Randolph Scott House
(ca. 1927)
The Louis H. Asbury-designed Scott House was once the home of international film star Randolph Scott.
1301 Dilworth Rd, Charlotte, NC 28203
In 1925, George G. and Lucy Scott hired Charlotte native Louis Humbert Asbury, Sr., one of North Carolina’s first professionally trained architects, to design their new Dilworth home. Although George was a prominent local accountant – he drafted North Carolina's first certified public accountant law and chaired the state board of accountancy for several years – the house is perhaps best known as the home of George and Lucy’s son, internationally renowned film star Randolph Scott (1903-1987).
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A native of Norfolk, Virginia, George Scott (1867-1936) and wife Lucy Lavinia Crane (1866-1958) moved to Charlotte in the 1890s, where George established a public accountant firm. He was elected in 1907 to Charlotte’s Board of Aldermen and chaired its Finance Committee, oversaw the city's first published financial statement, and modernized the accounting systems of the city’s administration and waterworks departments. By the 1920s, his firm (Scott, Charnley & Company) had offices in Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, and Columbia. The Scotts raised seven children.
When the Scotts moved into their new Dilworth home, only Randolph and his sister Catherine still lived at home. Randolph had attended private college-prep schools before enrolling at Georgia Tech, where he played football. After a back injury ended his football career, he transferred to UNC-Chapel Hill to complete his education before returning to Charlotte to work in his father's firm. But business did not interest Randolph, so in 1928 he set off for Hollywood with a letter of introduction to Howard Hughes from his father. After getting a bit part from Hughes and coming to the attention of Cecile B. DeMille, Randolph launched a long acting career that included more than 100 films, primarily Westerns. He played opposite many of Hollywood’s leading actors of the twentieth century, including Fred Astaire, Mae West, Shirley Temple, Henry Fonda, Tyrone Power, Errol Flynn, Marlene Dietrich, John Wayne, and Cary Grant. Randolph has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and his face reportedly was used as the model for the logo of the NFL’s Oakland (now Las Vegas) Raiders football team.
Asbury (1877-1975), North Carolina’s first native-born professionally trained architect to practice in his home state, studied architecture at Trinity College (now Duke University) and M.I.T. before returning to Charlotte in 1908 to open his own firm. As North Carolina’s first member of the American Institute of Architects and one of the region’s foremost building designers, Asbury earned hundreds of commissions in the region, including such notable works as the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, Mayfair Manor (now Dunhill Hotel), the First National Bank skyscraper on South Tryon, the Myers Park and Hawthorne Lane Methodist Churches, and numerous stately homes throughout Charlotte.