Watauga Street in 1957

A few years back Marty Harrison suggested I write a column about the houses where Kingsport’s founding families lived.

I liked the idea and even went so far as to put together a list from an old city directory of Who Lived on Watauga Street in 1957. And then I got distracted by some other column topic and then I quit writing a column.

But I found that list of Watauga Street residents a few days ago. I had started at 1122 Watauga – I don’t remember why – but that address looked familiar.

So I did a word search on my highly inefficient computer filing system and discovered that almost fifteen years ago I had written a column about that house.

So today’s blog post is a two-fer: that long ago column about A.D. Brockman’s house and the list of 1957 Watauga Street families.

1122 Watauga

It looks like a postcard, the house on the hill on Watauga Street. That’s because it is a postcard.

When I first noticed the For Sale sign in the yard of 1122 Watauga Street, I knew there was something about the house. “Why does it look so familiar?” I kept asking myself. Then it hit me.

So I got in touch with Bob Lawrence, who looked through his collection of old Kingsport postcards and, sure enough, that house is on a postcard, one issued in the forties by Asheville Post Card Company.

The postcard is titled “Night Time Scene on Watauga Street” and shows three houses. The house at 1122 Watauga is in the middle of a tranquil late night scene with a moon rising over the home’s roof.

I looked up the house’s real estate listing on the Internet, where it’s described as an historic home.

It is an historic home but it’s more than that; it’s a landmark, a home that has it’s own postcard.

When I told Melinda Hatfield, the listing agent at Blue Ridge Properties, that the home was featured on an old postcard, she offered to take me on a tour and even brought along two members of the family that built the house in 1920.

The house was constructed for A.D. Brockman, who had moved to Kingsport in 1916 to head up First National Bank. Brockman hired architect Allen Dryden Sr. to design the home and Dryden threw himself into the plans, creating a home with many unique touches - including Kingsport’s first skylight - and plenty of bedrooms for what Brockman planned to be a large family.

Melinda invited Frances Brockman, A.D.’s daughter-in-law, and Cheryl Brockman Wyker, his granddaughter, to tag along on my tour and fill me in on the home’s history. “When Dad built the house this was Kingsport’s Gold Coast,” said Frances. In the twenties all the local captains of industry were building homes on Watauga. J. Fred Johnson had started the movement with his three-story mansion up the street. Soon his house was surrounded by the homes of the men who ran the brickyard and the paper mill.

“The manager of the cement plant built a house on one side of this one,” said Frances. “And the man from the Press lived on the other side.”

It must have been a little lonely at first with just Brock, as he was called, and his wife Joyce. She was an Oberlin College graduate who moved to Kingsport in 1917. “She read that the poor Appalachian area needed teachers so she moved here to teach French and Phys. Ed. at the old Kingsport high school.”

Soon the home was filled with the sounds of children, first Phyllis then Jim, Dick and Shirley.

Shirley couldn’t make it to the tour but she told me over the phone about how much she loved her bedroom with its window seat where she would read the hours away. “In the spring I would open the windows and the room would be filled with the scent of lilacs.”

Shirley may have been the youngest but she didn’t act it. Frances said that Shirley would help her brother Dick - Frances’ late husband - memorize his poetry assignments. “He and Shirley would sit at the top of the steps and they would move down a step for each line they memorized. She memorized the poem before he did!”

The hall stairway, the heart of the house, was also the scene of another famous family story. Frances says, “Jim was taking violin lessons and he left his violin on the couch by the stairwell. Well, he came sliding down the banister, forgetting about his violin, and landed on the couch, right on top of the violin, ending his violin career.”

The grandchildren - eventually there would be 17 - began arriving in the fifties and they became a part of the house, too.

Cheryl remembers how special Sundays were. “The entire family - all the kids and the grandkids - would gather at the house on Sunday evenings. We would eat and then sit around and watch Ed Sullivan.” She remembers seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan at her grandfather’s house.

Sunday dinner was even more special. It was reserved for one family. The four families would rotate attending. Cheryl says her grandmother was a grand hostess for the Sunday dinners. “She was the epitome of the perfect lady. She would change and dress for dinner.”

Christmases in the house on the hill were also special. Frances says, “Every Christmas Dad would give Mom a dozen nylons. They were hard to get then. One year she just opened them and put them aside. He said, ‘Aren’t you going to look at them?’ ‘Why, Brock? They’re just nylons.’”

He finally convinced her they were worth more than a cursory glance. “He had hidden a diamond ring in the toe of one,” remembers Frances.

The house went out of the Brockman family in 1971, when Joyce died. A.D. had died in 1965. it came on the market again in the eighties. Cheryl said she considered it but her family had just bought a new home.

None of the Brockmans will be bidding this time either.

They say a new family can start a history in their old historic house, landmark house.

Brockman house from rear

Watauga Street in 1957

1122 A. D. Brockman

1129 Joe Lyle

1130 Frank Hale

1140 Martin Stone

1149 Irvin Fuller

1150 Jay Platt

1154 Lester Gregory

1157 Rochelle Bandy

LINVILLE

1204 Enoch Tipton

1205 Marvin Parsons

1211 Ennis Cox

1215 Mrs. Lockie Hufford

1216 George Taylor

1219 Mrs. Eleanor Martin

1220 Mrs. Joyce Hodge

1224 John R. Todd

1227 George Kenner

1228 Kermit Young

1233 Robert Crawford

1236 Mrs. Mary Peters

1237 Morton Duffer

1240 Pope Johnson

1244 Mrs. Lillian Palmer

1245 Mrs. Ruby Allen

1249 Hugh Gladson

1253 Ray Hauk

1261 W.B. Greene

LONGVIEW

1301 George Williams

1305 Domer Ridings

1306 Mrs. Mary Penn

1309 Howard Ross

1310 Ben Carson

1313 John Barnes

1316 Rev. Gibson Davis

1317 Mrs. Hester Brooks

1322 Bill Todd

1330 Mrs. J Fred Johnson

1333 Bill Prophet

1334 Shelton Reed

1337 Rev. Edwin Wiley

1341 Cliff Routh

1342 William Mills

1345 S K Addington

1346 Edgar Calloway

1349 Roy Pannell

1350 Edd Roberts

1353 Thomas Ramsey

1357 A. K. Husband

1358 Preston Taylor

1362 Charlie Palmer

1365 Milton DeVault

LAMONT

1401 Ed Shaulis

1402 N Buckles

1405 Paul Flamm

1406 John Borden

1407 Bob Freeman

1409 J. David Grubbs

1410 William H. Harrison

1413 Chambers

1414 Fred C. Ault

1421 Paul Henderson

1422 Tom Divine

1425 Bramlet Beard

1426 Ernest Cross

1429 Marvin Simpson

1433 J. E. Huffaker

1505 Frank Flanary

Brockman house skylight from 1920