Barnum A. Sustare House
(ca. 1919)
The in-town home of farmer and entrepreneur Barnum A. Sustare ranks among Matthews’ most sophisticated examples of the Craftsman architectural style.
110 West Matthews St., Matthews, NC 28105
Barnum Adam Sustare (1862-1951) was one of several residents of Mecklenburg County’s small towns who expressed their aspirations for social status by building fashionable homes. A native of Lancaster County, South Carolina, Barnum traveled to North Carolina in 1876 as a boy with his widowed mother, Holly Elizabeth Hemby Sustare, and his four siblings – including his identical twin brother James Ervin Sustare (1862-1931) – to rent a farm in the New Harmony community on the border of Union County and Mecklenburg County. Impoverished by the battlefield death of their father early in the Civil War, Barnum and his family had grown up in severe economic distress. By the early 1900s, Barnum and James had become prosperous cotton farmers in the New Harmony community.
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Barnum and his wife Sarah Amanda Ferguson Sustare (1867-1962), whom he married in April 1889, lived in a Queen Anne style farmhouse that survives at 13700 Idlewild Road, just northeast of Matthews. They moved into Matthews about 1915, where Barnum became a Town Commissioner, a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Matthews, and the operator of a regionally important recreational park. In the early twentieth century, the Craftsman style became increasingly popular. Not surprisingly, Barnum chose Craftsman motifs for his West Matthews Street residence. Built in 1919, the Barnum A. Sustare House is among the most sophisticated examples of the Craftsman style in Matthews.
Barnum was an adroit businessman. As automobiles became more affordable, the 1921 completion of a paved road between Charlotte and Matthews enabled people to visit what had previously been a virtually unreachable destination. Recognizing the opportunity, Barnum and another local resident partnered in 1922 to build “Sustare’s Pool,” a recreational destination that featured the county’s then-largest swimming pool, in the bottomland behind Barnum’s house. For the next sixty-eight years the facility (later known as the Matthews County Club) was a beehive of activity, attracting thousands of people with its attractive picnic and recreational areas and sand beaches, as well as such creative festivities as the annual picnic for twins that began in 1928.
Barnum and Sarah lived in the house until their deaths. Their daughters Bonnie Elizabeth Sustare Newell (1908-1999) and Augusta Lee Sustare (1905-2004) were the last family members to live in the house, which they vacated in 1990.