Malcolm K. Lee was born in Union County in 1865, a son of Harrison and Elizabeth (McCaskill) Lee, and was educated at the Union Institute. After teaching school briefly, he entered commerce in the town of Marshville, located some ten miles east of Monroe, the county seat. In 1895, Lee married J. Glennie Williams of Monroe Township, with whom he had four children. He became a prominent member of Marshville business community, incorporating the M. K. Lee Mercantile Company in 1902, acting as a principal in the establishment of the town’s telephone company in 1903, and being a major shareholder in the Bank of Marshville in 1904.
Near the end of the first decade of the 20th century, he was a co-founder of the Ash-Lee Manufacturing Company, which produced agricultural implements, and of the Union Hardware Company. But as early as 1905, Lee had begun investing Monroe enterprises. When Charles Iceman, R. A. Morrow and W.S. Lee incorporated the Icemorlee Cotton Mills in that year, M. K. Lee was one of the many individuals purchasing shares. Later, in April 1910, the following announcement was made in the Monroe Journal, ‘Mr. M. K. Lee and family moved from Marshville last Tuesday to their new home, the S.R. Moore place east of town. Mr. Lee is one of the leading business men of the county and he and his family receive a cordial welcome to Monroe.’ The site of the Moore place was a 100-acre tract located on the north side of the Wadesboro road slightly less than one mile from the central business district.
Lee quickly established his business stature in his new community. In the following year, 1911, he was the major shareholder for the organization of the Farmers and Merchants Bank, which he served as president. In announcing the pending opening of the new bank, the Monroe Journal again praised Lee's business acumen, stating, ‘Mr. Lee is one of the county's best business men and will manage the new business in a way to both safeguard his stockholders and to aid in the development of the town and county.’ The bank was first located in a building on south Hayne Street which was destroyed by fire in 1927, although the Bank had previously merged with the Monroe Bank and Trust Company. He also became involved in a number 'of commercial enterprises, including the Cooperative Mercantile Company, which dealt in general merchandise.
Among his most important enterprises was Bearskin Cotton Mills, organized in 1917 with Lee as one of the principal shareholders. Bearskin joined the growing number of textile mills in Monroe (four were in operation by 1919). Lee served as the company's president for several years. Bearskin, which commenced operations in 1919, manufactured cotton yarn in a refurbished building which had been erected in 1910 for the piedmont Buggy Company. The latter had gone out of business by 1916, and Bearskin was able to acquire its facility.(12) G. Marion
Tucker was hired to build thirty cottages for workers on a nearby tract of land.
Lee's contributions continued to be recognized in the local newspapers. In 1919, when he was a director and treasurer of the Monroe Chamber of Commerce, it was said that, ‘Although having lived in Monroe only ten years, Mr. Lee ranks today as one of our leading business men.’ Having become established in the business community, Lee apparently needed a substantial home to reflect that status. Almost exactly seven years after his move to Monroe, it was announced that, ‘Mr. M. K. Lee is preparing to move the present dwelling house on the old Moore place, one mile from town on the Lee's mill road, to make room for a handsome brick veneer building that he will erect this summer provided the war does not interfere.’ Unfortunately, the war probably did interfere with the construction of Lee's house, as it did with the construction of other buildings in Monroe; in December 1918, the new house was still incomplete.
Although an architect for the house has not been positively identified as yet, it has been suggested that the designer was Louis Asbury of Charlotte. An examination of the Asbury papers in the southern Historical Collection at the University of North Carolina did not confirm this attribution. However, M.K. Lee's daughter, Mrs. J. Paul Gamble, remembers that the contractor was G.M. Tucker, a local builder who was responsible for the construction of a large number of buildings in Monroe in the first three decades of the 20th century, including commercial buildings, public buildings, churches, and a wide variety of residences. He was assisted by E.C. Ingram, a masonry contractor with whom he worked on other commissions.
George Marion Tucker (1874-1933) was a Union county native who became a carpenter early in life. His occupation was listed as "house carpenter" in the 1900 census. Soon entering the construction business, Tucker quickly established himself as a major building contractor in Monroe and Union county, working in both masonry and frame construction. Among the more prominent Monroe buildings whose construction was supervised by Tucker are the Belk-Bundy Building (1911), a large Italian Renaissance Revival commercial building; St. Paul's Episcopal Church (1912), a modest Gothic Revival church designed by the Charlotte architectural firm of Wheeler and Stern; the massive Monroe Hardware Company Warehouse (1924); the masterfully-executed additions to the Union County Courthouse (1926); the 1928 reconstruction of the Secrest Building; and the handsome early 20th century suburban residence of Judge R.B. Redwine.
The Monroe newspapers from 1910-1930 [earlier editions are lost] regularly published accounts of Tucker's commissions, including workers' housing at Bearskin Cotton Mills (1918), a brick school building in North Monroe (1919), and the Union county Home (1911). In addition, the construction of a great number of substantial houses in Monroe can be attributed to him. It can justifiably be said that Tucker had a significant impact on the development of Monroe's building stock during the first three decades of the 20th century, a boom era in the city's history which saw a tremendous proliferation in residential and commercial construction.
The style selected for Lee's new residence was the enormously popular Colonial Revival style with a monumental portico, the latter a feature which dominated early 20th century residential construction among the prosperous businessmen, industrialists, and professionals of Monroe. A clear demonstration of their status in the community, houses of this type are found in great number in the Monroe Residential Historic District, where the majority of the town's leaders lived. The mode has been frequently identified as the choice of those making their fortunes in the cotton economy.
With its elegantly tapered, fluted columns in the Greek Corinthian order, and its skillfully-ordered parts, the Lee House exhibits a delicacy and sophistication that is lacking in many of the other Monroe examples. The interior finishes of the house, carried out in a mix of Colonial Revival and Craftsman styles, obtain a maximum effect from relatively simple features through careful detailing and arrangement.
The Lee House was built in a suburban location, like the 1926-27 John C. Sikes House (National Register, 1978) and the four principal houses in the Waxhaw-Weddington Roads Historic District (nominated 1987). All reflected a taste for a more rural setting, while maintaining proximity to the community's core where the owners carried out their principal activities.
Apparently, Lee's new residence was seen locally as one of the town's premier new residences, a reflection of the community's prosperity, as its photograph was featured in a special promotional magazine supplement published in 1919 by the Monroe Journal under the title ‘Monroe, North Carolina, wants you.’ The house had been complete for less than a year at this time, and its grounds had not as yet been landscaped. In November of the following year, it was announced that, ‘Mr. M.K. Lee has given a Greensboro landscape artist a contract to beautify the grounds of his handsome place on the Lee's Mill Road. Green grass, roses and flowers in profusion and young trees that will eventually attain the growth of monster oaks, will be planted within the next few weeks.’
Unfortunately, the name of this landscape designer has not been determined.
M.K. Lee, like many businessmen, apparently was a victim of the Great Depression. He was declared bankrupt in August 1933 and died on 9
November 1933. He had then served for approximately one year as a member of the Board of County Commissioners.
As part of the settlement of his bankruptcy case, Lee's home was sold to
Clyde B. Kendall of Washington, D.C., who moved into the house with his wife in 1937. Kendall (1875-1956) was a native of Anson County, a graduate of North Carolina state College, a veteran of the Spanish American War and World War I. For much of his working life he was a geodetic engineer for the U. S. Geological survey. In his latter capacity, he was involved in the survey of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Mrs. Kendall, who still owns and lives in the house, is a native of Texas; she trained as a nurse at Johns Hopkins University and served in Europe during World War I and at a variety of other foreign locations in the years following the War.
Ancestry:
Malcolm Kennedy Lee 01 Feb 1865-9 Nov 1933
Son of: Harrison Lee (1821-1897) and Elizabeth Amelia Caskin (1833-1898)
Marriage to Zilpha Glendora “Glennie” Lee 27 Mar 1895
Children: Infant Lee b.1896, Malcolm Kemper (1901-1966), Martha Elizabeth (1904-1995) married Joseph Paul Gamble Sr., Glynn Jean born 1901 and Mary Harrison (1908-1979).
