James Lankford House
The Lankford family has deep local roots, having settled in the vicinity long before Tryon sprung up in the 1870s on the railroad that penetrated the Blue Ridge from South Carolina. James Lankford was born in 1885, the same year the town was incorporated. When barely twenty he constructed this house himself, near his parents’ home by the railroad track, for his bride Mary Gaze from Asheville. Here they raised a large family—including Meredith, one of the Tryon Toy Makers boys who built the first parade Tryon Horse, now the town’s symbol on its official seal.
James Lankford
courtesy Geraldine Lankford Edwards
At first glance the Lankford house appears a Craftsman bungalow, but investigation reveals the Craftsman-style front porch was not added until a dozen years later. Craftsman detailing is entirely absent inside. The living room fireplace (built as a decorative amenity, not for heating) and ground story walls are neat “city brick” instead of fieldstone. Lankford’s interior window trims and staircase millwork display sophisticated time-consuming joinery, belying the stereotype that North Carolina mountain natives were sloppy builders. As a skilled contractor who prospered erecting many other structures around Tryon, Lankford used the best building materials and techniques of his time in his own house. Especially interesting is its historic roof material, long strips of lapped zinc sheet with a decorative scallop pattern, remarkably durable and installed so well it reliably sheds Tryon’s snow and heavy rains after more than a century.
Strict symmetry is uncommon in Arts & Crafts dwellings. Here the paired windows, typical of the period, pierce walls with formal geometry. These gables are proportioned as classical pediments.
This architecture, in fact, is best understood as what is called Shingle Style, which emerged in the 1880s as a
manifestation of the broader Arts & Crafts movement. Here stained-cedar shingles clothe wall, dormer, and
tympanum of gable. In this example façades are symmetrical with broad, smooth trims painted classical white
to contrast strongly with the dark shingles. Apparent here is the esthetic of Tryon’s first resident architect, W.E.
Strong, who designed Lanier Library at this same time in a similar vein. Shift in local taste toward a more rustic
Craftsman look is apparent not only in Lankford’s hipped porch addition, circa 1917, but also river-rock retaining
walls and a delightful raised fish basin he added around that time. Historic landscape at Lankford’s house is
remarkably intact. His original formed-concrete stairways, stepping stones, and walkway borders have survived
a succession of subsequent owners. James Lankford’s love of horticulture survives in a profusion of varietals
including azalea and cucumber magnolia.
photos by Chuck Hearon
