McGee House

McGee House, 1922

Luther and Carrie Leak McKenzie built this house in 1922, but it is named for the McGee family because they owned it from 1926 to 2009.

Luther McKenzie was born in Guilford County in 1863 and he moved to Germanton around 1890, when he made his first land purchase. In 1891, he married Carrie Leak, the daughter of a Stokes County farmer, and the two appear in the 1900 census living on Main Street in Germanton with Luther working as a farmer. He had, however, purchased other lots in Germanton, including at least one lot on the old courthouse square, suggesting that he also generated rental income or engaged in other commercial work.[1]

In 1920, Luther and Carrie’s family included two daughters and two sons, plus their eldest daughter, Mabel, who had married James Hill and no longer lived in the McKenzie household.[2]

In 1921, H. H. Riddle, who bought and sold many lots in Germanton, sold the lot this house stands on to James M. Hill, Luther and Carrie McKenzie’s son-in-law. The tract was one-acre in size and the deed noted that a new street had been cut on the edge of the lot. Shortly after purchasing the lot, James and Mabel Hill sold half the lot to Mabel’s parents.[3]

The McKenzies must have started construction on a new house right away because in October, 1922, the Danbury Reporter noted that, “The residence being erected by Mr. L.M. McKenzie at Germanton is almost completed.”[4]

 

Danbury Reporter, October, 1922

In 1926, just four years after they completed their home, Luther and Carrie McKenzie sold it to Curtis McGee. About one month later, James and Mabel Hill used their property next door as collateral for a loan. It is unknown if the McKenzies sold their house in an effort to assist their daughter’s family or if their sale and the mortgaging of their daughter’s home were coincidental. Deed records indicate that several families in Germanton began mortgaging their homes and taking on debt during the second half of the 1920s .[5]

In any case, the new owner, Curtis McGee and his wife, Martha or Mattie, moved in with their young son and an infant daughter. Curtis was the son of local merchant, Hardin McGee, and his wife, Sallie Petree McGee. In 1920, he had married Martha Anne Browder, who grew up on a farm just north of Germanton. Curtis served one term in the state legislature in 1928, but spent most of his career as a banker, local merchant, and farmer. From the time of his marriage, Curtis worked as a cashier at the Germanton branch of the Bank of Stokes County, and the 1930 census confirms his employment as a banker, but on November 30, 1930, the bank did not open and it failed to re-open. The failure of the local bank brought many Germanton families to financial ruin and the McGees struggled to hold on to their house. In 1936, the house went up for public auction, but Curtis’ mother, Sallie McGee, bought the dwelling, and Curtis and Mattie continued living here. In 1951, Sallie sold the house back to her daughter-in-law.[6]

In 1972, Curtis and Mattie’s son, William Hardin “Bill” McGee and his wife, Violet, sold the house to Bill’s sister, Martha Ann McGee Brown, and her husband, U. J. “Jack” Brown. In 2009, Mrs. Brown sold the house out of the McGee family.[7]

The McGee House is an example of a Craftsman bungalow. Craftsman designs emphasized craftsmanship by exposing the building’s structural members or by exaggerating the structure through the application of false structural members. Craftsman houses often incorporated exposed beams and exposed raftertails, heavy porch posts to communicate the sturdiness of the craftsman’s work, and window and door placement that reflected the interior use. Craftsman architecture was a response to the industrial revolution and the machine-made sawnwork, gingerbread, and mass-produced decorations popular during the Victorian-era. It also grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, which likewise sought to highlight the work of craftspeople and artists as an antidote to mechanization.  

Although Craftsman designs usually used just as many mass-produced, machine-made materials as their predecessors, they proved extremely popular. The style became a favorite for companies that generated house plans and kit homes, such as Sears and Aladdin, and plans could be found in national publications like Better Homes and Gardens. The McGee House does not appear to be a kit home, but its plans likely came from a national vendor executed by a local builder.

At the one-story McGee House, Craftsman style is expressed in several elements including the nine-over-one sash windows, shingles in the porch and dormer gables, the battered or tapered porch posts on brick piers, and the altered but extant kneebraces in the gable ends. The façade is symmetrical with paired windows flanking the main entrance, which is comprised of a French door and sidelights. On the side elevations, windows of various sizes and in asymmetrical arrangements suggest the interior layout.

The house is brick with vinyl siding covering the soffits and eaves. Asphalt shingles cover the side-gable roof and a gable-front dormer with paired windows punctuates the front roof slope. On the southwest end of the porch, the roof has been extended to create a porte cochere with a screen of pierced concrete block.

Sarah Woodard David, 2016

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[1] Luther Martin McKenzie grave marker, Germanton Methodist Church; William Campbell to L.M. McKenzie, November 20, 1890, Stokes County Deed Book 31, page 563; United States Census, 1900, and Greensboro North State, April 30, 1891, page 8.

[2] United States Census, 1920, and L.M. and Carrie McKenzie to M.F. James, November 12, 1920, Stokes County Deed Book 69, page 88.

[3] H.H. Riddle to James M. Hill, August 20, 1921, Stokes County Deed Book 70, page 41, and James and Mabel Hill to L.M. and Carrie McKenzie, January 12, 1926, recording a transaction that occurred in September 1921, Stokes County Deed Book 73, page 577.

[4] Danbury Reporter, October 25, 1922, page 5.

[5] Carrie and L.M. McKenzie to Curtis McGee, April 21, 1926, Stokes County Deed Book 75, page 71, and James M. and Mabel Hill to N.O. Petree, trustee, June 30, 1926, Stokes County Deed Book 76, page 223.

[6] United States Census, 1930; Sallie McGee to Mattie Browder McGee, December 20, 1951, Stokes County Deed Book 120, page 401; and “Curtis C. McGee” in John R. Woodard, ed., The Heritage of Stokes County (Winston-Salem: Hunter Publishing Company, 1981), 345.

[7] William H. and Violet R. McGee to U.J. and Martha Brown, March 5, 1972, Stokes County Deed Book 235, page 140, and Martha Ann Brown to Jonathan and Giulia Smith, April 1, 2009, Stokes County Deed Book 594, page 407.