The Uzzelle House

The Matthews Land Company subdivision has a prestigious group of late 19th-century old money Memphis real estate developers connected with it. Developer M. L. Meacham platted the Central Gardens M. L. Meacham subdivision in 1891, bounded by Union Avenue, Vance Avenue, Pine Street on the west and Watkins Street on the east. M. L and wife Emma built a large fashionable residence at 178 Pine Street in 1899 and reared their daughter Virginia there. As prolific Central Gardens developer John F. Kimbrough’s family home was located two blocks to the east on Union Avenue (now the Kimbrough Apartments), John Kimbrough practically married the girl next door when he wed Virginia Meacham.

James M. Goodbar was a prominent Memphis merchant who business interests included Goodbar & Co. wholesale dealers, director of the Memphis Trust Company and the Memphis National Bank, the Chickasaw Cooperage and the Little Rock Ice Company. He partnered with John Kimbrough and developer Robert L. Matthews of the R. L. Matthews & Co to create the Matthews Land Company subdivision bounded by Peabody Avenue, Melrose Street, Harbert Avenue and Harris Avenue in 1905.

The first owner of 1475 Carr was an Arkansas planter George H. Uzzelle who purchased the house in 1910 with wife, Eula Sloan. He died in 1915. The youthful widow remarried to Granville Searcy Standish of Providence, R.I., a member of well-known Southern and New England families.

The next resident was James L. Hutter, the president and secretary of the Clinton Lumber Company which he owned. He resided here for five years before selling it to Benjamin Covington and his wife Pauline. Mr. Covington was president of Continental Piston Ring Company. Covington died suddenly in 1936 and left the property to his minor child.

The property was sold in 1937 to Mrs. M. A. Portis. She held it until 1961 when she sold it to Claud W. Howard, a fireman and his wife Virginia. In the early 1960’s the Memphis Fire Department sent Claud to Battle Creek, Michigan where he studied radioactive materials, decay, etc. With this special training he taught firemen preparedness and safety in case of a nuclear disaster. Wayne was a captain on the Memphis Fire Department when he retired after thirty years of service. Mr. Howard died in 2006 and Virginia left the property to the children after her death in 2017. The current owners purchased the property in October, 2022 and are excited to be participating in this year’s Home Tour.

This two-story modified American Foursquare house is a subtype of the Eclectic House movement, which began quietly in the last decades of the 19thcentury as fashionable, European-trained architects began to design landmark period houses for wealthy clients. An unusually creative group of Chicago style architects later known as the Prairie School (1900-1920) developed it. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright’s (1867-1960) early work is in this style. Landmark examples are concentrated in that city’s early 20thcentury suburbs.

Pattern books and popular magazines spread vernacular examples such as 1475 Carr widely and they are common in early 20th-century suburbs throughout Memphis. Mostly built between 1905 and 1915; the style faded quickly from fashion after World War I. This is one of the few indigenous American styles. This house has a hip-on-hip roof, partial-front porch with field stone battered piers, and bay windows on the front and side. The center entry has wood single light door with full sidelights and a multi- light transom. The wall dormer projecting from the second floor has a single window with a hip roof.