Henry M. McAden House

Upon his graduation from Virginia’s Hampden Sydney College, Henry became president of the Piedmont Fire Insurance Company and an officer of McAden Mills. He later assumed his father’s roles as head of the McAden Mills and as president of First National Bank, a position he held from 1907 until the bank closed in 1930. Henry married Alice Broadnax Jones (1879-1951), the daughter of Colonel and Mrs. Hamilton C. Jones, in 1902. The newly married couple first lived on Park Avenue in Dilworth, moving two more times before taking up residence in about 1914 on Granville Road in the new Myers Park suburb. In 1916, the McAdens decided to build a larger house next to the Granville house they were already occupying. To design their grand new home, the McAdens commissioned Charlotte’s first professionally trained architect, Louis H. Asbury, Sr. (1877-1975). As North Carolina’s first native-born professionally trained architect, Asbury studied architecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before returning to his hometown in 1908 to open his own firm. As the first North Carolina member of the American Institute of Architects, the Charlotte native earned hundreds of commissions in Charlotte and the surrounding counties, including the Thies Automobile Sales and Service Building, the Mecklenburg County Courthouse, the First National Bank skyscraper, the Mount Carmel Baptist Church building, and the Myers Park and Hawthorne Lane Methodist Church buildings. 

Work began on the McAdens’ new home mid-1917. Although ready for occupancy by early 1918, it took until 1920 before every last detail was completed, including the landscaping designed by renowned landscape architect and urban designer Earle Sumner Draper (1893-1994). The total cost of construction reportedly exceeded $150,000. However, the Great Depression took its toll on the McAden family. First National Bank was permanently closed after going into default in late 1930. McAden Mills also shut down in 1935, due to labor disputes. The mill remained closed until after its 1939 sale to Stowe Mills of Belmont. In 1940, unpaid back taxes forced the sale of the McAden House. But in an apparently prearranged transaction, William Henry Belk (of the Belk Brothers Department Store) bought the house at auction for $11,230 and conveyed the property back to Mrs. McAden, who in turn immediately reconveyed it to George M. Ivey. The McAdens continued to live in their Granville Road home until about 1942, when they moved to Eastover. 

Subsequent owners of the McAden House have included David Moffatt and Ona Altman McConnell (1912-1999 and b. 1921, respectively). Trained as an attorney, David’s distinguished career included government, military, and political service. During WWII, he rose to the rank of Army colonel. In the late 1960s, he served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and special adviser to the U.N. Economic and Social Council. In Charlotte, he served on many civic and institutional boards.