Myers Park is one of Charlotte’s finest planned suburbs. The 1200-acre farm, originally owned by John Spring Myers whose son-in-law, George Stephens developed the neighborhood, ran from Charlotte to Providence Presbyterian Church. In 1905, John Nolen, a Harvard graduate who later became a well known landscape architect, designed the site on which the neighborhood is located in the heart of Charlotte.
Myers Park retains much of its original flavor and it is certainly a neighborhood worth protecting to the standard set by its founding fathers. The original plan for the George Stephens Company, was to form a streetcar community where all residences could walk to the street car. The early plan did not anticipate the development of the automobile to the extent it is used today, and there have been many changes in the neighborhood as Charlotte has grown and traffic has become more of a growth factor.
Charlotteans and those visiting the area have benefited from the vision, courage and imagination of these two men (George Stephens and John Nolen).
John Nolen, a Harvard-trained landscape architect and comprehensive planner, spent several weeks in Charlotte in late 1911 designing Myers Park for the Stephens Company. The Charlotte Observer predicted that Nolen, who had first come to town six years earlier to create Independence Park, would fashion “a suburb of surpassing elegance and attractiveness” and The Charlotte Observer was right: John Nolen transformed Jack Myers’ nearly treeless farm, into an amazing showcase of sophisticated, suburban inventiveness which has become Charlotte’s centerpiece of elegance.
Earle S. Draper, who also settled in Charlotte, gave Myers Park its marvelous breathtaking canopy of trees. Draper worked closely with James B. Duke, legendary philanthropist and industrialist, who brought the gardener (Draper) from his New Jersey estate to assist with the transplanting.
The homes in Myers Park were handsome, statuesque and imposing. Most of the first ones were on Queens Road, named for the College (Queens College, left), or Hermitage Road, which led from Queens Road beyond Hermitage Court, developed by Frank Simmons in 1911. Two of the older residences in Myers Park are historic landmarks. In 1919, James B. Duke, who wanted his daughter, Doris, to spend a few months each year in his native North Carolina, bought and greatly expanded the Colonial Revival style mansion that Z. V Taylor, had built four years earlier.
Designed by C.C. Hook, a prominent local architect, White Oaks (left) is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The McManaway House,(right) which originally stood on W Trade St., was moved to 1700 Queens Road in 1916. The Charlotte City Council has designated it as an historic property as well. The Stephens Company sold its last lots in the early 1950′s, but the grandeur of Myers Park endures.
Even in the winter, Myers Park’s beauty beholds!
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