Hambley–Wallace House, also known as the Wallace House, is a historic home located at

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

Rowan County, North Carolina Rowan County is a County (United States), county in the U.S. state of North Carolina that was formed in 1753, as part of the British Province of North Carolina. It was originally a vast territory with unlimited western boundaries, but its size w ...

. It was designed by architect

Charles Christian Hook Charles Christian Hook (1870–1938) was an American architect. He was also the founder of FreemanWhite, Inc. a Haskell Company (1892), the oldest practicing firm in North Carolina and currently the 11th oldest architecture firm in the United Stat ...

and built between 1901 and 1903 by the Lazenby Brothers, for British mining engineer

Egbert Hambley Egbert Barry Cornwall Hambley (2 May 1862 – 13 August 1906) was a Cornish-born mining engineer and power company executive, who worked for much of his career in North Carolina. Early life and education Egbert Hambley was born in Penzance, Cor ...

and his family. It is a large -story, granite and brick,

Châteauesque Châteauesque (or Francis I style,Whiffen, Marcus, ''American Architecture Since 1780: A guide to the styles'', The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 1969, p. 142. or in Canada, the Château Style) is a Revivalist architectural style based on the Fr ...

style

mansion A mansion is a large dwelling house. The word itself derives through Old French from the Latin word ''mansio'' "dwelling", an abstract noun derived from the verb ''manere'' "to dwell". The English word '' manse'' originally defined a property l ...

with a tall hipped

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roof. It features an offset, conical-roof tower, two-story projecting bay, and wraparound arcaded porch. Other contributing resources are the playhouse (c. 1915–1920), a stable / servant's quarters (c. 1903–1904), and the landscaped grounds (c. 1904–present). Historian Davyd Foard Hood said the decision to use Châteauesque architecture was the result of the recent completion of

Biltmore House Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina. Biltmore House (or Biltmore Mansion), the main residence, is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II between 1889 a ...

. Thomas Meehan & Sons of

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

did additional work on the property in 1904. It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1997. It is located in the Salisbury Historic District. Lottie Hambley sold the house to John David and Mary Napoleon Norwood in 1917. The Norwoods eventually had financial problems and, although Mary Norwood was able to buy the house at auction in 1923, she defaulted on the mortgage. Leo Wallace Jr. and Virginia Wallace bought the house for $55,500 at auction in 1927. Members of the Wallace family have lived in the house since then. Leo and Virginia Wallace lived in the house for 70 years. Virginia Wallace loved roses, and it happened that the original deed required that a rose garden would always be included on the property. Leo's son Lee and his wife Mona Lisa Wallace bought the house in 2011 and restored it.

References

Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina Châteauesque architecture in the United States Houses completed in 1903 Houses in Salisbury, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Rowan County, North Carolina Historic district contributing properties in North Carolina {{RowanCountyNC-NRHP-stub