Wood Carver's Studio
On picturesque Melrose Circle are three very different stucco residences by J. Foster Searles—his own house, “Under the Tupelo” for painter Amelia Watson, and this 1928 cottage constructed for Frank Arthur. An accomplished wood carver who had trained before World War I under Eleanor Vance and Charlotte Yale at Biltmore Industries in Asheville, Arthur moved to Tryon to work as their foreman at Tryon Toy Makers and Wood Carvers. In 1928 he left their employ to start his own carving enterprise, and tutored adults here in his tiny first-floor studio with north-facing windows. Arthur carved architectural woodwork at Tryon’s original St. Luke’s Hospital and elsewhere in Western North Carolina, and sold his carvings through his brother George’s Artisan Shop in Biltmore Forest.
The architect John Foster Searles graduated from Wesleyan College, Connecticut in 1896. (He was not closely related to Edward Francis Searles, noted New England designer who collaborated with architect Henry Vaughan.) His father was New York entrepreneur John E. Searles, kingpin in the Sugar Trust. The son early on was an officer in corporations, frequenting homes of prominent people and summering at the magnificent Searles estate on Buzzards Bay. After his father’s empire crashed in 1901, young Searles struck out on his own. He may have learned architecture in Boston where he had run one of his family’s companies.
Searles arrived in Tryon in 1910, still personally well off, and was investor in the local telephone company. As the town grew and attracted cosmopolitan clients he was successful as an architect up until the crash of ’29. Another well-known design by Searles in stucco is The Toy House, a European-style salesroom and office built in 1925 on Howard Street for Tryon Toy Makers and Wood Carvers.
Cottage has this one bedroom, upstairs. Stock steel windows are cleverly arranged behind a ribbon of Gothic wood frames to appear as custom-made fenestration.
Arthur carved incised bargeboards and his name above the front door, as well as the face-shaped bosses and leaf motifs in relief.
photos by Chuck Hearon
