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17. Newton Bryson House372 Valley Road | Ca. 1915

The construction date of this one-story frame cottage is not known, but its architectural character suggests that it was built during the first quarter of the twentieth century. It was the home of Perry Newton “Newt” Bryson (1870-1958) and his wife, Annie Rochester Bryson (1874-1956), who were married in 1891, and their children. (Note: this Newton Bryson is not to be confused with J. Newton Bryson, who died in 1874 and was married to Elizabeth H. Coats of the Minnie Cole House. Census records list Annie as Louisa A.)

The little-altered, square, frame house has a concrete-block foundation, weatherboard siding, and a steep hipped roof sheathed with standing-seam metal. A front gable with wood-shingle siding and a pair of six-light windows projects from the east slope of the main roof. The house is three bays wide and three bays deep. Windows are six-over-six sash. A hip-roofed porch with square posts carries across the east façade, sheltering a central window and a door at either end. A greenhouse with a shed roof and walls composed of wood posts with multi-paned doors and windows is attached to the north side of the house. The rear of the house has a shed-roofed utility porch with an enclosed room at the north end. At the south end is the rear door, which has three vertical glass panes above wood panels. The center bay has a replacement window.

Sources:

Ancestry.com. North Carolina Death Certificates, 1909-1975, record for Perry Newton Bryson. http://search.ancestry.com. Accessed April 7, 2011.

Hawkins, Keven. E-mail to Laura Phillips, March 8, 2011.

Nardy, Jane. E-mail to Laura Phillips, April 6, 2011.

Phillips, Laura A. W. E-mail to Jane Nardy, April 7, 2011.

Laura Phillips

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18. Bryson-Bumgarner House341 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1930

Little is known about the history of this house. However, it is believed to have been built by Kim Bryson and later owned by Clyde Bumgarner.

Although the house bears a S. NC 107 address, it actually stands downhill from the main road and faces Valley Road to the west. At least on the exterior, the house appears to have had almost no alterations. It is a simple, one-story frame bungalow with a concrete-block foundation, weatherboard siding, and a front-facing clipped-gable roof with overhanging eaves and exposed rafter ends. Triangular braces are at the roof corners. At the center of the front gable is a louvered-wood vent. A concrete stove stack is located near the front of the house on the north side; a brick stove stack is located at the rear of the house. All windows, except for those on the rear ell, are six-over-one sash. The three-bay façade has a glass-and-wood paneled door at the center and a pair of windows on either side. An engaged porch with plain posts and a plain balustrade extends across the façade. On the south side of the house are a single window and two pairs of windows. The north side has one double and three single windows. A single window is on the rear of the main body of the house. A short, gabled, rear ell has a glass-and-wood paneled door on the south side, and pairs of six-light windows on the east and north sides.

Behind the house is a small shed with vertical-board siding, a shed roof, and a door on the west side. Northeast of the house is a one-and-a-half-story frame barn/garage that matches the house with its weatherboard siding and clipped-gable roof. The front has a double-leaf batten garage door on the left, a batten pedestrian door on the right, and a two-over-two sash window

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in the loft. The sides and the rear of the building are windowless, but the rear has a batten door to the loft that is accessed by a wood ramp. A shed, open on the west end, is attached to the north side of the barn/garage. It has vertical-board siding and three-over-one sash windows.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. E-mail to Keven Hawkins (grandson of Clyde Bumgarner), March 6, 2011.

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19. Alexander Building179 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1940

This two-story frame building has had a variety of uses over the years since its construction nearly three-quarters of a century ago. It takes its name from the original owner, local entrepreneur Warren Alexander. In the late 1940s and 1950s, Cleo Hunter operated a garage and wrecker service in the one-story south end. The Hunter family lived in a four-room apartment in the middle of the second floor. Other families rented apartments on either side of the Hunters. In the building’s early years, a dance hall occupied the north end of the first floor. That part of the building has also been used as an antiques shop and a gift shop. Interior Enhancements has occupied the building for the last twenty years.

The building has asbestos-shingle siding and a parapet roof that steps downward from west to east. The roof of the one-story section is treated in the same way. During the last quarter of the twentieth century, a ribbed-metal, awning-like hipped roof was added along the top edge of the west side of the building.

The first story of the six-bay west façade has a very irregular arrangement of doors and windows, at least some of which results from alterations. Starting at the north end, the first and fourth bays have projecting shop windows of unequal size. The second bay has an entrance with a small, low-gabled porch. The third bay has a double window with one-over-one sash, a louvered-looking segmental arch above the window, and a faux shutter on either side. At the south end of the two-story section of the building, the fifth bay has a door flanked by one-over-one sash windows. A small, shed-roofed porch shelters this bay. The sixth bay, at the one-story, south-end section of the building, has a large, twenty-light window. By contrast, the second story of the west façade has an orderly row of double windows, most of which have one-over-one sash, with faux shutters.

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A two-tier porch with a shed roof and plain posts and balustrades distinguishes the north end of the building. This elevation has a plain, center entrance and four one-over-one sash windows — two per floor lined up vertically. At the east end of the north side of the building, a first-floor doorway opens to a stair to the second floor. Above it on the second floor is a sliding-glass door. Another stair is at the south end of the building. Added vertical-board siding covers most of the east side of the building, except for a short stretch of porch on the second floor near the south end. This, along with other evidence, suggests that the entire east side of the building originally had a double-tier porch like that on the north end. Apartment doors and windows open to the enclosed porch. An added porch wraps around the east and south sides of the one-story south end of the building.

Sources:


Phillips, Laura A. W. Phillips. Interview with Marilyn Hunter Henson (who lived in the building in the late 1940s and 1950s), February 14, 2011.

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20. Fowler House142 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1930

Edward and Fannie Fowler raised their six children in this house. In 1941, the Fowlers began to operate a store in the building now occupied by Highland Hiker. For several years, the family lived in the back of the store building. In 1942, Edward Fowler purchase the Littleton property, which included the site at the corner of NC 107 South and Frank Allen Drive where the Texaco station later stood until recent years. The following year, he purchased the J. K. Anderson property on the west side of NC 107 South, between US 64 and Frank Allen Drive. This became the site of the store that the Fowler family operated for years. Later in the 1940s, soon after the move to his new store, Edward Fowler moved a house from the former Littleton property perhaps 500 feet northward, where it stood closer to his store. At that time, the family moved from the store at the southeast corner of NC 107 South and US 64 East to the house that became their longtime home. Who occupied the house prior to its move is not know. In later years, the Fowlers’ youngest son, Ray, and his wife, Marlene, converted the family home to a shop called the Olde Home Place. A different shop now occupies the building, but it remains in Fowler family ownership.

The one-story frame house has had several additions, and its original appearance can only be surmised. It appears to have had a hipped roof, a three-bay façade with a central door, and a partial-façade, front-gable porch. A 1951 photograph shows some of the family standing in front of the porch, which, like today, had plain, square posts. However, at that time the porch appears to have had a wood-shingled front gable and a wood-shingled solid balustrade. Today, the open balustrade has plain balusters, and the porch gable, like the rest of the house, is sheathed with aluminum German siding. The front door is a modern replacement, and on either side of the entrance is a three-part window with a large, single pane of glass in

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the center flanked by two-over-two sash. A recessed wing with a front bay window extends southward from the south side of the house, and a side wing flush to the front of the house extends northward. Between it and the main body of the house is a brick chimney. A rear ell extends westward from the center of the house. What appears to be an enclosed porch is on the south side of the ell; on the north side is a larger, shed-roofed addition. The two side wings and the rear ell all have gable roofs.

Adjacent to the south side of the house is modern, frame shed. It has vertical-board siding, a double-door on the east end, and a gambrel roof.

Sources:


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Adrian Fowler (son of Edward and Fannie Fowler), April 16, 2011.

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21. Cashiers Café 95 NC Hwy 107 S | 1940s; 1960s

Local residents often call this building the “Town Hall.” That is because for half a century, it has served as a popular gathering place, especially for breakfast, where people catch up on the latest news, hold meetings, conduct business, and enjoy good, affordable food.

The original brick portion of the building was erected in the 1940s by Edward Fowler. He operated a café and barber shop there. However, he soon found that it was too hard to try to run these businesses, his grocery store across the street, and his farming activities, so he sold the building. New owner Warren Rice continued the building’s use as a barber shop and a restaurant, which he called the Cashiers Café. Around 1960, Rice sold the building to Irona Madden. She and her husband, Tom, continued its operation as the Cashiers Café. Tom Madden added frame wings to both ends of the brick section. The south end was used as a beauty shop, while the north end held a larger dining room and several office spaces. Other uses through the years have included a real estate office, a plumber’s shop, an alterations shop, a mechanic’s shop, and a contractor’s office. From the early to mid 1970s until the early 1980s, one of the Madden’s sons, Tommy, rented the restaurant from his mother. At that time, it took on the name Tommy’s Café. The Madden family sold the building around 2005. The current owners renovated it and use the north end as Tommy’s Coffee Shop, Good Food and Hot Dog Stand, while other spaces in the building are used for other small restaurants and shops.

The building is a long, one-story structure with a low-pitched, side-gable roof and a cross gable near the north end. Beneath the cross gable on the west facade, a projecting covered area has been added in recent years. It has square wood posts set on stone plinths and a shed roof that rises in the center to a steep gable. The projecting area shelters the primary entrance,

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which has a glass-and-wood paneled door with sidelights. The original brick section of the building is located near the south end. The frame sections have board-and-batten siding. Doors are glass-and-wood paneled, and windows are of several modern types: single fixed panes, double fixed panes, and large, fixed-pane windows flanked by narrow windows with four horizontal panes. The north and south ends of the building each have a covered area with a metal-sheathed shed roof supported by wood posts with diagonal braces at the top. Other than these two roofs, the other roofs are covered with asphalt shingles. Various sheds extend from the nondescript rear of the building.

Sources:

“Continued Conversations with Edward Fowler.” The Cashiers Chronicle, September 23, 1981.

Madden, Tommy and Ed. Village Heritage Award nomination for the Former Tommy’s Restaurant Building, 2008.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Ed Madden, March 4, 2011.

Sibley, Jim. Village Heritage Award nomination for the Former Tommy’s Restaurant Building, 2008.

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22. Roxie McCall House71 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1930

The first known occupant of this house, in the mid-twentieth century, was Roxie McCall (1897-1978). She was the daughter of Newt and Annie Bryson, whose family home was located at present-day 372 Valley Road. The house originally faced the old road that ran behind it. In 1982, V. C. Smith purchased the building and three years later added a two-story wing to the rear. In 2000 Guiliana Kaufman purchased the building and has operated it since then as Narcissus, a ladies apparel shop.

The original one-story frame building has been significantly remodeled. A wood walkway leads to the front porch/deck. The building has weatherboard siding and a steep hipped roof. The front may originally have had one or two gables that intersected with the hipped roof. If so, these have been extended forward, creating a porch with wood posts, corner braces, and kingpost trusses. The south gabled extension shelters a large, rectangular shop window. The north gabled extension shelters the double-leaf glass entrance. On the south side of the building a shed roof extends outward from the main roof to shelter a side porch and another shop window. The added two-story rear wing looks rather like the servants’ quarter of a house in New Orleans or Charleston with its hipped roof and two-tier gallery along the long, south side.

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Sources:

Austin, Ann. Village Heritage Award Nomination for the Narcissus Building, 2006.

Nardy, Jane. E-mail to Laura Phillips, March 6, 2011.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interviews:

Harriet Hooper Bruno (who grew up next door at 51 S. NC 107 during the mid-twentieth century), March 4, 2011

Adrian Fowler (whose family home and businesses were across NC 107 South for years beginning in the 1940s), April 16, 2011

“Roxie McCall.” http://www.ancestry.com Accessed April 7, 2011.

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23. Charles Hooper House51 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1940; ca. 1949

In the mid-to-late 1940s, Charles Hooper purchased this house and the adjacent store. He operated the store, and for several years he and his family lived in the back of that building. Around 1949 the Hoopers renovated the house, and it became their home. They enlarged it, converting it to a duplex that looked the same on both ends. (The old road used to run on the east side of the house rather than on the west side, which faces S. NC 107.) The Hoopers lived in the front, west, half of the house and rented out the east half. Charles Hooper died in 2003, and his wife, Christine, followed in 2004. She lived in the house until her death. The property remains in Hooper family ownership. Around twenty years ago, they began leasing the store building to Carol and David Wilkes of the Highland Hiker, and now the Wilkes also rent the house, which they use for storage.

The house is set back from S. NC 107. It is a simple bungalow with a concrete-block foundation, aluminum siding, and a front-gable roof with exposed rafter ends. A stove stack rises from the north slope of the roof in the west half of the house, while another stove stack rises along the outside wall of the south side of the house’s east half. Most windows are six-over-six sash, but some of these are replacements. Hip-roofed entrance porches are found on west and east facades, sheltering center doors with windows on either side. Both entrances are surrounded by ersatz stone, which forms a contrast with the aluminum siding. The west porch has decorative ironwork posts and is screened. The east porch has plain wood posts and is not screened, but has a lattice panel at either end. A third, gabled entrance projects from the north side of the house approximately midway between the east and west ends. Large trees shade the west end of the house.

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Sources:


Harriet Hooper Bruno (daughter of Charles and Christine Hooper), March 4, 2011.

Adrian Fowler (son of Edward Fowler, who ran the store before the Hoopers), April 16, 1911.

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24. Charles Hooper Grocery47 NC Hwy 107 S | Ca. 1930

Originally this store building was owned by Dan Allison, an automobile dealer in Sylva, who rented it to John Henry Hooper (brother of Charles Hooper). When Hooper moved out, Allison was anxious to get another tenant in the building, so he convinced Edward Fowler, who earlier had had a grocery store in the Fairfield area, to go back into the store business and rent the building. In 1941, the Fowlers moved to the building. Edward Fowler was busy with his trucking business, so his wife, Fannie, ran the store in the front, and the family lived in the back. Two years later, however, Fowler purchased the J. K. Anderson property across NC 107 and to the south, which became the location of his long-time and best-known grocery. Around 1945, Charles Hooper purchased the building at the southeast corner of NC 107 South and US 64 East. Like the Fowlers, the Hoopers ran a grocery in the front of the building and lived in the rear. Several years later, they purchased the house next to the store and it became their home. The store had three gas tanks in front and, apparently, for a time Andrew Cloer operated a garage next to or behind the building. The Hoopers ran the store for around thirty years and, historically, it remains most strongly associated with them. The Hooper family still owns the building, but for approximately the past twenty years they have leased it to David and Carol Wilkes, the proprietors of the Highland Hiker store, the building’s current occupant.

The one-story building has been enlarged and remodeled on several occasions, although the dates of those changes are not known. Initially it was a frame structure with a gable roof facing S. NC 107 and German siding. This can still be seen on the south side of the building, along with a brick stove stack rising along the exterior of the south wall and two small square windows high on the wall. Over time, additions were made to the rear (east

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end) of the building, ending with a side-gable section. A large, shed-roofed, frame addition was also built along part of the north side. At some point the west end of the building and the west half of the north side were brick veneered, and a tall, plain parapet was built to modernize the building and hide the front gable. Plate-glass shop windows were added on the bricked sides of the building, and the entrance was moved to the north side between two shop windows. It consists of a glass-and-wood paneled door with narrow sidelights. Wood window boxes are installed beneath each of the shop windows. A canvas awning wraps around the brick sides of the store above the windows.

Just south of the building, near the rear, side-gable addition, stands a small brick structure with a gable roof. It is likely a pump house.

Sources:



Harriet Hooper Bruno (daughter of Charles and Christine Hooper), March 4, 2011.

Adrian Fowler (son of Edward and Fannie Fowler), April 16, 2011.

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25. Thad & Pearl Cloer House25 Burns Street | Ca. 1930

Probably built around 1930, this house has had several occupants through the years. Its most recent occupant, during the last quarter of the twentieth century, was the Lyn K. Holloway Antiques shop. However, the first known occupants of the house, who were there by around 1940, were Thad and Pearl Cloer and their family. Thad and several of his sons ran a sawmill for the Andrew Genette Lumber Company of Asheville. Son Andrew Cloer was a preacher who became pastor of the Cashiers Baptist Church.

The one-story frame bungalow has a replacement stone foundation, aluminum siding, and a front-facing, clipped-gable roof with a shed-roofed dormer on the east side. An ell extends from the rear of the house. Most windows are six-over-six sash with faux louvered shutters. The front gable has a four-over-one sash window. The asymmetrical façade consists of a central, Craftsman-style door with a pair of vertical panels in the lower two thirds and a six-light window in the upper third. The door is flanked by a double window on the left (east) and a single window on the right. These are sheltered by an engaged porch with a braced, pent eave across the front. The square porch posts appear to be original, but the decorative sawnwork balustrade was added after 1971, when the house was photographed without one. A brick chimney rises near the front of the house on the east side; a brick stove stack rises on the west side of the rear ell. A large concrete-block addition, offset from the southeast rear corner of the house, was built around 1980.

Inside, the house has wood floors, a beaded-board ceiling, sheet-rocked walls in the front rooms, and board-and-batten walls in the back rooms. A post-and-lintel mantel with a molded shelf located in the living room may be a replacement of the original.

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Sources:


Fowler, Edward. “History of Cashiers Baptist Church.” Typescript, no date.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interviews with:

Adrian Fowler (longtime Cashiers resident who lived nearby), April 16, 2011.

Rooth, Scott (current owner and son of Lyn K. Holloway), January 18 and 20, 2011.

Watson, David (former occupant), March 4, 2011.

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26. Laurelwood Mountain Inn58 NC Hwy 107 N | 1960; 1973; 1989; 1996; 1998

Located immediately northwest of the Cashiers crossroads, the Laurelwood Mountain Inn has provided lodging to visitors for half a century, during which time it has evolved from a single building to a complex of four buildings for lodging and other amenities. Judy Hodge was the owner in 1960, when the original one-story, U-shaped, frame motel was built. It was substantially remodeled after the present owners, Bob and Lise Dews, purchased the property in 1998. In 1973, a second story was added above the front office. In 1989, owners Dwayne and Betty Hood built what is called the Big House northeast of the original building. In 1996, a log building with suites was erected southeast of the main building, and in 1998, a log cabin was constructed behind the Big House.

The U-shaped main building has a concrete-slab foundation, wide weatherboard siding, and a broad gable roof. An exterior stair on the southeast side of the two-story section provides access to a shed-roofed entrance at second-floor level. Tree-trunk posts with braces at the top support a one-story, wraparound porch on the front and southeast side of the two-story portion of the building, a balcony on the rear of the main building, and the widely overhanging eaves of the one-story motel section, the last providing a covered walkway the length of the building. The doors to the rooms open to the covered walk. A split-rail fence along the part of the motel section provides a rustic guard between it and the gravel parking lot that fits within the “U” of the building.

Behind the rear corner of the motel building is a square, two-story structure of unknown date and use. It has a concrete-block first story with a pair of wood doors on the southeast side, a weatherboarded upper story, and a pyramidal roof.

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The Big House is a raised, rectangular, frame building above a concrete basement that serves as a workshop. The upper part of the building has weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, and an engaged, partially screened porch with square posts and a plain balustrade along the southwest front. A shed-roofed screened porch projects from the northwest end of the building. Stairs with nine wood steps and side balustrades lead from the ground to the center of the front porch of the Big House. The southeast half serves as the manager’s housing, and the northwest half has two large guest rooms.

Across the parking lot on the southeast side of the motel building, a one-and-a-half-story log building with a side-gable roof has a shed-roofed porch across the front and a wood deck in front of the porch. It contains lodging suites.

Behind the Big House is a log cabin. Lattice covers its foundation, and it has a standing-seam metal side-gable roof. A shed-roofed porch, half of which is screened, carries across the southwest façade. The porch has square posts with wood braces at the top and a plain balustrade. Steps with a twig balustrade lead to the porch. At the rear of the cabin is a shed-roofed entrance stoop; a twig balustrade follows the steps leading to the entrance.

The wooded property also has two gazebos and wooden playground equipment.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Bob Dews (owner of the Laurelwood Mountain Inn), December 9, 2010.

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27. Melbourne & Gladys Smith House97 NC Hwy 107 N | Ca. 1947

This one-and-a-half-story frame building was originally the home of Gladys and Melbourne Smith. English-born Gladys made English preserves in a small building that stood behind the house and sold them at the Carolina Mountain Shop next door, which was owned by the Smiths’ daughter Dot, and her husband, Henry Conkle. In 1977, Sarasota residents Gay Townsend and Paulette Crabtree converted the house to Sashay Around, a women’s clothing boutique, which remains a successful business after more than thirty years.

The simple, Minimal Traditional-style house exhibits some features of the earlier Craftsman style in its gable ends. The house has a concrete-block foundation, German siding, a side-gable roof, and a fieldstone chimney with grapevine mortar joints at the northwest gable end. A set-back, one-room wing extends from southeast side of the house. Of particular architectural interest are the horizontal-board eaves brackets at the gable ends and the lattice ventilators in the gable peaks. The three-bay façade has a central door and a window on either side. Like almost all the windows of the house, the window southeast of the entrance has six-over-six sash. The window northwest of the entrance used to be identical, but was converted to a three-sided bay shop window when the house became Sashay Around. Imbedded in the stone walk in front of the entrance are small rocks that spell out “Sashay 1977.” Immediately southwest of the stone chimney is a shed-roofed, boxed-in projection that appears to have been at one time an added side entrance. At the rear of the house is a brick chimney or stove stack and a shed-roofed extension with a southeast entrance accessed by a set of wood steps. A smaller, enclosed shed is attached to the northwest side of the rear extension. In the main, northwest room of the house, the face of the stone chimney is exposed. It has a segmental-arched firebox opening with an enormous, rustic keystone with flanking voussoirs.

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Sources:


Nancy Swann to Ann Austin. E-mail, December 11, 2010.

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28. Carolina Mountain Shop121 NC Hwy 107 N | Ca. 1946

Henry and Dot Conkle came to Cashiers in the Spring of 1946 and oversaw the construction of the building that became their home for two decades, while at the same time housing the Carolina Mountain Shop in the front. The shop has been in operation for the past sixty-five years, making it one of the oldest businesses in the Cashiers community. When the gift shop opened, it possessed one of only five telephones in Cashiers Valley. The Conkles and their two children lived in the back of the building until 1964, when they moved to their new brick house on the adjacent lot to northwest. The Conkles were very active in the life of the Cashiers community. For a time, their station wagon served as the local ambulance when needed. Perhaps their most prominent community role was in conjunction with the Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd. From 1948 to 1980, they had the responsibility of church oversight, and during that time they played a significant part in revitalizing the congregation. Meanwhile, the Carolina Mountain Shop, which specialized in selling handmade gifts, became a local institution.

The building bears some similarities to the adjacent home of Melbourne and Gladys Smith, who were the parents of Dot Conkle. It has a concrete-block foundation, German siding, and a side-gable roof. The front slope of the roof breaks at the southeast chimney and continues forward as if it were meant to cover a porch. However, a photograph from the 1950s suggests that it was always enclosed. The horizontal-board eaves brackets and the vertical-wood slatted ventilators in the gable peaks are much like those at the Smith House. The building has a variety of sash and casement windows. The large, multi-light window on the two-bay façade is a replacement of the original three-part window. The two stone chimneys that are asymmetrically placed on the sides of the building were built by master

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stonemasons Ralph and Ned Fugate. Shared characteristics suggest that the Fugates also built the stone chimney at the Smith House. Like the Smith House chimney, these are made of large fieldstones, and the interior fireplace of each has a segmental-arched firebox opening, a large rustic keystone and voussoirs, and square vents above the mantel shelf. Most of the interior has wooden floors, walls, and ceilings.

At the rear of the building, a side wing extends southeastward beyond the main body of the structure. A brick stack rises at the point where the wing meets the main body of the shop. An added shed runs southwestern from the rear of the building. Southeast of the shop, a separate, gable-front building connects to the shop by an open-frame gabled structure with a translucent roof. This arrangement forms a courtyard between the main shop, the rear wing, and the separate building.

Sources:


Conkle, Henry. Thirty Years with the Good Shepherd. Cashiers, NC: Cashiers Printing and Graphics, 1991.


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29. Fred Lupton House42 Racquet Club Drive | Early 1930s

In the late 1920s, Chattanooga resident Fred Lupton and his wife purchased the 730-acre Monroe Hooper property in the Cedar Creek area east of the center of Cashiers and set about to create a summer estate in the mountains. They named it Sleepy Valley, suggestive of the relaxed times they hoped to have there. In the early 1930s, they dammed the Horsepasture River to create a lake and hired Chattanooga architect William Crutchfield to design their home. In addition to being an architect, Crutchfield was also an accomplished painter of wildflowers, and he probably delighted in the opportunity to design the Lupton’s home in the mountains. In fact, it is said that he assisted Mrs. Lupton in the landscaping of the lawns at Sleepy Valley.

William Crutchfield (1888-1956), who graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Illinois, practiced architecture from 1916 until 1956. From 1931 through 1947, which included the years during which the Lupton House was designed and built, Crutchfield shared his architecture practice with Halbert G. “Hobby” Law. Law became a partner in 1933. Crutchfield designed many public buildings, among them the Chattanooga Public Library, Ochs Memorial Temple, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church, Lookout Mountain Presbyterian Church, and the Coca Cola Bottling Plant. However, he and Law are probably best known for the large collection of beautiful houses they designed. Both architects liked traditional architecture, and the majority of their houses were Colonial Revival in style, although they did design some modern houses. The firm was known for its sense of style, scale, proportion, and detail. Many of their Colonial Revival-style houses were, like the Lupton House, expansive in length with several breaks in the line of the façade. The Lupton House is a good representative of Crutchfield and Law’s domestic design.

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Fred Lupton did not get to enjoy his mountain retreat for long; he died in 1938. Mrs. Lupton later married Eugene Thomasson, another resident of Chattanooga, and they continued to enjoy Sleepy Valley for some years.

After Eugene Thomasson died in 1977, a group of twelve men purchased the property. They did not develop it themselves, but — recognizing the architectural quality of the house and the beauty of its surroundings — they wanted to ensure that a new buyer would respect those qualities. In 1981, they sold 150 acres of the property to A. William McKee, who then developed the Cedar Creek Racquet Club with the Lupton House as the centerpiece. In 1991, the Cedar Creek Racquet Club members purchased the property from McKee.

There have been several additions to the sides and rear of the Lupton House, including the large dining room built in 1998-1999. These have been designed to reflect various elements of the original design of the house. Tennis courts and a swimming pool fill much of the area between the rear of the house and Lupton Lake, and a large, asphalt parking lot comes up to the south side of the house, filling what might have been a front lawn, and extends southwestward from the house. Still, the original house has been well-preserved and remains an impressive architectural statement of its period of construction.

A curving drive leads from US 64 East to the frame Lupton House, which has a center, one-and-a-half-story section and one-story side wings. It is sheathed with weatherboards that are beveled at the corners. The gabled roof is covered with wood shingles and has a molded cornice. The original house has three coursed-fieldstone chimneys: two that rise from the interior and one on the exterior of the façade west of the entrance. A fourth stone chimney has been added in recent years to the covered rear patio. The nine-bay façade is broken into projecting and receding planes that add architectural complexity and diminish the unusual length of the house. The impressive entrance in the one-and-a-half-story center section is recessed with a paneled surround of splayed jambs and segmental-arched ceiling. The paneled door is split horizontally, a Dutch Colonial Revival feature. Immediately east of the entrance is a narrow casement window with diamond-shaped muntins. In the middle of the center section of the house is a triple window with diamond-muntined casements. From there to the east end of the façade, the windows are eight-over-eight sash. West of the entrance, all windows are six-over-six sash. The gable roof of the westernmost bay of the original house has a flared eave, another nod to the Dutch Colonial Revival.

The interior of the original house is richly paneled with vertical boards with molded edges. Most remain stained but unpainted. Original interior doors are heavy and are paneled like the walls, though with somewhat wider boards, and have small doorknobs. As a result, when closed, they all but disappear next to the walls. Immediately west of the entrance in the vestibule, a partially enclosed stair rises to the upper story. On either side of the front door, small sections of the paneled wall are cut to serve as flush doors to inset cabinets. East of the entrance is a small reception room or office. A few steps down from the vestibule, a sliding door opens to the large living room on the back side of the house. Here the paneling rises only three quarters of the height of the wall, with the upper quarter being plastered. The ceiling has exposed joists and cross beams with heavy, curved support braces. In the center of the south wall is a large fireplace with a dentiled mantel shelf. In the paneling above the

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fireplace is a pair of decoratively cut vents in an elongated sunburst design. Near the east and west ends of the fireplace wall are metal wall sconces in the shape of a scallop shell that may be original. Additional rooms to the east and west of the main living room have the same vertical-board wall paneling along with a variety of simple Colonial Revival mantels. The room immediately to the west has exposed ceiling joists; the room immediately to the east has built-in corner cabinets and shelves. The walls and doors of the upper half story are like those on the first floor. The upper-floor fireplace is unusual, but still very Colonial Revival in style. It has a small firebox with a wood surround that extends well beyond the firebox on the east side. A molding surrounds the whole, and a simple mantel shelf runs along the top. In the large space east of the firebox is a built-in cabinet, whose door has H and H-and-L hinges.

Sources:


“Crutchfield & Law Architects,” Chattanooga News-Free Press, May 18, 1975.

“Crutchfield, William.” AIA Directory, 1956.

Friends of South Cumberland. Trails and Trilliums, April 16 & 17, 2011. http://www.trailsandtrilliums.org/featuredartist.htm. Accessed April 21, 2011.


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Marvetta Mills (employee of Cedar Creek Racquet Club), February 22, 2011.

Scott, Robert W., ed. The Semi-Centennial Alumni Record of the University of Illinois. N.p.: University of Illinois, 1918. http://books.google.com. Accessed February 26, 2011.

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30. Monroe Hooper House42 Racquet Club Drive | Ca. 1870

Although it has been remodeled, this is one of the oldest houses in the Cashiers area. The story goes that after fighting in the Civil War, Monroe Hooper returned home and purchased 730 acres in the Cedar Creek area. There he built his home and farmed. Locally prominent lay preacher William Thomas Hawkins, known as the “Shepherd of the Hills,” was a ward of Monroe Hooper’s in his youth. In the late 1920s, Chattanooga residents Fred Lupton and his wife purchased the Hooper property and built an estate that they named Sleepy Valley. The Luptons retained the old house, which stands near the edge of Lupton Lake, which they created in the early 1930s by damming the Horsepasture River. Now the Hooper House is part of the Cedar Creek Racquet Club, which was developed on part of the property beginning in 1981. Through the years since Hooper’s time, the house has been used in various ways. Today the club uses it for their children’s program during the summer and for storage during the rest of the year.

Located downhill from the Lupton House near the Lupton Lake dam, the Hooper House is a one-and-a-half-story frame structure with a fieldstone-pier foundation, weatherboard siding, and a steeply pitched side-gable roof covered with wood shingles. Dry-laid fieldstone chimneys rise at the south gable end of the house and at the east end of the rear ell. The house has a three-bay façade sheltered by an engaged porch with square, boxed posts. Benches have been built to connect the posts. The porch ceiling is covered with wide, flush boards. Photographs made in 1990 show that there have been various changes to the house since that time. Originally the three bays of the façade consisted on a central door with a four-light transom and flanking nine-over-six sash windows. Now the north window has been converted to another door with a four-light transom that opens to a small storage room. At

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the north end of the house, there were two nine-over-six sash windows, one on each floor, in 1990. Now the first floor window has been replaced with a four-panel door, which may have been one of the original doors of the house. The date of the upper window is not known; it is considerably larger than windows normally found in upper half stories of nineteenth-century houses. At the south end of the house, the one-over-one sash windows of the first story that flank the chimney are replacements. The date of the upper six-over-six sash windows is not known. The rear of the house has a single door that opens to the ell porch. There are no windows. The north side of the rear ell has two windows with replacement one-over-one sash. A single six-over-six sash, upper-story window is on the south side of the ell chimney. The south side of the rear ell has two doors that are sheltered, like the front of the house, with a shed-roofed porch with square posts. A modern deck has been built within the space formed by the rear of the house and the south side of the ell.

Inside, what was probably a hall-and-parlor plan originally has wide, hand-planed board walls and ceilings. At the south end of the primary room, the fireplace has a simple mantel with tapered side boards and a two-panel frieze. On the upper floor, the knee walls and sloped ceiling are sheathed, like the first floor, with wide, hand-planed boards. Much of the wall surfaces and woodwork on the two floors has been decoratively painted to create a whimsical environment for the club’s children.

Sources:


Jackson County Historic Survey file for the Hooper-Lupton House, ca. 1990.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Keven Hawkins (great-great grandson of William Thomas Hawkins), February 24, 2011.

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31. Pine Grove Laundry52 Brocade Drive | 1932

Established in 1932 by Ralph and Edith Hawkins, the Pine Grove Laundry served an important function in a community that was becoming more and more vacation-oriented. It was the first business of its kind in Cashiers. Located just northeast of the Cottage Inn off US 64 East, it processed all the laundry needs of the Cottage Inn, High Hampton Inn, other hotels, and nearby Camp Merrie-Woode. Twelve-to-fifteen employees — and more during the busiest part of the season — washed linens daily, all by hand. The building contained a coal-fired steam boiler and an ironer and presses. Each week the girls at Camp Merrie-Woode sent a week’s worth of sheets, towels, and clothing in individual mesh bags to the Pine Grove Laundry. On the second floor of the laundry were long folding tables and individual bins for the clothes of each camper. The following week, clean clothes and linens were returned to camp and another week’s worth of dirty laundry was picked up for cleaning. The process was continuous throughout the summer, and it meant that each girl had to arrive at camp equipped with two weeks’ worth of clothing and linens. The Hawkins’ son, Lewis, drove the truck to pick up and deliver the clothing and linens to the camp and hotels. Pine Grove Laundry operated for thirty-two years, closing in 1964. The following year, Ralph Hawkins died. After that, Edith Hawkins kept open for some time a launderette that had been added to the west end of the building. The Hawkins family lived in a house conveniently located southeast of the laundry.

The laundry is a long, ten-bay-wide, two-story frame building. It has a concrete foundation, board-and-batten siding, and a side-gable roof covered with standing-seam metal. Long, one-story sheds of different heights run the full length of the north and south sides and the east end. A more expansive shed on the west end — the added launderette — extends

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northward beyond the building. All sheds continue the use of board-and-batten siding and standing-seam metal roofing. The building’s windows have all been boarded up to protect them, but 1991 photographs show that they are six-over-six sash. Most are singles, but some are double or triple windows. Near the west end of the south side of the building is the main entrance, a double-leaf, glass-and-wood-paneled doorway.

The one-story frame Hawkins House has a brick foundation, horizontal one-over-one sash windows and a gabled roof. When it was built in 1930, the house had board-and-batten siding, but that was replaced by weatherboard siding with beveled corners when the first addition was made in the 1940s. The house has a small, interior, brick chimney on the southeast side and a large brick chimney on the southwest end. The original house had only four rooms — a living room, kitchen, and two small bedrooms. There was no bathroom. In the 1940s, a large living room, another bedroom, and a bathroom were added. In 1953 the den with its large chimney was added.

Sources:

Jackson County Historic Survey file for Pine Grove Laundry, ca. 1990.


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Velma Hawkins, daughter-in-law of Ralph and Edith Hawkins and current owner of the property, February 22, 2011.

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32. Cottage Inn6 Reminisce Lane | Ca. 1932; 1980s

Cottage Inn provides summer vacation lodging through its central inn and group of cottages. According to his grandson, Charles B. Fugate started the inn ca. 1932. He operated a store in Cashiers, and his wife ran the inn. Fugate moved one of the buildings he owned on NC 107 South to the inn on US 64 East, where it became one of the cottages. When a company from Utah built the Glenville dam ca. 1940, the workers lived in the inn’s cottages. A previous owner of the inn claims that the Fugates built the main building as a family dwelling and that during World War II, they took in boarders. (Perhaps those were the workers from Utah.) The same source states that the cottages either were moved to the property or were built on site by individuals who were deeded small portions of the overall acreage. During this period, the owners of the main building served as caretakers for the cottages. Over time, the cottages were re-purchased by the inn’s owner until all were part of the overall Cottage Inn property.

Through the years, the property has had numerous owners and several name changes. In the 1940s, it was called the Pineview Inn. In the 1950s, Pat Dickerson, who had been chef at High Hampton, purchased the inn and opened a restaurant in conjunction with it. Around 1980, the owners of the complex called it Sapphire Cottages. However, Cottage Inn is the name most commonly associated with the property. Most of the cottages appear to date from the 1930s. However, during the 1980s, four modern cottages were added and another received a modern addition.

Today, the Cottage Inn complex consists of the two-story frame inn and fourteen frame cottages arranged along Brocade Drive and Reminisce Lane. There is a barn, an enclosed pool and pavilion, and a set of tennis and basketball courts. Roads are concrete, and some

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have stone gutters. There are several lawns, a center court bordered by an oblong drive that some of the cottages face, three open sheds for the stacking of firewood, a wood phone booth, and several small landscape features — all in a quiet wooded setting.

The inn, itself, now named Knoll Top Lodge, is a simple, two-story, weatherboarded structure with a broad front-gable roof, a brick chimney on the east side, four-over-one sash windows, and a front door with diamond-muntined glass in the upper half. A one-story porch with heavy, square posts and a tree-trunk-and-branch balustrade carries across the façade. The balustrade also borders the front steps and wood walk that lead to Brocade Drive. The front walk is covered by a gable roof that continues to the far side of Brocade Drive, creating a porte-cochere. A one-story wing extends southwestward from the two-story section of the house, and one-story shed rooms are on the rear. A large, added porch with a stone foundation, a broad gable roof, braced posts, and a fence-like balustrade is located on the southwest side of the house.

Little Pine Lodge is a small cottage located immediately northeast of the house. It has weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, a front brick chimney, and a fenced-in front deck.

Northeast of Little Pine Lodge and across Brocade Drive is the Gate House. The remodeled cottage has board-and-batten siding, a hipped and gabled roof with a central brick chimney, and a deck on the southeast end. An addition at the northwest end features a boxed chimney with triangular plates of glass on either side beneath the gable. A documentary photograph shows that originally the cottage had weatherboard siding, a hipped roof, and a gable-roofed front entrance porch. Windows were six-over-six sash.

The remodeling of the Gate House probably dates from the 1980s, when four modern cottages were built. These include Cedar House, located on Brocade Drive west of the Gate House; and Honey Locust, Shady Maple, and Birch Wood located in a row on the east side of Reminisce Lane downhill from the main complex. These four cottages are nearly identical. All have board-and-batten siding, a steep gable roof, a boxed chimney in one gable end, and glass filling the rest of the gable on either side of the chimney and in the gable peak at the other end of the house. All have a deck on the gable end with the chimney. However, unlike the other three 1980s cottages, Cedar House has a wood-shingled roof. A shed for firewood storage stands across Reminisce Lane from Shady Maple.

A frame barn stands on the north side of a concrete lane that runs through the woods westward from the north end of Reminisce Lane. It has vertical-board siding, a gambrel roof, a large double-leaf door, and sheds running along either side of the building. The barn is said to have had a woodworking shop in it at one time.

Four Oaks cottage is located at the northeast corner of the junction of Brocade Drive and Reminisce Lane. It has board-and-batten siding, a front-gable roof, and a central interior brick chimney. Long stone steps lead to the gable-roofed front porch at the west end of the cottage. It has a balustrade of criss-crossed boards. A small deck is located near the rear of the north side of the house.

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West of Four Oaks, Sourwood and Boxwood Bend are on the north side of Brocade Drive facing the center court. Sourwood cottage stands at the northwest corner of Brocade Drive and Reminisce Lane. It has German siding, a side-gable roof, a front-gabled porch across its three-bay façade, and a rear ell.

Boxwood Bend cottage is a rectangular structure with weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, and a three-bay façade with a central entrance. A gabled porch extends from the east end of the house.

Behind and northwest of Boxwood Bend, at the end of a concrete drive off Reminisce Lane, is a small, yellow cottage known as White Pine. It may originally have been a one-room cottage with weatherboard siding, a front gable roof, and four-over-one sash windows. The gabled extension at the front of the house may be an addition. It has a French door, six-over-six sash windows, and a boxed chimney on the west side. An added, shed-roofed porch runs across the rear of the house.

Juniper House stands at the west end of the center court. It has weatherboard siding, front and side gables, and a large, ashlar-cut stone chimney at the front of the house. A photograph in an undated brochure for Cottage Inn shows that at one time the house had two front wings with the stone chimney recessed between the two. The house has a rear ell and a rear corner porch.

Three more cottages — Poplar Place, Apple Tree, and Sunny Maple — form a row running south from Juniper House. Poplar Place is the only two-story cottage in the complex. Originally it stood on the north side of US 64 East at the entrance to Cottage Inn. It was moved to its present site ca. 1953. The cottage has weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, and brick chimneys at the two gable ends. The first-story windows of the two-bay façade have three-over-one sash, while those on the second story are one-over-one sash. The south end of the cottage has a combination two-story porch and deck with wood stairs. It was added in recent years. The rear of the house has a one-story ell.

Apple Tree is a small cottage with weatherboard siding, a side-gable roof, and a boxed chimney between two three-over-one sash windows on the east façade. A gabled porch at the south end shelters the side entrance. A shed-roofed ell extends from the rear of the house.

Sunny Maple stands at the south end of the row of cottages and faces south. The cottage has a brick foundation, weatherboard siding with beveled corners, and a side-gable roof. Six-over-six sash windows are paired around the house. A shed-roofed porch on the south side shelters the central entrance of the three-bay façade. A weatherboarded, shed-roofed shed stands southwest of Sunny Maple.

Southeast of Sunny Maple is a pavilion and a swimming pool. The pavilion is a rectangular structure with a side-gable roof. The west end has an enclosed, weatherboarded storage room. The east end has a single, weatherboarded wall. Between the two ends, the sides of the pavilion are open. On the north side of the pavilion are two picnic tables and a row of three

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outdoor grills set within a single stone structure. Attached to the south side of the pavilion is the swimming pool, enclosed within a steel-framed and translucent-plexiglass structure with a broad gable roof and sliding-glass doors at either end.

South and downhill from the pool are the tennis and basketball courts. They are enclosed within a tall, chain link fence.

At the center of the Cottage Inn property is a central court encircled by the concrete drive. The center court has a line of pine trees down the middle, a shed at each end for stacking firewood, and a wood-and-glass telephone booth with a flat roof.

Sources:


Gray, Judy to Laura Phillips. E-mail, March 4, 2011.

Jackson County Historic Survey entry for Cottage Inn, 1991.

Nardy, Jane to Laura Phillips. E-mail, March 6, 2011.


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Velma Hawkins (who lives adjacent to the Cottage Inn and whose husband’s family operated the Pine Grove Laundry just east of the Cottage Inn), February 22, 2011.

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33. Alexander GardensUS 64 E at Marmalade Lane | Ca. 1930

Alexander Gardens is an unusual collection of ten buildings constructed almost entirely around 1930 for both business and residential use. (Two others are connected as additions to original buildings.) Most were built by Warren Alexander, a prominent Cashiers entrepreneur during the second quarter of the twentieth century. Several others were constructed by T. S. Lance, who operated a hardware store there (no longer standing). Both Alexander and Lance built homes for themselves in the development.

The buildings are relatively small, one-story structures. All are said to have been constructed with chestnut studs. Their most distinctive architectural feature, which helps to define them as a group, is the novelty half-log siding that sheathes nine of the ten. This Rustic Revival character, employed more for evocative associations than for building traditions or construction value, was popular during the 1920s and 1930s, especially for tourist-related buildings or in mountain communities with a tourist focus. They are the only buildings of their type in Cashiers.

Carrington and Peggy Barrs purchased most of the buildings in the 1970s from Alexander’s daughters. In the 1980s, they built a large, octagonal building, which they attached to the adjacent older building. After that they named the complex Alexander Gardens, the name it retains. The Barr family still owns the buildings.

(Note: the Alexander Gardens buildings are described individually.)

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Sources:

Cashiers Historical Society. 2003 Village Heritage Award program for Alexander Gardens, May 25, 2004.

Jackson County Historic Survey file for Alexander Gardens, ca. 1990.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Reid Berglund (whose law office has occupied the Warren Alexander House since 1979), March 7, 2011.

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34. Woodpecker Shop334 US 64 E | Ca. 1930

For most of its history, this building has been associated with the woodworking business. Brothers Ham and Paul Childers are thought to have been the first woodworkers to occupy the building, calling their business the Woodpecker Shop. In 1970, the first office of the Cashiers Plastics Corporation was located in the building’s western section. However, by the 1980s, the building once again housed a woodworking business, this time the Henson Cabinet and Woodworking Shop operated by Frank and Marilyn Henson. After the Hensons, the Nova Kitchen and Bath Company occupied the building. It is part of the Alexander Gardens complex.

The overall building consists of two parts. Both are one-story frame structures with three-bay facades and front-gable roofs. The western section is entirely sheathed with the half-log novelty siding characteristic of most of the Alexander Gardens buildings. It has a deeply recessed central entrance with shop windows on the splayed walls flanking the door as well as on the front walls on either side of the recessed entrance. All windows originally were multi-paned, but the glass has been changed in recent years to a single pane with faux muntins forming a border. The back half of the building on the west side has a triple window with six-over-six sash. Adjacent to it toward the rear was a matching triple window, but it has been replaced with a pair of two-part casement windows. A concrete-block and frame shed addition on the rear of the building has its own entrance and entrance deck on the west side. No windows are on the east side of this section of the building. A side wing covered with half-log novelty siding extends eastward from the rear. Within the corner where the two parts meet is a concrete-block stove stack.

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The eastern portion of the building has half-round novelty siding in its front gable, but the rest of the exterior is stuccoed, except for a shed-roofed, weatherboarded garage that was added to the west side in the early 1990s by the Hensons. The façade of the east portion of the building has two-part shop windows and a central entrance with a gabled hood. Like the western part of the building, the glass on the eastern façade was originally multi-paned, but has been replaced with larger sheets of glass. A long, side-gabled wing with a garage door on the gable end extends to the east from the rear of the building. The Hensons built this wing and an addition across the rear of the building in the early 1990s.

Sources:



Jackson County Historic Survey file for Alexander Gardens, ca. 1990.


Phillips, Laura A. W. Phillips. Interview with Marilyn and Frank Henson (former owners and occupants of the building), April 13, 2011.

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35. John Rogers Pure Oil Station333 US 64 E | Ca. 1930

In 1927, the Pure Oil Company introduced a standardized style for its filling stations that looked like a small house with an unusually steep, side-gable roof, a central entrance with a small window on one side and a projecting bay window on the other side, one or two gable-end chimneys, and a gabled side wing that provided a garage bay for servicing cars. The end of the building with an exposed chimney had a window on either side of the stack and a short rear ell with an entrance. Most of these stations were brick, and they were intended to give a domestic feel that would provide familiarity and comfort to motorists of the time.

John Rogers operated this Pure Oil Station in the complex built by Warren Alexander and now known as Alexander Gardens. Buck Rogers ran the garage on the west end. The building reflects the standard Pure Oil design and has remained largely intact, although the garage bay at the west end has been enclosed with board-and-batten siding and a three-part, multi-pane window. The building differs from the standard design by being sheathed, like most of the other buildings in Alexander Gardens, with half-round log novelty siding. The steep roofs are covered with standing-seam metal. With another nod to rustic mountain architecture, the narrow, east gable-end chimney is stone, rather than brick, and has a jagged stone cap. The front entrance has a slightly projecting, steep, gable hood. Above the door, the metal North Carolina service station license plate remains attached to the door casing. Gas pumps originally stood in front of the building. A side entrance at the west end of the building has a small, shed-roofed porch.

Like the exterior, the interior is very little altered. The main room has a half-round log novelty-sided wainscot. Above the wainscot, the walls and the ceiling are board and batten. The stone chimney is exposed at the east end of the room. At the east end of the rear wall

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are doors that originally lead to the restrooms. An opening at the west end of the rear wall leads to a hall to the enclosed garage area, where the walls are covered with the half-round log novelty siding. The floors throughout the building are concrete.

Sources:


Margolies, John. Pump and Circumstance: Glory Days of the Gas Station. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

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36. West Café337 US 64 E | Ca. 1930

West Café is probably the best known of the buildings constructed by Warren Alexander along and downhill from US 64 east of the Cashiers crossroads. In its day, it had quite a reputation as one of the liveliest spots in Cashiers. Marshall J. West and his wife operated the restaurant, serving three meals a day, seven days a week, from early morning until late at night. It was a place to socialize, and after the end of Prohibition in 1933, people enjoyed not only the food, but also the beer. A documentary photograph from the 1930s shows a sign attached to the front of the building that advertises burgers and beer. Square Dances were held on Saturday nights, and occasionally fights ensued outside the building, doubtless encouraged by the consumption of alcohol. In recent years, the building has housed several commercial establishments.

West Café is a one-story frame building with a metal-sheathed, side-gable roof. Typical of most of the buildings in Alexander Gardens, the exterior has half-round log novelty siding. Like the adjacent John Rogers Pure Oil Station, the building has a stone chimney on the east gable end with a jagged-stone cap. The five-bay façade centers on a double-leaf entrance. Above the entrance, a small shed-roofed dormer has small windows (now boarded over) on the front and both sides. Flanking the entrance are two large windows. The outer two bays have smaller windows and are separated from the three center bays by vertical posts. The 1930s photograph shows that the east-end bay is original, but that the west-end bay is an addition. In the early to mid 1980s, a fire in the restaurant resulted in the rear being rebuilt and the form of the west-end roof changing from a hip to a gable. The re-built rear has vertical-board siding and a shed-roofed side porch at basement level. Inside, the main room has a novelty-log-sided wainscot and board-and-batten upper walls. The plywood ceiling is laid in panels and is probably a

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replacement of the original. At the east end of the main room is a large, Rustic Revival, stone fireplace with grapevine mortar joints, a slightly-arched lintel with a keystone, and a plain wood mantel shelf. Above the shelf, the stone overmantel features two small metal fixtures that may have been the attachments for a pair of lighting sconces.

Sources:




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37. Curt Woods Barber Shop 339 US 64 E | Ca. 1930

The smallest and, perhaps, the least altered of the buildings in the Alexander Gardens complex was originally a barber shop operated by Curt Woods. Like most of the other buildings in the group, the one-story frame structure is sheathed with half-round log novelty siding. It has a hipped roof covered with standing-seam metal and exposed rafter ends. The three-bay façade features a central, heavy, wood door composed of vertical boards and a small window. Large windows with stationary transoms flank the entrance. There are no windows on the west side, but on the east side, there are two six-light casement windows. Because of the sharp drop in the land away from the street, the building has an exposed basement in the rear. It, too, has casement windows. The interior retains its exposed wood floor, half-round log novelty-sided wainscot, and board-and-batten upper walls and ceiling.

Sources:



Laura Phillips

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38. Warren Alexander House16 Marmalade Lane | Ca. 1930

Warren Alexander was a prominent local entrepreneur who owned numerous properties in the Cashiers area. Around 1930, he built a group of small commercial and residential buildings along and downhill from US 64 east of the Cashiers crossroads. In the center of what has become known in more recent years as Alexander Gardens, he built his own home. Since 1979, attorney Reid Berglund has occupied Alexander’s home for his law office.

The house is a one-story frame bungalow with a concrete-block foundation, half-round log novelty siding, a front-gable roof with braced eaves and a pair of wood louvered vents, an engaged front porch, and a large stone chimney on the south side. The posts, solid balustrade, and ceiling of the porch are covered with the same novelty siding used on the body of the house. At the base of each section of balustrade, a long, narrow, cut-out area serves as a drain for any water that might collect on the porch. Sheltered by the porch, the three-bay façade has a central door with four vertical lights over horizontal wood panels. On either side of the door is a triple window with nine-over-one sash. On the north side of the house is another triple window with nine-over-one sash as well as paired and single six-over-one sash windows. Near the east end of the north side is a concrete-block stove stack. On the south side and rear of the house, there are both six-over-one and two-over-two sash windows. An engaged porch at the northeast rear corner of the house has been enclosed with bands of windows, although the novelty-sided balustrade has been retained as part of the wall.

A frame, side-gable wing, which appears to be an addition, extends northward from the rear of the north side of the house. Although, like the main body of the house, it is sheathed with half-round log novelty siding, in other respects it differs from the original house. It has a brick stove stack on the gable end and, on the west side, it has a door, a picture window,

Tate Smith

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and a shed-roofed porch with plain posts and a plain balustrade. A board-and-batten shed extends from the north side of the addition, and a board-and-batten ell with a southeast corner porch extends from the rear of the addition.

Southeast of the house stands a two-story frame building that originally was Warren Alexander’s garage on the first floor and possibly an apartment or guest rooms on the second floor. Like the house, it has half-round log novelty siding and a front gable roof with identical bracketed eaves. The garage opening on the west end has been enclosed and replaced with a modern door and a three-sided bay window. A shed-roofed porch with plain posts and balustrade extends across the west end. Other changes include replacement windows and a board-and batten addition on the rear with a small, shed-roofed entrance porch on the south side.

Sources:


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39. Buck Marshall House 37 Marmalade Lane | Ca. 1930

This originally was the home of Buck Marshall and his family. Marshall ran the garage at the John Rogers Pure Oil Station located just uphill from the house on E. US 64.

The one-story frame house differs from most of the other buildings in what is now known as Alexander Gardens. It has bark-shingle siding on the front and south sides, but asbestos-shingle siding on the north side. The metal-sheathed roof has both front and side gables and wood louvered vents. Windows are primarily two-part casements with six panes in each half. The four-bay façade has a central glass-and-wood paneled entrance, and the north bay projects slightly in front of the rest of the façade. That bay has been increased in depth with the installation of a glass door and vertical display windows. A shed-roofed porch carries across the entire façade, with wood posts and a plain balustrade in front of the projecting north bay and tree-trunk posts and no balustrade across the other three bays.

Immediately south of the Marshall House is a large, octagonal, commercial building constructed in the 1990s. It has bark-shingled lower walls and board-and-batten upper walls with a steep, multi-sided metal roof. The octagonal design of the building is intended to reflect the octagonal limits of the village of Cashiers during the years it was incorporated. The front of the building features a projecting, gabled section with tree-trunk posts and beams that provides a dramatic entrance to the building. A short, structural hyphen connects the north side of the 1990s building with the southwest corner of the Marshall House.

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Sources:



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40. T. S. Lance House92 Marmalade Lane | Ca. 1930

T. S. Lance moved to Cashiers from Buncombe County in the late 1920s. An entrepreneur, he was in the logging and lumber business and owned sawmills and lumber yards in Cashiers. He also owned the first hardware store in the community, which stood on the south side of US 64 East across from the entrance to Marmalade Lane. Although the hardware store was demolished during the last couple of decades, the house that Lance built for his family at the north end of Marmalade Lane survives.

The Lance House is a one-story frame dwelling that, like most of the buildings in Alexander Gardens, is sheathed with half-round log novelty siding. A simple bungalow, it has a brick foundation and a side-gable roof with overhanging braced eaves. Standing-seam metal covers the roof, and a stone chimney rises through the roof ridge near the center of the house. A matching front-gable roof covers the three-bay front porch, which has plain posts and a plain balustrade. It shelters three bays of the façade, with the entrance at the west end and two windows to the east of it. These windows, like the others around the house, are of the four-over-one sash type. West of the porch are two more bays, each with paired windows. The east end of the house has one double window and two single windows. A shed-roofed extension at the rear of the houses appears to have had an engaged corner porch, now enclosed. A small, shed-roofed porch has been added to the east end of the extension. A gable-front addition at the west end of the house matches the architectural features of the original portion of the house. Completed in 2011, it projects forward the depth of the front porch. It has a pair of windows on its south gable end, single and double windows on its west side, and a frame deck and handicap ramp wrapping around the west side and rear.

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East of the house and set at an angle to it is the two-story, two-bay-wide building that originally served as the garage and guest apartment for the Lance family. It is nearly identical to the building of the same function that accompanies the Warren Alexander House up the hill. The building has half-round log novelty siding on the front, south, and east sides, but modern vertical-board siding on the north side. The front gable has braced eaves. Like the similar building at the Alexander House, this garages/apartment has been somewhat altered. The first floor of the west façade has a door at the south end and a three-sided bay window at the north end. Presumably, these replaced the original garage bays. A secondary entrance is located at the southeast corner of the house and is sheltered by a small, shed-roofed porch.

Sources:



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41. Ralph & Bessie Bumgarner House72 Marmalade Lane | Ca. 1930

Tucked downhill from US 64 and east of the Warren Alexander House garage, this house origi-nally was the home of Ralph and Bessie Bumgarner. It currently functions as an artist’s studio.

The house is the most altered of the group of buildings that make up what is known today as Alexander Gardens. The original house is largely hidden by additions, but it becomes more visible when one remembers the primary characteristic of most of the buildings in Alexander Gardens: the half-round log novelty siding. The still-visible novelty siding defines the original house. The Bumgarners’ one-story frame dwelling appears to have faced south with a gable-front roof, a three-bay façade with a central entrance, and a hip-roofed porch across the façade. A lower, hip-roofed section extended northward from the rear of the house. Gabled wings with modern vertical-board siding have been added to both sides of the original house, and a shed-roofed raised porch has been built across the eastern two-thirds of the current north facade. The porch also provides shelter for a basement entrance.

Sources:


Hilary Lindler

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42. Howard Zachary Gulf Station95 US 64 W | Ca. 1937

Chris Passmore built this diminutive building in the mid to late 1930s. He rented it to Howard Zachary, who operated it as a Gulf gas station until ca. 1950. At that time, Zachary opened an Esso station — the predecessor of the current Exxon station — at the crossroads of US 64 and NC 107.

The one-story frame structure has German siding and a gable roof covered with standing-seam metal. The roof is unusual in that its slopes are of uneven pitch, the rear slope being much shallower and extending a much longer distance. A board-and-batten addition across the rear of the building continues and, thus, accentuates the rear slope. A small shed, sheathed in metal, is attached to the west end of the rear of the building. The proportions of the features of the three-bay façade make it look rather like a play house. At the center, the entrance has narrow, double leaves of glass and wood panels. An awning-like metal hood shelters the entrance. Two oversized (for the space), four-over-one sash windows flank the entrance. Faux shutters are a later addition. A four-over-one sash window is also located on either side of the building.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Margaret Passmore Glance (daughter of Chris Passmore), March 3, 2011.

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43. Passmore Grocery & Gas Station 107 US 64 W | Ca. 1937

Chris Passmore built this combination grocery and gas station in the mid to late 1930s. A 1939 photograph shows Passmore in front of his store, next to an Esso gas pump. Passmore and his wife, Edith Picklesimer Passmore, operated the grocery until 1962. The store also served for a time as the pick-up point for the bus to Brevard. In 1974 the building became the Wormy Chestnut, an antiques store still in operation.

The building has changed very little since it was constructed. It has a wood-pole foundation, weatherboard siding, and a front gable roof covered in asphalt shingles. The façade and the east side, back to a brick stove stack, have been covered with vinyl siding, but the rest retains it original wood siding. The three-bay façade has a central, recessed, glass-and-wood-paneled entrance. The splayed walls on either side of the entrance have fixed six-light windows. On either side of the recessed entrance are fifteen-light shop windows. At the peak of the front gable is a louvered wood vent. A single six-over-six sash window is located on each side of the store, near the rear. A board-and-batten shed addition extends part way across the rear of the store and projects eastward beyond the main body of the building. It has a door on the north side, a rear door near the west end, and a sash window on the west side.

Sources:


Barnwell, Tim. Interview with Phil “Slick” Monteith (manager of Wormy Chestnut), September 16, 2010.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Margaret Passmore Glance (daughter of Chris and Edith Passmore), March 3, 2011.

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44. Chris & Edith Passmore House 107 US 64 W | Ca. 1937

Chris and Edith Picklesimer Passmore built their house in the mid to late 1930s to be close to the grocery and gas station they operated immediately to the east. They continued to live here until the 1970s, and although the house now stands vacant, it is well maintained and remains in family ownership.

The one-story frame house is unusual for several reasons. Instead of facing the road, it is set back from it and faces east to the side of the store. It is designed in two parts, front to rear, with only a short hyphen connecting the two. The house has a brick foundation, weatherboard siding, and a front-gable roof with wood-louvered vents in each gable. Doors have three vertical panes of glass over a paneled wood section. Most windows are six-over-six sash and are singles, doubles, and triples. The exception is in the area of the hyphen, where on the south side there are four six-light windows and on the north there is a single six-light window. Three brick stove stacks are positioned halfway down the south side of the house, on the east end of the rear section adjacent to the entrance to that section and, oddly, just south of center on the three-bay east façade. On the north half of the façade, a gable-front porch with plain wood support posts shelters the north end door and the pair of windows adjacent to it on the south. The wall beneath the porch projects slightly beyond the main façade wall, another unusual feature. An engaged, screened porch is located at the southwest corner of the house. On the north side of the house and approximately three feet from it, a low, stone retaining wall runs east to west.

Behind the house is a low structure, possibly a pump house, with vertical-board siding and a slightly sloped shed roof. South of it is a frame garage with two uneven bays. It has vertical board siding and a shed roof. The two bays open to the north with angular heads and no doors.

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Sources:


Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Margaret Passmore Glance (daughter of Chris and Edith Passmore), March 3, 2011.

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45. Cashiers Valley Community Center42 Community Place | 1958

The construction of the Cashiers Valley Community Center constitutes what is probably the greatest community-wide effort in Cashiers during the twentieth century. Needing a place for a variety of community activities, but having limited financial resources to achieve this goal, the Cashiers community undertook a bold effort to build a community center using volunteer labor, donated materials, and cash raised from a series of annual fish fries and other events. A plaque within the building lists more that a hundred individuals who helped with the effort. A combination of numerous period photos and a log of the construction and related community activities kept by Charles Ward from July 1956 to January 1988 tells the story.

From July 1956 through April 1957 F. A. Dale worked on the plans for the community center. It is not known whether Dale was a local builder or someone from Cashiers or elsewhere who had the required design skills. In September 1956, the first of many fish fries was held to raise money for the building. That year, and traditionally thereafter, Dick Jennings furnished the trout. In the summer of 1957, square dances and movies were held weekly at Warren Alexander’s building to benefit the construction project. Meanwhile, from July 1956 through July 1957, volunteer labor created building forms, cut logs in Bull Pen and hauled them to Tom Dillard’s saw mill where they were cut into lumber and stacked to air dry, and began to lay brick. The roof was completed in April 1958. Throughout the building process, as the men worked, the women prepared food to feed them. In July 1958, a square dance was held in the building. This was a momentous event, for it was the first time the building was open to the public. Tom Dillard’s String Band, one of the popular groups of local musicians, provided the music and Dick Jennings called the dance.

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However, work did not stop with the completion of the community center building. The community continued to work and to have fund-raising events to accomplish the next steps in their overall vision. In this way, between 1959 and 1988, a medical clinic was moved to the community center; a ball field with a backstop, a caretaker’s cottage, and a picnic shed were all built; and a site was cleared for the fire department building, among other achievements.

The Community Center is a sturdy, two-story building, although from its east façade it looks like a three-story building. It has a brick and concrete-block foundation and a low-pitched hipped roof. The corners of the building are brick, with each seventh course raised. Between the brick corners, the east façade and rear are sheathed in board-and-batten siding, while the north and south ends are weatherboarded. A two-tier porch with a shed roof and wood posts carries across the façade. The upper level has a plain balustrade and curved wood braces at the top of the posts. The façade’s first floor has a row of utilitarian doors and one-over-one sash windows, irregularly placed to suit the needs of the various spaces into which they open. By contrast, the second story has a symmetrical arrangement of doors and windows. Along the porch there are three sets of double doors with a single door at each end. These open to the gymnasium/auditorium, which runs the length of the second floor. Above the porch and centered above the double doors of the second story are three sets of two pairs of four-pane windows which help light the pine-paneled gym. The north and south ends of the building have windows only on the first floor. The rear of the building has shed-roofed loading entrances.

Sources:



Ward, Charles. Community Center Log. Handwritten copy.

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46. William & Edna Dillard House435 US 64 W | Ca. 1941

This property has been owned and occupied by the Dillard family for more than seventy years. William Paul and Edna Dillard began living in a small frame house immediately to the east (on the same property) in the early 1930s. After a few years there, they built this house and moved into it in 1941. William Dillard worked for the North Carolina Highway Department as a supervisor for the roads in this part of Jackson County. He oversaw the salting of the roads in winter and their repair in general. When William and Edna died, the house passed to their son, William Paul Dillard Jr., and his wife, Opal. Bill Dillard was a truck driver. For years he did long-haul driving, but later was a driver for McNeely Trucking Company in Sapphire. Their daughter occupies the earlier house on the property.

The Dillard House is a one-and-a-half-story frame dwelling characteristic of many simple late bungalows built in the 1940s. Nearly square in form, the house has a brick foundation, asbestos-shingle siding, and broad, front-gable roof. The symmetrical three-bay façade has a central entrance sheltered by a hip-roofed porch with ironwork cornerposts. On either side of the entrance are paired one-over-one sash windows. Another pair of windows is in the front gable above the porch. Windows on the side of the house match those on the front and are either singles or doubles. A brick stove stack rises along the outside wall on either side of the house.

Immediately west of the house and set at an angle to it is a two-bay frame garage built in the early 1980s. It has a concrete foundation, board-and-batten walls on three sides, open bays with no doors on the fourth, northeast side, and a metal-sheathed shed roof.

Laura Phillips

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East of the house and set slightly back from it is the first house in which the Dillards lived. It was heavily remodeled in the 1960s. At that time an addition with board-and-batten siding and a broad gable roof, whose pitch matches that of the larger house, was built on the front.

Sources:

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interviews with Opal Dillard (widow of William Paul Dillard Jr.), December 10, 2010, and January 18, 2011.

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47. Toll House (Alexander Stevens Bryson House)872 US 64 W | Ca. 1908

This house is best-known locally as being the place where tolls were paid that allowed animal-drawn vehicles, horseback riders, and driven livestock to travel on the turnpike between Cashiers and Highlands. Asheville attorney S. P. Ravenel, whose family owned property in Highlands, had the road built just after the turn of the twentieth century to provide faster access between the two communities. Built ca. 1908, the house originally was the home of Alexander Stevens Bryson and his family. Bryson’s wife, Dora, supervised the toll gate for the private road. A sign at the toll gate listed the charges for various vehicles and animals.

The two-story frame house has weatherboard siding on the lower two thirds and decorative wood-shingle siding on the upper third. The gable-on-hip roof has overhanging eaves with curvilinear rafter ends. A gabled dormer on the front (east) slope of the roof and a nearly flat-roofed dormer on the rear roof shop are additions. A stone chimney rises through the south slope of the roof. The house is two bays wide and three bays deep with six-over-six sash windows. The original front door, which has a wood-paneled lower half and a four-light upper half, is located in the south bay of the east façade. Originally, a one-story, hip-roofed porch with chamfered posts spanned the façade and continued northward to form a porte-cochere. The porte-cochere was later converted to become the north side of the present wraparound, screened porch. The porch floor continues around to the back of the house, forming a deck. A pair of French doors opens to the rear deck; above it, another set of French doors opens to a small balcony. One-story, gabled additions are located around the southwest corner of the house. Paved parking extends northwestward from the house, which is now used as a law office.

Laura Phillips

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On a knoll to the north, across the driveway from the Toll House, a ca. 1950 one-story frame house with a gabled roof and both weatherboard and wood-shingle siding is said to have been the caretaker’s house. It is now home to a realty business, whose address is 870 W. US 64.

Behind the caretaker’s house is a one-story frame shed with wooden-slab siding, a double-leaf door on the south end, and a broad, gabled roof.

Stone steps lead downhill and westward from the caretaker’s house to a small, one-story frame cottage. Although it is no longer associated with the Toll House property, the stone steps suggest that it may have been at one time. The cottage has wood-slab siding, a front-gable roof, a gabled entrance stoop, modern one-over-one sash windows, and a west-side screened porch.

Sources:


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48. (Former) Cashiers Baptist Church1057 US 64 W | Ca. 1880; 1931; ca. 1965

When Methodist minister John Sevier Burnett passed through the Cashiers Valley in 1888, a Methodist church was already in existence. After the Civil War, a group of Methodists from the North had come to the Cashiers area and organized a Methodist Episcopal Church (commonly known as the Northern Methodist Church) on the site of the present-day Cashiers Baptist Church. It operated until the 1920s, when it was discontinued. In 1931, the fledgling Cashiers Baptist congregation purchased the old Northern Methodist Church property. The Baptists remodeled and re-sided the old church building and continued to use it until the 1960s, when the increased size of the congregation required the construction of a new church. When the new building, located immediately in front of the old church on US 64 East, was completed, the old building was sold to artist William Whiteside. He moved the building to its present location on US 64 West and converted it for use as his art studio and gallery.

When built by the Methodists, this was probably a simple, weatherboarded-frame church with a front-gable roof and three windows along each side. It may have had either a central front door or a pair of front doors. The small side wings toward the rear of the building and the projecting front vestibule and belfry may have been added by the Methodists or by the Baptists after they acquired the building. After its move in the 1960s, the building was wrapped in vinyl siding, and the gabled hood over the entrance and front display windows were added. The pointed, Gothic Revival windows are filled with plastic faux-stained glass. A large addition has been built across the rear of the building.

Laura Phillips

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Sources:

Bumgarner, George William. The Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina, 1865-1939. Charlotte: The Committee on Archives and History of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, 1990.


Fowler, Edward. “History of Cashiers Baptist Church.” Undated typescript.


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49. Dr. James K. Stoddard House170 Lodge Lane | Ca. 1933

The Dr. James K. Stoddard House was one of several large mountain estates built in Cashiers during the early 1930s. The house occupied around eighteen acres and enjoyed a dramatic view of Whiteside Mountain. Along with summer resident Dr. Owen B. Van Epp, Stoddard was one of Cashiers first physicians. Mrs. Stoddard is said to have been an heiress to the Coats and Clark Sewing Thread fortune. It is said that Dr. Stoddard used the east wing of his house for his medical practice and that the east-side entrance provided access to his office. The Stoddards adopted four children (another report says eight), both girls and boys. According to one tradition, the girls’ rooms were in one wing of the second floor, and the boys’ rooms were in the other wing, separated by the central bedroom of Dr. and Mrs. Stoddard. However, another tradition claims that one wing was for the children and their tutor, while Dr. and Mrs. Stoddard occupied the other wing. The Stoddards lived in the house for approximately fifteen years, until after World War II, when Dr. Stoddard is said to have traveled to Poland to help medical teams there.

Since the Stoddards, the house has had multiple owners and has been called by several names. The Trice family operated a lodge in the house, calling it Tricemont. When the Weavers owned it, the house was called Silver Slip Lodge and was an upscale supper club. Heinz Haibach made improvements to the property and renamed it the Millstone Inn, by which it is still commonly known. The present owner, the AIG Baker Company, has operated the inn since 2008.

The Stoddard House remains a grand structure, even though it has had numerous alterations. Located at the end of a long series of drives off the south side of US 64 West, the historic house is a long, two-story frame structure with wood-shingle siding, a hipped roof, and two

Laura Phillips

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wings projecting from the south side that have polygonal ends and roofs. A stone-paved courtyard fills the space between the wings. Most windows are six-over-six sash. During the 1970s, a large, one-story dining room was added to the west end of the house. Then, or later, a second-story porch, supported both by the dining room roof and by tall wood stilts, was built, extending westward from the second-floor of the west wing. Probably also in the 1970s, modern entrances with broad, gabled canopies supported by square posts were added to the north side of the dining room and to the center of the north façade. Around 2007, the open entrance in the center of the façade was enclosed and stone veneered, and a primary, two-story entrance with a porte-cochere and porch was built near the west end of the north side, replacing the 1970s dining room entrance. It is finished in a style commonly used for buildings constructed in mountain communities — and certainly Cashiers — in recent years. Features include a fieldstone veneer, segmental-arched openings, and wood-timbered trusses and eaves braces. Also around 2007, the foundation and the brick chimneys were covered with stone veneer. Since 1989, the sash windows at the ends of the south wings have been replaced by large picture windows. A smaller picture window also was added between the center two windows on the second story of the south elevation above the courtyard.

Some interior changes have included the re-alignment of walls on the second floor to convert seven rooms into five, the updating of bathrooms, and the replacement of plain balustrades on the two stairs with twig balustrades. The new vestibule on the north side of the house replaced the breakfast room. A stone fireplace, which backs up to the original living room fireplace, was added to the vestibule.

Still, many original interior features remain intact. A long hall runs east-west across the length of the house. Most floors are covered with circular-sawn boards. Walls are board and batten, those in the living room of the west wing having a wainscot with unusually wide boards. Most ceilings retain exposed log joists. The living room also has a large stone fireplace with a millstone inserted in the face. Doors in the house are batten, and some retain unusual, handmade, wood handles, knobs, and latches.

Southeast of the house is a modernist “annex” building erected in the 1970s to provide additional lodging rooms. Set on a steeply sloping site, it is a narrow, two-story, rectangular structure with a broad gable roof and widely overhanging eaves on the north, east, and west sides that shelter two-tier porches. A smaller two-tier porch is on the south side.

West of the house is an outdoor living room that appears to date from recent years. The south, east, and west sides are open beneath a broad, gabled, wood-trussed roof, which is supported by heavy, square posts. A plain balustrade surrounds the three sides and extends southward to flank a set of wood steps.

On a rise of land northwest of the Stoddard House and partly shielded from it by trees, is the innkeeper’s residence. Built in the 1970s, it has board-and-batten siding, a side-gable roof with a front (east) cross gable, and a shed-roofed porch across part of the façade.

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Sources:


Cashiers Historic Site Survey Contact Information Sheet for Dr. James K. Stoddard Home.

Jackson County Historic Survey file for the Dr. James K. Stoddard House.

Phillips, Laura A. W. Interview with Sydneye Corvinus (innkeeper), February 23, 2011.

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R eco m m en dat ions for Fu t ur e Wor k

There are several actions the Cashiers Historical Society may wish to consider with this first phase of the Historic Sites Survey completed. These are not in prioritized order.

• Prepare a brochure for a walking or driving tour of selected properties.

• Prepare Study List applications for properties identified as being potentially eligible for listing in the National Register (see following list). Consider encouraging property owners of those properties to pursue National Register listing or consider partnering with one or more of them for that purpose. The properties considered potentially eligible include:

1. Hanks House 2. Zachary-Waddell House 3. George M. Cole House 4. Pine Grove Laundry

Several of these properties — the George M. Cole House, Pine Grove Laundry, Cottage Inn, and Alexander Gardens — have already been added to the Study List, in 1992 (and in 1994 for the Cole House). But since twenty years have passed since those listings, the SHPO will need to see current photos to be able to determine if the properties still appear to meet the criteria for National Register listing. (The Western Office will have copies of the current survey photos and should be able to make those determinations, if requested.)

Several additional properties have previously been added to the Study List. These are: the Hooper-Lupton House (including the Monroe Hooper House), the Evan Pell Building, and the Dr. James K. Stoddard House. It is the consultant’s opinion that, due to alterations, these properties no longer meet the criteria for National Register listing. However, the CHS may want to request a current reading by the SHPO on the potential National Register eligibility of those properties.

• Conduct a second phase of survey work that would pull in additional properties in the Cashiers area that could not be surveyed within the current survey phase.

• Consider a program that would honor some of the recorded properties, over time, with historic markers. Before undertaking such a program, clear criteria should be determined for the selection of the properties to be so marked. This would be different from the “Heritage Awards,” which don’t always deal with historic buildings. It would also be different from formally designated Local Historic Landmarks. Those are processed through the Jackson County Historic Preservation Commission, which makes the recommendation for a designation to the Jackson County Commission. The County Commission makes the final decision as to whether a property should be designated, by ordinance, as a Local Historic Landmark.

5. Cottage Inn6. Alexander Gardens7. Cashiers Valley Community Center

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B i bl iogr aph yAmazon.com: Edwin Arnold Menninger: Books. http://www.amazon.com. Accessed March 9, 2011.

Austin, Ann. Village Heritage Award Nomination for the Narcissus Building, 2006.


Bumgarner, George William. The Methodist Episcopal Church in North Carolina, 1865-1939. Charlotte: The Committee on Archives and History of the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, 1990.


Cashiers Historic Site Survey Contact Information Sheet for Dr. James K. Stoddard Home.


Cashiers Historical Society. “Valley Insights: the National Register of Historic Places in Cashiers Valley.” Vol 2, 2010.

Cashiers Historical Society. “The Zachary-Tolbert House Museum.”

CLRSearch. Cashiers, NC, 2010 Population Growth and Population Statistics. http://www.clrsearch.com/Cashiers. Accessed May 9, 2011.

Conkle, Henry. Thirty Years with the Good Shepherd. Cashiers, NC: Cashiers Printing and Graphics, 1991.


“Crutchfield & Law Architects,” Chattanooga News-Free Press, May 18, 1975.

“Crutchfield, William.” AIA Directory, 1956.

“Edward Fowler: A Candid Conversation about the Old Times.” The Cashiers Chronicle, September 16, 1981

Fowler, Edward. “History of Cashiers Baptist Church.” Typescript, no date.

Friends of South Cumberland. Trails and Trilliums, April 16 & 17, 2011. http://www.trailsandtrilliums.org/featuredartist.htm. Accessed April 21, 2011.

Fullington, Martha, et al. High Hampton Inn Historic District National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1991.

Gray, Judy to Laura Phillips. E-mail, March 4, 2011.

Harris, Ellen Pratt. Mordecai Zachary House National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1999.

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Hawkins, Keven to Laura Phillips, E-mails, March 8, 9, 14 and 15, 2011.

Humphries, Carolyn A. Church of the Good Shepherd National Register Nomination, Cashiers, NC. North Carolina Division of Archives and History, 1986.

Inventory of the Nancy Hanks Papers, 1894-1987 (bulk 1945-1983), Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library. http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/rbmscl/hanks/inv. Accessed March 4, 2011.

Jackson County Historic Survey files for:

Alexander Gardens, ca. 1990.

Cottage Inn, 1991.

George Cole House. 1990.

Hooper-Lupton House, ca. 1990.

Pine Grove Laundry, ca. 1990.

Dr. James K. Stoddard House, 1989.

Jackson County Historic Survey photos, October 1989.

Kansas Historical Society: Menninger Family Archives: Edwin A. Menninger. http://www.kshs.org/p/menninger-family-archives/13786. Accessed March 9, 2011.

Lamb, Shirley. National Register Study List Application for The Old Tate Inn. 1994.


Madden, Tommy and Ed. Village Heritage Award nomination for the Former Tommy’s Restaurant Building, 2008.

Margolies, John. Pump and Circumstance: Glory Days of the Gas Station. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1993.

McCarley, Marcia to Laura Phillips, E-mail, March 18, 2011.

Nardy, Jane. E-mails to Laura Phillips.

March 5, 6 and 14, 2011.

April 6 and 7, 2011.

May 12, 2011.

Nardy, Jane. “Minnie Cole House Timeline Documented.” Typescript.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “Brief History of the Cole-Tate House, Cashiers, North Carolina.” Unpublished typescript.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “Genevieve Hawkins Wright’s Applesauce Cake.” Laurel Magazine, February 2010.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. Historic Tales of Cashiers, North Carolina. Charleston: The History Press, 2008.

Nardy, Jane Gibson. “History of the Hanks House.” Typescript, 2009.

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North Carolina Death Certificates, 1909-1975, record for Perry Newton Bryson. http://search.ancestry.com. Accessed April 7, 2011.

Phillips, Laura A. W. E-mails.

Keven Hawkins, March 6, 2011.

Jane Nardy, April 7, 2011.

Linda Pridgen, April 27, 2011.


Assistant to Gideon Timberlake Haymaker (grandson of Gideon Timberlake — first owner of the Timberlake-Haymaker House — and CEO of Seaside National Bank,

Orlando, Florida), March 18, 2011.

Berglund, Reid (whose law office has occupied the Warren Alexander House since 1979), March 7, 2011.

Bruno, Harriet Hooper (daughter of Charles and Christine Hooper, who grew up at 51 S. NC 107 during the mid-twentieth century), March 4, 2011.

Bryson, Mary (niece of Douglas A. Baumgarner), February 18, 2011.

Corvinus, Sydneye (innkeeper at Dr. James K. Stoddard House), February 23, 2011.

Dews, Bob (owner of Laurelwood Mountain Inn), December 9, 2010.

Dillard, Opal (widow of William Paul Dillard Jr.), December 10, 2010, and January 18, 2011.

Fowler, Adrian (son of Edward and Fannie Fowler, whose family home and businesses were on the west side of NC 107 South for years beginning in the 1940s), April 16, 2011.

Glance, Margaret Passmore (daughter of Chris and Edith Passmore), March 3, 2011.

Hawkins, Keven (great-great grandson of William Thomas Hawkins), February 24, 2011.

Hawkins, Velma (daughter-in-law of Ralph and Edith Hawkins, who owned and operated the Pine Grove Laundry adjacent to Cottage Inn; current owner of property;),

February 22, 2011.

Henson, Marilyn Hunter (who lived in the Alexander Building in the late 1940s and 1950s), February 14, 2011.

Henson , Marilyn and Frank (former owners and occupants of the Woodpecker Shop), April 13, 2011.

Madden, Ed (son of Tom and Irona Madden; family owned Cashiers Café/Tommy’s Cafe), February 18, and March 4, 2011.

Mills, Marvetta (employee of Cedar Creek Racquet Club), February 22, 2011.

Nardy, Jane (local historian and Zachary descendent), May 12, 2011.

Pell, Junetta (niece of Jeanne Pell Wright), April 30, 2011.

Peterkin, Brien (owner of the Evan Pell Store), April 4, 2011.

Pridgen, Linda (manager of Chattooga Club), April 25 and 26, 2011.

Rooth, Scott (current owner of 25 Burns St. and son of Lyn K. Holloway), January 18 and 20, 2011.

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Stiefel, Dr. W. C. Jr. (son of former owners of Tall Pines), March 3, 2011.

Watson, David (former occupant of 25 Burns St.), March 4, 2011.

Wright, Jeanne Pell (granddaughter of Evan Pell), April 29, 2011.

“Roxie McCall.” http://www.ancestry.com Accessed April 7, 2011.

Scott, Robert W., ed. The Semi-Centennial Alumni Record of the University of Illinois. N.p.: University of Illinois, 1918. http://books.google.com. Accessed February 26, 2011.

Sibley, Jim. Village Heritage Award nomination for the Former Tommy’s Restaurant Building, 2008.

Swann, Nancy to Ann Austin. E-mail, December 11, 2010.

United States Census, 1910, 1920, 1930. http://search.ancestry.com. Accessed May 1, 2011.

“Welcome to Our Historic Church of the Good Shepherd,” Cashiers, NC, 2008.

Western Carolina University. “Robert Lee Madison.” http://www.wcu.edu/1780.asp. Accessed April 1, 2011.

Williams, Max R. ed. The History of Jackson County. Sylva, NC: Jackson County Historical Association, 1987.

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A bou t L aur a A . W. P h i l l i p s

Laura Phillips has been a consulting architectural historian in North Carolina since 1978. Her work has included numerous architectural surveys and nominations to the National Register of Historic Places, a ground-breaking study of historic decorative interior painting in North Carolina, and other preservation projects. She is the author of Reidsville, North Carolina: An Inventory of Historic and Architectural Resources and Simple Treasures: The Architectural Legacy of Surry County and is co-author of From Tavern to Town: The Architectural History of Hickory, North Carolina and Transylvania: The Architectural History of a Mountain County. Laura’s latest book, Legacy of Faith: Rural Methodist Churches in North Carolina, was published by The Duke Endowment in 2010. In 1995 Laura received the prestigious Robert E. Stipe Professional Award from Preservation North Carolina.

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Mark JonesJackson County Commissioner

Millie LathanChairman, Faces & Places of Cashiers Valley Photography Exhibition

Gillis MacKinnonCashiers Historical Society Board member, architectural consultation, map graphic

William D. McKee, Jr.Owner, High Hampton Inn, Housing host

Jane NardyCashiers Historical Society Historian

Tim OsmentPast Cashiers Historical Society Executive Director

Fran ParmeleeOwner, Cabins in the Laurel, Housing host

Laura Phillips Architectural Historian and Historic Sites Survey

Jim SibleyExecutive Director, Cashiers Village Council

Tate SmithTate Photography

Christie Wardowski Cashiers Historical Society Archives and Collections Committee Chairman

Will WardowskiCashiers Historical Society Archives and Collections Committee

Love WilliamsHistoric Sites Survey, assistant publications project coordinator

Ack n owl edgm en tsAnn McKee Austin

Chairman, Preservation Committee Cashiers Historical Society

Mary ConoverHistoric Sites Survey publications project coordinator

Bob and Lisa DewsOwners, Laurelwood Inn, housing host

Community Foundation of Western North CarolinaCashiers Community Fund Grant funding

Dave DimlingChairman of the Board, Cashiers Historical Society

Lydia Doyle Executive Director, Cashiers Historical Society

Gerald GreenJackson County Planning Director

Keven HawkinsResearch contributor

Bonnie Heinsma Chairman, Cashiers Historical Society “Valley Insights” series and Village Heritage Awards

Lynda HodgeGraphic Design

Cherie MosesChairman, Jackson County Preservation Commission

Rebecca A. Johnson Preservation Specialist

Western Office, North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office

Hilary LindlerHilary Lindler Photography

And special thanks to the many property owners and others in the community who provided information on individual properties.

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A bou t t h e Cash i er s Hi stor ical S oci et y

The Mission of the Cashiers Historical Society is to preserve the heritage of Cashiers Valley through stewardship & education. (2011)

Since the restoration and opening of the historic 1850’s Zachary-Tolbert House (now on the National Register of Historic Places), the Cashiers Historical Society has grown in numbers and influence. This active organization is now the leading voice in the protection and preservation of the historical and cultural character of the Cashiers Valley community.

Its mission is accomplished through a variety of public initiatives and events such as Zachary-Tolbert house tours, academic symposia, history rambles to local historic sites, music on the grounds, Founders Day for local school children, Heritage Apple Day, arts and craft workshops, oral history projects, and other on-going programs and events.

The Society presents an annual Village Heritage Award to an individual or business that has preserved a historic site vital to the village character of Cashiers.

The popular annual Cashiers Designer Showhouse in August is the organization’s major fund raising event.

If you would like to become involved in this active organization, consider joining the Circle of Volunteers. Call the office at 828.743.7710 for details.

Or visit our web site at CashiersHistoricalSociety.org for membership information or to make a donation.

Board of Directors, October 2011

David Dimling, Chairman

Hal AinsworthAnn McKee Austin

Debbie BennettLindsay BuilderCandy Burgess

Thomas C. DowdenGayle EbyNed Fox

Nancy GreenAnne B. Hazel

Arlene HendrixSteve Hennessy

Mark JonesMillie Lathan

Jane Gibson NardyNancy Pankey

Elizabeth RodriguezSkip Ryan

Alice ScanlonE. Clay Shaw

Betty SmoakAnn SummersBubba TolbertLana Valenta

Christie WardowskiPeggy WarnerGloria WeirLynn Wirth

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Not e s

Me ssage to t h e Co m mun i t y

The work of this historic sites survey is only the beginning of our research to document the rich history of Cashiers Valley.

Every member of the community, especially those whose ancestors lived here, will have stories and information to add to this initial effort.

We welcome and encourage your input! Thank you.

Please feel free to contact us:

phone: 828.743.7710

email: [email protected]

mail: Cashiers Historical Society Post Office Box 104 Cashiers, NC 28717

web: CashiersHistoricalSociety.org

Find us on Facebook.com

The Cashiers Historical Society is a not-for-profit 501c3 organization.

Visit: 766 Highway 107 S

Cashiers, NC 28717

828.743.7710 [email protected]

CashiersHistoricalSociety.org

Mail:Post Office Box 104 Cashiers, NC 28717

Cashiers Historical Society

Documents

Historic Sites Survey - Phase One