The Frank Lytle House

The cross-gabled house faces north.  It is three bays wide, and was built in a side facing T-plan with the westernmost bay being a projecting gabled wing .   The principal sections of the house are single-pile, just one room deep.  The house was built on brick piers, now infilled with brick.  The moderately pitched roof is covered with corrugated aluminum roofing panels.  One of the most prominent features of the house is a one-story, hip roofed, wrap-around porch that extends to the house’s west elevation.  Tapered Craftsman Style posts, not original to the house, resting on square brick piers, support the porch.  A concrete porch floor probably replaced an earlier wooden floor.  The house’s front door has been replaced, and several of the first-story windows have been covered with plywood.  The windows are typically tall Victorian two-over-two double-hung sash.  Located high in the front gable is the most notable decorative feature of the house, a Masonic symbol applied over a wooden louvered vent.  Another notable feature of the house are the deep pronounced lines of the eaves, emphasized with mouled trim and a wide freeze board.  The pronounced eaves and deep returns give the gables the semblance of pediments, and are an element of yet another style, the Neoclassical.

Pure Oil Station, Central Avenue

The Pure Oil Station on Central Avenue is a well-preserved, one-story, side-gabled, frame, commercial building with a steeply pitched roof.  The building faces south and sits on a relatively flat one-quarter acre corner lot.  The lot is bordered on the front by Central Avenue, a busy four-lane street, and on the west by Pecan Avenue, a two-lane street that runs into the neighborhood behind the gas station.  The Pure Oil Station is located in the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood in Charlotte and occupies a prominent position as the westernmost building of a historic streetscape of mostly attached masonry commercial buildings.  

The façade of the Pure Oil Station is dominated by a gabled porch or canopy (canopy is the term used in gas station design.)   The canopy features a steeply pitched roof nearly as tall as that on the principal section of the building.  Two “L” shaped brick piers support the canopy’s front posts.  The piers sit on a small oval concrete island.  The base of the piers are slightly corbelled, and the cap is cast concrete.   The principal posts are cast concrete with chamfered edges.  All of the posts feature brackets, but only the brackets directly under the gable appear to be original.  These original brackets were formed by laminating five pieces of 2-inch lumber, each piece having the curved shape of the brackets.  The brackets sit in notches cast into the posts.  The gable features five widely spaced vertical boards in-filled with stucco, which was meant to resemble half-timber framing.  The sides of the canopy feature pent roofs that nearly span the length of the canopy and end at the principal roof with short valleys.  The pent roofs are supported by wooden posts that adjoin the principal post at the front of the canopy, and pilasters on the building’s façade.  The pilasters rest on shallow brick piers with concrete caps.  The canopy ceiling is pressed metal tiles. 

Facade Detail	Island

The principal section of the building is four bays wide, and rests on a concrete slab that sits about six inches above the grade and is integrated into a stoop that spans the front of the principal section of the building.  This stoop, along with the aforementioned island, delineates where the cars can travel under the canopy.   A round-arched doorway is roughly centered under the canopy, which is aligned with the building’s western elevation.  The round-topped door appears to be original.  It is a board-door with cross braces and circular six-light glazing that matches the curve of the door.   Above the door is a small bellcast, hipped roof supported with curved metal brackets.  The doorway is bordered by two narrow windows, each with a single eight-light sash.  To the east of the canopy is a semi-hexagonal projecting bay which is sheltered by a small bellcast, hipped metal roof.   The broad front window in the bay features a large single light topped with a row of eight individual lights.    The building is covered with wood siding with a large reveal.

Garage Wing	Chimney on West Elevation

One window opening like those bordering the front door pierces the west elevation of the principal section.  The original window has been replaced with a single-light sash.  The concrete stoop from the façade curves around the west elevation, becoming a narrow ledge that probably served to protect the building from rolling cars.  The majority of this elevation is obscured by a gabled wing featuring a single garage door opening.  The garage door is a rolling overhead door composed of five panels, all of which are glazed except the one that rests on the grade when closed.  The wing was constructed on a partial-height brick wall that matches the height and design of the canopy piers.   Frame construction rises from the low wall.  The steeply pitched roof of the wing transitions into a low pitched roof bordered by a parapet.  The original siding of this garage wing may have also changed at this roof transition.  Beyond this point to the rear the east elevation of the garage wing is covered with modern plywood siding.  A single metal framed casement window with sixteen lights pierces the elevation.  

The west elevation features a tapered brick chimney centered in the steep gable.  Random individual bricks project slightly from the surface of the chimney to give the masonry an uneven texture.  Otherwise the west elevation is blank, covered with the same wide siding board found on the façade.  The steeply pitched roof transitions into a low-pitched roof toward the rear of the building.  

The rear elevation is composed of the rear walls of the garage wing and principal section.  These walls run together without interruption.  However, the roof of the garage wing is higher.  A wooden fence enclosing garbage cans blocks much of the rear elevation.   While the entire area of the lot in front of the gas station is paved with poured concrete, the rear of the lot is a gravel parking lot.

Tudor Style

The Pure Oil Station on Central Avenue is a fine example of the Tudor style or what Petersen called the English Cottage style applied to a commercial building.  The building’s steeply pitched roof is perhaps its most dominant Tudor element, and it is an element that separates this building from almost all of the other surviving early-twentieth century commercial buildings in Charlotte.  While domestic examples of the style often featured a prominent cross gable, this station’s prominent cross-gabled canopy mimics the form.  To further relate the canopy to a traditional Tudor gable, the canopy features half-timbering infilled with stucco in its gable.  The station’s round-arched door and semi-hexagonal bay window are also typical features of the Tudor Style.

Pure Oil Station, Monroe Road

FINISHED PRODUCT

Pure Oil Station, Monroe Road

The Pure Oil Station on Monroe Road is a brick one-and-one-half-story side-gabled building, with a strikingly steep roof.  There is no physical evidence that the station had a canopy, and the Sanborn Insurance Maps do not include the section of Charlotte in which the building is located. The building sits very close to Monroe Road, which was historically one of the main highways in and out of the city.  Originally gasoline pumps would have sat in front of the building.  The building faces south and is located on a ¼ acre lot that is level with the road but slopes down behind the building.  The station has retained a good degree of integrity in terms of its original form with no significant alterations or additions to the front or side elevations.  However, the windows on the first floor have been altered.  The building has a concrete floor poured on grade, but it appears that the masonry walls were erected first and then a slab was poured inside the once the walls were in place.  A narrow stoop spanning the façade is roughly at the same level as the floor.  The stoop functioned to protect the building from cars rolling into the station. 

The façade is nearly symmetrical with a doorway and prominent cross gable centered on the front of the building.  The facade’s five bays are evenly spaced, however the easternmost bay contains secondary doorway that is slightly narrower than the window opening located in the westernmost bay.  The brick is laid in American bond and is the only visible wall material. 

A replacement door in the central bay is topped with an original four-light transom.  The door opening is highlighted by a flat lintel composed of angled brick.  All of the wall openings on the first floor feature this decorative brickwork lintel design.  All of the window openings have corbelled brick sills.  All of the windows on the first story of the façade and side elevations contain large single panes of plate-glass.  All of these windows have been partially infilled with plywood panels to make the window area smaller.  This change appears to be completely reversible.

A single window opening is centered in the front gable, and is topped with an angled brick lintel.  Above the window opening is a brick attic vent composed of six vertical bricks with narrow openings between them.  Also in the gable is an original light fixture composed of iron pipe that functions both as support and conduit for two steel and porcelain fixtures that once illuminated the gas pumps.  The light fixture is anchored by a chain attached to the brickwork.  There is no overhanging eave on the building’s gables, with a fascia boards bolted directly into the brickwork.

The side elevations appear to be identical and feature shouldered chimneys centered on the gables.  The chimneys are topped with a corbelled rim, and feature simple flue pipes projecting from the top.  Wide window openings similar to those on the façade flank the chimneys on the first story, and narrower six-over-six double-hung windows border the chimney on the upper story.  These upper-story windows are topped with a simple soldier-row of brick and have the same brick sills found on the lower windows.

Shallow, frame, shed-roofed rear additions were added to the rear elevation in two stages.  The additions have little fenestration, are covered with German siding, and are in poor condition.

Tudor Style

The Monroe Road Pure Oil Station is an interesting contrast to the station found on Central Avenue.  Where the Central Avenue building is a Commercial building in the Tudor style or English Cottage style, the Monroe Road station could be best described as a vernacular version of the Tudor style.  The Central Avenue Station utilized specific architectural elements associated with the Tudor style such as a round-arched door, and bay and narrow windows.  In contrast, the Monroe Road station used a vocabulary of architectural elements that could be found in the brick commercial and domestic architecture throughout Charlotte.  There is nothing particularly Tudoresque about the building’s wide window openings or four-light transoms.  However, the builder of the Monroe Road station was able to capture some of the essence of the Tudor style through the building’s form.  Most notable is the building’s steeply pitched roof, which immediately associates the building with the city’s Tudor style homes.  Except for Gothic Revival churches, few other non-domestic building in the city feature such a dramatically steep roof.   Other elements that could easily be replicated by the builder were incorporated into the design, such as the minimal roof overhangs, and the exposed chimney flues.  The prominent centered gable also relates the Monroe Road station to the Tudor style, even though an off-centered cross-gable would have been more in keeping with the style.  But perhaps to passing motorist this subtle distinction would have been meaningless.   And this may be the point.  This building was designed to be roadside architecture.  The shape of the building is distinctive enough to be noticed even while driving by at highway speed.  Thus, vestigial chimneys and Tudor roof shapes were incorporated into the design.   The more subtle elements associated with the Tudor style were apparently of secondary importance.  

This former gasoline station stands in Midland, N.C. in Cabarrus County.  The original form of the station is essentially identical to that of the Monroe Road Pure Oil Station.