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| Malcolm Kennedy Lee House 1919- 1003 East Franklin St. (1987 NR photo) |
National Register 1987 – M.K. Lee has a separate NR designation.
The handsome Colonial Revival style Malcolm K. Lee House, built in 1919, is located on a large, landscaped lot in a residential neighborhood east of downtown Monroe. Two stories high, the brick-veneered, hipped-roofed, residence has a largely symmetrical exterior dominated by a colossal portico and flanking porches at the front corners. The interior of the house includes a formal entrance and stair hall with classically-derived woodwork, adjacent formal parlors and subsidiary rooms with a mixture of classical and Craftsman Style elements. The house is substantially unaltered and retains its integrity of location, design, and feeling. Set on a slight rise above the level of East Franklin Street, the Lee House is located near the front of its substantial, four and a half-acre ground. Its setting includes the house lot retained by Lee when he subsequently subdivided the surrounding property, together with several adjoining lots purchased by the Kendalls in the 1930s which had originally belonged with the house. The outer perimeter of the property is lined with large trees of a variety of species. To the rear and east of the house are open lawns. Large oak trees are set directly in front of the house, which is approached by a walkway lined with small English boxwood.
The M.K. Lee House is significant in the history of Monroe, North Carolina, as one of the finest local early 20th century examples of the Colonial Revival style of residential architecture and through its association with M.K. Lee, who played a prominent role in the community's business and civic life from 1910 until his death in 1933.
The house is associated with the productive life of Malcolm K. Lee (1865-1933), organizer of the Farmers and Merchants Bank and Bearskin Cotton Mills and a county commissioner at the time of his death. The house is also eligible for the National Register as a well-crafted and locally outstanding example of the Colonial Revival style, exhibiting the conscious imitation of Georgian and Federal elements styles. The Lee House is an early example of the brick Colonial Revival house, still the dominant residential form in the Carolinas. This style, together with the Classical Revival style, was associated in Monroe with the great prosperity engendered by a booming cotton economy. It is also the work of a prominent local builder, G. Marion Tucker, who was the contractor for a large number of buildings-commercial, residential and institutional—in the first three decades of the 20th century. During the 1978 survey of Monroe's historic architectural resources, the Lee House was highlighted as one of a small number of substantial suburban residences built prior to 1920 which were comparable to the grand Classical Revival houses erected in the city's central area during the period. MORE
