This home was built by Dr. Norman Glasgow Gholson (1875-1951) in 1909. Dr. Gholson came from a long line of doctors, including his grandfather Dr. Samuel Oliver Caruthers (1801-1862) and his father Dr. Samuel Creed Gholson (1828-1910). Dr. Gholson and his family lived in the nearby Mississippi Central Railroad Office at the turn of the 20th century before building this house.
After Dr. Gholson’s death in 1951, the house was owned by Gholson’s daughter, Mary Caruthers Gholson Berger (1917-1984) until she sold the house to E. B. Booker in 1959. In 1970 the house was sold again to Robert S. Hill and his wife, Theresa Hill. Robert and Theresa’s son, David J. Hill, continues to own the house today.
The Gholson House is an excellent example of the pyramidal sub style of the Vernacular Folk architecture tradition. These square houses with pyramidal hipped roofs became very popular in the first decade of the 20th century, after the heyday of the Victorian style and before the Craftsmans of the 1910s. These folk houses were early prototypes for the Foursquare style of architecture, but lacked the stylistic detailing which is common among the later Foursquares.
The Gholson House is a two-story, pyramidal hip-roof frame house, with a single-bay, cut-out-corner entrance porch supported by a single pier. Like other folk houses, the Gholson House lacks any detailing or ornamentation.
Hill Country History 