John Phillips Little Jr. House
(ca. 1915)
One of Charlotte’s most prolific general contractors in the early twentieth century built and resided in the John Phillips Little Jr. House.
1136 Queens Rd, Charlotte, NC 28207
The John Phillips Little Jr. House is a rare pre-World War I Colonial Revival style house built in 1915 during the initial development of the Myers Park neighborhood. The house was built by its original owner, John Phillips Little Jr. (1859-1931), founder of the John P. Little & Son construction firm, one of Charlotte’s most prolific general contractors in the early twentieth century. A native of Richmond County, Little married Anne Martha Everett (1868-1938) and had three children before the family moved to Charlotte in 1912. Raised on his father’s farm in Steeles, North Carolina, Little maintained large farms in his home county for many years.
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Little’s construction company served as the general contractor on several notable structures in Charlotte and across North Carolina, including the first Charlotte Speedway (1924), the Builders Building (1927) on West Trade Street, First United Methodist Church (1928) on North Tryon Street, First A.R.P. Church on North Tryon Street, and the Chapel of Hope (1921; now known as the Chapel of Christ the King) on East 17th Street, as well as several churches and other buildings across the state. Both Builders Building and First A.R.P. Church are locally designated historic landmarks. Little’s firm also constructed three buildings listed on the National Register of Historic Places: the Richmond County courthouse, the Cool Springs High School in Forest City, and Shelby’s Masonic Temple building.
Over the course of his career, Little worked with several of Charlotte’s most prominent architects, including Marion R. Marsh, Louis Asbury, William H. Peeps, C. C. Hook, James M. McMichael, and Franklin Gordon. In addition to his construction business, Little was also active in the community. When Myers Park became a town in 1920, he was elected to serve on the town’s board of commissioners. Little also served on the board of stewards for Charlotte’s First Methodist Church.
Although John P. Little & Son remained busy for most of the 1920s, the overall decline of the nation’s economy by the end of that decade soon caught up with the firm. The company filed for bankruptcy in 1930, and Little passed away fifteen months later. The John Phillips Little Jr. House changed hands several times over the following years, during which time it frequently served as a boarding house. It was acquired by the family of J. A. and Mary Frances Mills in 1950 and remained in the Mills family until 2013.