Sperling House History, continued

1. George Sperling House. Contributing. 1927.
The imposing two-story Neoclassical Revival house of yellow brick is basically square in configuration and massing, with the main block' of the building being five bays wide on the facade, and five bays deep. The present house was built in 1927, partially on the foundation of an earlier frame Ca. 1909 house. The builder/contractor for the 1927 house was Augustus Branton, a local builder. Architectural elements of particular note on the house which testify to the skilled craftsmanship of Branton include the large framing timbers, milled at Sperling’s sawmill, the hand-crafted dentils on the first floor, the unusual detailing of the brick which forms even uninterrupted courses with deeply recessed mortar joints, the incised concrete lintels, and the wood monumental portico exhibiting all the elements of the Neoclassical Revival style. While not fully documented, it is possible that the Sperling House was designed by M. Lawson Holly Ledford, husband of one of the Sperling daughters, Corinne. The Ledfords built a house on East Marion Street in the 1920s, for which Ledford, not a trained architect, drew up plans. While not as large as the Sperling House, and not having a monumental portico, there are similarities in massing and detailing between the two houses.

The most notable feature of the exterior of the house is the monumental full-width portico on the front (east) elevation, with a projecting, circular section supported by fluted Ionic columns. The entire portico is topped by an elaborate entablature and balusttade. Modillion blocks are visible beneath the wide overhanging eaves, with a course of dentils beneath. The front door includes an elliptical fanlight and sidelights, with a balcony above. The porch floor is yellow quarry tile mosaic. Windows are twelve-over-one, nine-over-one, and six-over-one, single, double, and tripartite. A widow’s walk caps the low hip roof, which is punctuated by a front-facing Palladian window at the attic and large brick chimneys with corbeling. A porte cochere extends from the north elevation. One-story porches are located on the south (side) and west (rear) elevations. Windows on the south-facing porch are nine-over-One with multi- light transoms. The rear porch has a combination of six-over-one windows and added screening between the porch posts. Concrete balustrades with turned balusters edge the widow’s walk and cap the porte cochere and side porch. Doors opening onto the porches and the balcony are multi-light. Some of the first story windows have incised concrete flat arches simulating bricks, with keystones. Minor changes to the exterior of the house include the installation of glass panels on the north side of the porte cochere, and the addition of lattice on the rear porch.

Inside, the double-pile house has a hall and parlor plan at the front, with a wide center hall located through an arched opening to the rear. Notable details include the stairs with turned balusters, walnut newel posts and banisters, crown molding with dentils, and built-in cabinets. According to George Sperling, grandson of the original owner, the dentils were installed in separate pieces, not in one large strip as is more available today. All of the first floor and some of the second floor mantels have been stolen from the house. Floors throughout the house are oak tongue and groove, and walls and ceilings are plaster. Rooms downstairs are the living room to the south of the main entry, a music room to the north, a bedroom and bath, the dining room, the breakfast room, and the kitchen. The second floor has a central hall plan, with five bedrooms and a bath with original tile and fixtures. The balcony located at the east end of the hall opens off the sunroom. Some of the upstairs mantels remain intact. They are Classical in form, with fluted pilasters and architrave trim. Decorative copper grates cover the openings. A servants’ staircase is located at the southwest corner. Closets throughout the house are cedar-lined. Remaining doors are typically one-panel, some with the original hardware. The attic of the house is finished in pine paneling. The basement of the house has a concrete floor, and concrete and brick foundation walls. Family members note that this house was constructed partially on the foundation of the Ca. 1909 farmhouse which was built in the same location. 

2. Mule Barn. Contributing. ca. 1927.
The mule barn is a two-story, gambrel roof, frame building with one-story shed roof wings on the north and south sides. Six-over-six windows on the upper level. The original exposed dimension lumber structure and animal stalls are intact on the interior. German siding and metal roof.

3. Corn Crib. Contributing. Ca. 1910.
One-story front gable roof frame building with German siding in the gable ends and slatted walls. Metal roof covering.

4. Hog Pen. Contributing. ca. 1910.
One-story front gable roof frame building with a concrete block foundation, slatted walls, and metal roof.

5. Wood House. Contributing. ca. 1910.
One-story frame building with a metal front-gable roof and lapped siding.

6. Granary. Contributing. ca. 1910.
Two-story, front gable roof frame building with clapboards. Pressed metal roof may be original. Panel door at front on first level, with a loading door at the second level.

7. Smokehouse. Contributing. ca. 1909.
One-story roof frame building with weatherboards and diagonal boards with spaces between them at the upper part of all walls. Metal front-gable roof.

8. Generator House. Contributing. Ca. 1920.
One-story building constructed of rusticated concrete block. Metal front-gable roof.
Entrance in gable end.

9. Tack House and Horse Trough. Contributing. ca. 1920.
One-story front gable building identical to the generator house. Trough is also of concrete block and is located in front of the tack house.

Summary
The George Sperling House, built in 1927, and its associated early twentieth century outbuildings are locally significant as a highly intact farm complex built by a successful farmer and businessman at the height of cotton production in Cleveland County. The brick Neoclassical Revival style house is unusual in rural Cleveland County as most farmhouses were simple frame structures. More elaborate residences such as this one were built primarily within the town of Shelby. It was built by Augustus Branton, whose skill as a brick mason and master carpenter are evident throughout the house.

Historic Background and Agricultural Context

George Elzie Sperling (1871-1953) was the son of John Jefferson and Margaret Eskridge Sperling, farmers in Cleveland County. A life-long resident of Cleveland County, George Sperling grew up on his father’s farm and attended Teacher Training School as a young man. He taught for several years in Cleveland County schools, but then turned his interests toward full-time farming. George Sperling married Mary Jane Justice (1878- 1977) on May 28, 1899. Sperling began buying up land, at one time owning close to 1000 acres which would lead to his success as a prominent farmer and businessman in the community. Most of Sperling’s property was located around present-day Highway 18, the Fallston Road, and along with his additional business ventures, became known as Sperling’s Crossroads. At the Crossroads, Sperling ran a general store, corn mill, sawmill, cotton gin, and blacksmith shop in addition to his farming operation, which was centered around the present day Sperling house. All of these operations serviced travelers along present-day Highway 18, as well as local residents in Shelby and Fallston, with travelers and local residents alike being able to buy all their supplies and process their cotton crop in one central location. George Sperling was a member of Ross Grove Baptist Church and the founder of the Cleveland County Fair Association. After World War I, Sperling sold 300 acres of his land in order to buy into the cotton futures market and was a major investor of the NuWay Spinning Company in Cherryville, North Carolina.

Not all of the land of Sperling’s Crossroads was contiguous with the original acreage associated with the present house and outbuildings which are part of this nomination. Approximately eighty contiguous acres were associated originally with the George Sperling House, which extended onto both sides of Highway 18. The initial portion of this land was bought by Sperling as early as 1900, when he purchased seven acres from B. A. Parker. In 1901, Sperling bought an additional two acres; in 1912 thirty-one and three-eighths acres; in 1918 thirty acres; in 1923 approximately four and one-fourth acres; and in 1941 one-third of an acre. A simple frame one-story house, which was located directly across Highway 18 from the present house and was the first house where George and Mary Jane Justice Sperling lived while their frame farmhouse across the road was being built. The larger two-story frame house with a wraparound porch that Sperling built was in the same location as the present day brick house. It was completed ca. 1909, along with many of the existing support outbuildings which were critical to the operation of the farm. The general store building, no longer standing, was located adjacent to the main house, and operated from Ca. 1912 to 1935, selling items such as meat, salt, flour, coffee, candy, nails, hay , corn, aspirin, shirts, soap, matches, shoes, potatoes, oil, and cigarettes.

The main crop of the Sperling Farm was cotton, the predominant agricultural product in Cleveland County from the late nineteenth through the first decades of the twentieth century until the boll weevil devastation of the 1940s. In 1870, the county produced 415 pounds of tobacco, 236,252 bushels of corn, and 520 bales of cotton. After the railroad arrived in Shelby in 1872, agriculture as an economic mainstay for the county began to change from subsistence and small tobacco farms to larger scale production. Small subsistence farms of the late nineteenth century produced sweet potatoes, Irish potatoes, beans, corn, wheat, apples, peaches, and a variety of livestock. By 1909, 38,876 acres in the county were planted in cotton, producing 15,568 bales. Corn was still a major crop, but cotton exceeded all other production. Cleveland County was one of fourteen North Carolina counties listed as top in production of cotton for 1909. It was during the beginning of this major boom time for the cotton industry that Sperling began buying up land for his cotton farming operations. His first house was built Ca. 1909, with most of the associated outbuildings built soon thereafter.

Cotton production continued to grow into the 1910s and 1920s, with North Carolina being rated as seventh in the nation for cotton by 1925. The construction of textile plants beginning in the late nineteenth century, coupled with readily available rail transportation, spurred the production of cotton. Shelby witnessed its greatest period of population growth in the 1920s, expanding from a population of 3,609 in 1920, to 10,789 in 1930. As the number of textile mills continued to grow all over the county and in the state, the need for cotton also grew, and the Sperling Farm was one of the largest producers. Other subsistence crops such as corn were also grown, but by far the majority of the farm acreage was devoted to cotton production. The Sperling operation also had to continue as a working family farm, however, providing food for the family and livestock which were a vital part of the farm operations. Most of the outbuildings currently associated with the house are clear evidence of this, with the hog pen, wood house, smokehouse, generator house, and tack house being elements of the farming operations located close to the main house and primarily serving the needs of the family.

Of the existing outbuildings, the corn crib, granary, and mule barn are more directly associated with the larger operations. The mule barn in particular filled this role, since the mules were used to plow the fields and carry agricultural goods to market. The sharecropping or tenant system of farming was prevalent in Cleveland County from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, and the Sperling farm was no exception. At one time, the Sperling land was divided into seven smaller farms worked by sharecroppers.

The Sperlings had nine children, two sons and seven daughters, all of which grew up on the family farm, some living in the original ca. 1909 farmhouse on the property, and then, from 1927, the younger ones living in the new Neoclassical brick house which their father built. Cotton production in Cleveland County continued into the 1940s, with 83,549 bales produced in 1948. Soon thereafter, however, the boll weevil hit North Carolina, and cotton production slowed dramatically beginning in the early 1950s. While many large farms in the county then switched over to dairy farming, the Sperling farm did not. The Sperling farm remained as a working family farm until the mid-1950s, after the death of George Elzie Sperling, but never went back to the one-crop production days of cotton after the mid-1940s. Daughter Madge Roberta (1909-1996) married M. Lloyd Ray Little, and they lived in the house with her parents. After George and Mary Jane Sperling and then Madge died, Lloyd Little continued to live in the house until 1997. The property was sold out of the family on June 10, 1998 when Charles C. Sperling, the youngest son of George E. Sperling, sold it to Bali Palani, LLC. Bali Palani then sold the present five-acre tract to the current owners, Teddy and Meekins, LLC, on December 14, 2000. 

Architecture Context

While the town of Shelby contains within its boundaries many fine examples of high style late nineteenth and early twentieth century architecture, there are very few buildings that make use of the Neoclassical Revival style. Of these, the most notable are Webbley (403 S. Washington Street, on the National Register of Historic Places), home of 0. Max Gardner, a mid-nineteenth century Italianate house remodeled in the Neoclassical style in 1907; the S. S. Royster House (413 S. Washington Street), built in 1908 and designed by Charlotte architect J. M. McMichael; the Cleveland County Courthouse, built in 1907; and the James Hayward Hull House (710 N. Lafayette Street), built ca. 1907 which features a monumental portico much like the Sperling House. The Neoclassical style “...was not a style reserved for the common man. Economically powerful citizens who sought to advertise their status were attracted to the style’s lavish proportions”. The Neoclassical Revival style, in contrast to the many other contemporaneous uses of the Classical Revival style, makes use of these more monumental proportions, including typical elements such as the two-story, full-width portico, square, solid massing, one-story side wings or porches, and detailing of the Classical elements such as full columns with either Ionic or Corinthian capitals, entablatures, and dentils. Buildings of the Neoclassical Revival style, particularly in Shelby, were often sited as the centerpiece of the landscape, creating an imposing presence. The Classical Revival, seen most often in smaller, one-story cottages or the Colonial Revival style, made use of the symmetry of the Classics, and included some of these elements, but was more subtle and simplified in their application, most notably in the absence of the monumental portico. Often the one-story entry portico included a pediment or broken pediment, with support columns making use of the Doric capital, the simplest of the three capitals.

Indeed it is highly unusual in Cleveland County to find a house of the high degree of architectural refinement as the Sperling House that was built as a farmhouse, out of the typical in-town setting. Sperling’s business endeavors in the early decades of the twentieth century included a successful cotton farming operation (with over 500 acres planted each year in cotton), investments in the cotton textile industry, and the income generated from his crossroads operations. All of these elements combined in all likelihood made him one of the wealthiest businessmen in the county, and, in 1927, led to the construction of his grand Neoclassical style farmhouse, perhaps the most elaborate in the county. The highly skilled craftsmanship of Augustus Branton is evident in many of the buildings exterior and interior details, most of which would have been reserved for the more in-town houses.

In contrast to the grand Sperling House, most early twentieth century farmhouses in the county tended to be simple frame one and one-half to two-story buildings.

A good example of this is the Rufus and Kathleen Plonk Farm, with its simple side gable, three-room farmhouse as the center of first a cotton, and later dairy farming operation. Outbuildings at the Plonk Farm are more related to the conversion to dairy farming, but, like the Sperling House complex, there is a smokehouse, granary, wood house, and corn crib. The use of the Neoclassical style for the Sperling house, constructed by a highly skilled craftsman, Augustus Branton, was testament to the fact that the Sperlings and their farm operations were indeed one of the most successful in the county.