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Holt Heritage House- SOLD

The Holt Heritage House is a charming and substantially intact example of a late nineteenth century symmetrical, bracketed cottage. The house was built by Robert Holt, a descendent of the Holt family who began the textile industry in Alamance County. In 1837, E. M. Holt began a mill that produced colored cloth on Little Alamance Creek in the southern part of Alamance County. Later, with the development of steam as a power source for cotton mill machinery, descendants of Holt built several mills in the vicinity of the town of Burlington so that they could be near a rail line. The Windsor Cotton Mill was established in 1890 by James H. Holt and his brother Robert E. Holt, grandsons of E. M. Holt and sons of the one of the Glencoe founders.

Robert Holt purchased land near the Windsor Mill for the house in 1895. His brother, James Holt, had married and was living in town. Robert, engaged to be married, built this house on three acres of land for his bride. It was one of the most up-to-date houses in the area with wall to wall carpet and chandeliers lit by kerosene. A few days before the wedding, Holt’s fiancé died of typhoid fever. He was so distressed that he sold the property in 1897 to James Heritage, who was brought to Windsor from Glencoe to serve as superintendent. The house has remained in the Heritage family and is owned today by two of his grandsons. After the sale of house to Heritage, Robert Holt moved to Glencoe and immediately began construction of the eventual mill owner’s house that now stands on Highway 62 adjacent to the Glencoe Mill Village.

The Heritage House is significant for both the quality and intactness of its original architectural detail. The house was built on the central hall plan with a standing seam gable metal roof. The hipped roof porch is supported by chamfered posts with paneled bases. The posts have flanking scrollwork, curvilinear brackets joining the posts to the porch. The interior of the house displays a wide central hall featuring a screen with delicate spindles suspended from the hall ceiling. Several Victorian mantels survive as do several early light fixtures. Currently there are six rooms on the first floor and three rooms on the second with one bathroom.

The former Glencoe superintendent’s house burned in 1954, but sufficient documentation exists to pinpoint its exact location. Because the Holt-Heritage House is a good example of mill superintendent housing and is threatened by imminent demolition, moving the house to Glencoe is a possibility worth consideration. Moving this house would save a significant Victorian structure and complete the architectural and interpretive picture of the Southern textile mill village that Glencoe represents. The strong Glencoe connections of the Holt-Heritage House through its first and subsequent owners strengthen the logic of a Glencoe placement.