Newcombe-McElwee House
(ca. 1935)
The George Watts Carr-designed home of Charlotte businessman Elliott H. Newcombe.
2817 Belvedere Ave., Charlotte, NC 28205
The Newcombe-McElwee House is located in Club Acres, an area developed in association with the Charlotte Country Club in the early 1910s. Elliott Hill and Mary Duke Lyon Newcombe (1910-1976 and 1913-1969, respectively) purchased the property in 1934 and retained Mary’s uncle, prominent Durham architect George Watts Carr, Sr., to design their new home. Elliott, the stepson of C.W. Johnston, founder of Charlotte’s Johnston Mills, began his own career as president-treasurer of textile supply company Southern Specialties. He later led the Charlotte division of Old Dominion Paper Box Company, and eventually founded the Atlantic Coast Carton Company. His civic achievements included his work in founding Charlotte Country Day School and the Squash Hill Hunt Preserve. Mary (known as Dukie) was the grandniece of tobacco and utility tycoon James Buchanan Duke. The Newcombes sold the property to Ross S. and Doris E. McElwee, Sr. in 1959, but continued to live in the neighborhood. Two generations of the McElwee family have resided here and as of 2023, the house remains in the family.
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George Watts Carr, Sr. (1893-1975), one of Durham’s most prolific and prestigious architects in the early and mid-twentieth century, designed the Tudor Revival house. A graduate of Davidson College, Carr began his career in retail as the president and treasurer of Durham’s Carr-Bryant Shoe Company. Financial troubles caused by his business partner prompted Carr to seek a new career. With the encouragement of his wife, who recognized his drawing skills, Carr studied architecture via correspondence courses, earning his architecture license in 1926. Starting with the clubhouse and several elegant homes in Durham’s prestigious Forest Hills golf community, Carr secured numerous commissions throughout eastern North Carolina, including Durham’s Hill Building skyscraper and Snow Building, the Durham Athletic Park, the Cherry Point Marine Air Base, Morehead City’s North Carolina Ports Authority Terminal, several buildings at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, and private residences across Durham and Orange Counties.