Branson’s
North Carolina Business Directory, 1896 lists Kilpatrick Brothers Building in
Brevard.  Chester Columbus and Robert
Porter Kilpatrick were sons of Benjamin and Mary Kilpatrick.  Both worked in the construction
business.  C.C. Kilpatrick also operated
Kilpatrick Funeral Home for over 40 years and served as Transylvania County
Sheriff for three 2-year terms.

Robert
Kilpatrick’s obituary states that he “built a majority of the business
buildings of Brevard and hundreds of homes.” 
Several of the large homes on West Probart Street, including his own,
were constructed by Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick House

Bob and Alie
Kilpatrick’s two-story brick home was built around 1905 on the north side of
the street where Oaklawn Avenue meets West Probart.  The full front porch was supported by heavy
square columns of brick.  Both the house
and the porch had a low hip roof with deep eaves.  The home is no longer standing.

Other Probart
Street homes built by Kilpatrick include the Mack Allison House, the
Miller-McMahan House and the Rogers House.

Mack Allison House

The Allison
and Miller-McMahan houses were originally quite similar to each other and to
Kilpatrick’s home.  A 1910 Brevard Board
of Trade brochure includes photographs of the two homes.  The Allison house was built on speculation
and originally owned by R.H. Zachary. 
The exterior had wood shingle siding which has been replaced by vinyl
except on the gables.

Kilpatrick
built a home for J.A. Miller, founder of Camp Transylvania for Boys, around the
same time.  In the 1930s the McMahans
significantly altered the original appearance of the house by replacing the
one-story porch with a large two-story portico featuring fluted columns and
pilasters.  The exterior was pebbledash
on the first floor and wood shingle on the upper level.  The front façade is all pebbledash today.

Miller-McMahan House

The
Miller-McMahan House and the Mack Allison House are on the north side of the
street, just east of where Kilpatrick’s home was located.

The Rogers
house, located further down Probart Street is completely different in
style.  It was constructed in 1913 from a
sketch drawn by the property owner, Ida Ellerby Rogers of Bennettsville, South
Carolina provided Kilpatrick.  The
two-and-one-half story clapboard “summer house” is much larger than
traditional summer homes.    It has a large front gable dormer above a polygonal
bay window.

Rogers House

Photographs and information for this column are
provided by the Rowell Bosse North Carolina Room, Transylvania County
Library.  Visit the NC Room during
regular library hours (Monday-Friday) to learn more about our history and see
additional photographs.  For more
information, comments or suggestions contact Marcy at marcy.thompson@

transylvaniacounty.org or 828-884-3151 X242.