Thies House
(ca. 1898)
The Thies House has been owned by members of the Adolf and Mathilde Thies for more than 125 years.
600 Ardsley Rd, Charlotte, NC 28207
In 1898, near the end of a long and distinguished career as a mining engineer, Carl Adolf Thies (1832-1917) purchased from John Springs Myers (1847-1925) a fourteen-acre tract of land along Providence Road just outside Charlotte for $100 per acre, intending to build a retirement home for he and his wife Mathilde Frederica Hegmann Thies (1834-1912). Providence Road was still a country lane, and the streetcar suburb of Myers Park had not yet been developed. There is no architect of record, leading to speculation that the house was designed either by noted local architect C. C. Hook (1870-1938) or by Adolf himself. As he was living in South Carolina and managing the Haile Gold Mine near Kershaw during construction of the house, Adolf asked Frank R. McNinch (1873-1950), a Charlotte attorney and brother-in-law of Adolf’s son Oscar J. Thies (1870-1943), to oversee the project. Upon completion, the Thies House was rented out until Adolf’s retirement and relocation to Charlotte in 1904.
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Adolf and Mathilde lived in their new Charlotte home for the rest of their days. The grounds were particularly notable given Mathilde’s “glass house” where she grew flowers the year around and her rose garden, from which she harvested roses as an ingredient for a popular and highly effective ointment to treat surface wounds. Using a “secret formula” handed down from Mathilde’s grandfather, the ointment was produced in a special “Salve House” located on the Thies property and sold in drug stores across the country and even internationally.
In 1915, after Mathilde predeceased Adolf, their son Oscar (whose first wife, Virginia Juanita "Nettie" Thies, also passed away in 1912) moved in with his father, and later inherited the Thies House when Adolf died two years later. Although trained as a mining engineer, Oscar founded the Carolina Realty Company in 1906 when he moved to Charlotte. He established Thies-Smith Realty Company in 1912, and formed Thies Realty and Mortgage Company in 1936. Oscar’s Thies-Smith Realty Company erected many of the finer homes throughout Myers Park, as well as many fine homes in Dilworth, Elizabeth, and along Morehead Street, Selwyn Avenue, and Sharon Road in the early development of those areas. Oscar lived in his parents’ home until his own death in 1943.
Oscar undertook a major renovation of the Thies House and property in 1918-1919, converting what had been a Colonial Revival style frame country home to a more formal and stately Italianate styled structure in keeping with the new Myers Park neighborhood developing around it. The changes include the addition of a sun parlor, garden pergola, and three-car garage and the conversion of his mother’s “glass house” into a metal and woodworking shop. In 1920, 0scar married Blanche Austin Thies (1883-1982). Blanche lived in the Thies House until her death in 1982, making her the longest Thies family resident of the home. Frank Ramsey Thies (1904-2022), Oscar’s son from his first marriage, moved into the Thies House with his wife Elenor Arhelger Thies (1901-1983) after Oscar passed away so that Blanche need not live there alone. Frank, who began his career in real estate and mortgage banking in the 1920s, also became president of Thies Realty and Mortgage Company upon his father’s death. As of 2025, members of the Thies family still maintain ownership of the century-old family home.