Hoyle House
(ca. 1918)
The Foursquare style Hoyle House was the home of Olive Hoyle and her children following the untimely death of husband and father Reverend Enoch Marvin Hoyle.
11511 Smith Rd, Cornelius, NC 28031
During the 1920s and 1930s, technological innovations – such as mechanized farm equipment, chemical fertilizers and herbicides, and rural electrification – were transforming the rural landscape. To be successful, agriculturalists had to broaden and deepen their understanding of mechanics and other scientific and technological subjects. School systems had no choice but to prepare farmers for this novel age, so educators throughout North Carolina responded to the need for curricular adjustments in agriculture. On June 8, 1936, the Mecklenburg County Board of Education approved the creation of an Agriculture Department within a new building at Cornelius High School. The Agriculture Building illustrates the efforts of Mecklenburg County’s school system to help farmers and aspiring farmers gain the knowledge and skills demanded by an increasingly complex age of agricultural practice.
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The Hoyle House was the home of the widowed Olive Leola Turner Hoyle, her four sons (Jonathan, Marvin Jr., Robert, and David), and daughter Ruth. Olive’s husband, Reverend Enoch Marvin Hoyle Sr., started as the pastor of Mount Zion United Methodist Church in December 1915. During his tenure, the family lived in the church’s parsonage at 19631 South Main Street. Prior to his posting in Cornelius, the graduate of Trinity College (later renamed Duke University) had served churches across North Carolina, including in Durham, Greenville, Lumberton, and Asheville. When Reverend Hoyle died in 1917 at the young age of 37, his family was forced to vacate the parsonage for Hoyle’s replacement at Mount Zion. The Hoyle family purchased and built the family’s new home on the Smith Road property in May 1918 with the help of Olive’s father-in-law J. M. Hoyle.
Marvin and Olive’s daughter Ruth purchased the Smith Road house following her 1928 marriage to Davidson College student William A. Cathey. Ruth taught third grade at Cornelius Elementary School, while her husband partnered with Ruth’s brother Robert to open the Cathey-Hoyle Funeral Home and insurance agency in 1947 in Davidson. The funeral home closed in 1972.
In 1942, the Catheys sold the Hoyle House to Clifton Eugene Smith. He purchased the property for his daughter Miriam Smith Whisnant and her husband Louis Rodney Whisnant to live in following Mr. Whisnant’s return from World War II. Smith later sold the house to Hal Sharp, one of Cornelius’ first pharmacists. A former Army Ranger, Sharp operated the Midway Pharmacy in Cornelius for 19 years. He also served on the town’s Board of Commissioners and was an active member of both the Bethel Presbyterian Church and the Cornelius-Lemley Volunteer Fire Department.
The Hoyle House is one of only three American Foursquare styles houses in Cornelius. Of those, the house is distinctive as the only one with wood siding.