Maxwelton is a historic single-story house in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, that is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

. It is the only extant example in Memphis of a Victorian piano box house. It is currently a private residence. The piano box house is a vernacular architectural style found in houses built in Middle and

West Tennessee West Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions (Tennessee), Grand Divisions of the U.S. state of Tennessee that roughly comprises the western quarter of the state. The region includes 21 counties between the Tennessee River, Tennessee and Miss ...

, from the mid-19th century into the early part of the 20th century. These one-story houses acquired the name "piano box" from their shape, which was seen to resemble that of a rectangular

grand piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

. Maxwelton was built around 1860 from Tennessee native Poplar and Cypress woods. It features a long recessed central porch between two flanking parlors. The interior of the home has ceilings. Its floors are made from pine boards. There are five fireplaces with wooden mantels and some have ornately tiled hearths. It is named after a famed estate

Maxwelton House __NOTOC__ Glencairn is an ecclesiastical and civil parish in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Location According to John Bartholomew's 1887 ''Gazetteer of the British Isles'', the parish in west Dumfriesshire covered . The parish included the ...

home of Annie Laurie in Dumfriesshire,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

. Judge John Louis Taylor Sneed purchased the home in 1874. The home has been in the Sneed - Ewell family for four generations. Upon Judge Sneed's death, his wife inherited Maxwelton. Since the couple had no children, after her death the home was passed to her nephew, John Sneed Webb and then to Webb's daughter, Kathleen. In 1918 Kathleen was married in the home to Arthur Peyton Ewell and they had two sons, Arthur Webb Ewell and John Sneed Ewell, both of whom were born in Maxwelton's west bedroom. Maxwelton was placed on the

in 1980.

References

{{National Register of Historic Places Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Tennessee Victorian architecture in Tennessee Houses in Memphis, Tennessee National Register of Historic Places in Memphis, Tennessee