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[photo]
El Nido

Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

The Gibbs House, also known as El Nido (Spanish for "the Nest") is an extremely rare example of a Spanish Mission/California style bungalow in North Carolina. The house was built from plans obtained from the Aurelius-Swanson Company of Oklahoma City in 1921 for physician Emmett Wyattman Gibbs (1873-1952), his wife Maude Sams Gibbs (1888-1969) and their daughter Evelyn Ray Gibbs (1914-). Both Emmett and Maude came from small mountain towns in western North Carolina, but met in Raleigh where both attended college. Emmett graduated from the University of North Carolina Medical Department in 1907 and Maude graduated from the Baptist University for Women in 1906 where she studied Phonograph and Typewriting in the School of Business. The couple lived in Asheville and Mooresboro before moving to Shelby around 1918 with their young daughter. Dr. Gibbs had an office for his medical practice in downtown Shelby and worked up to his dying day. Their daughter Evelyn attended Shelby High School and then Limestone College in Gaffney, South Carolina, where she majored in English. Miss Gibbs sang as a young woman, but after an allergy adversely effected her voice, she turned to painting lessons. Miss Gibbs never married and has always called El Nido her home.

[photo]
View of El Nido showing the rear attached garage with guestroom
above
Photo courtesy of Uptown Shelby Association

Maude had always wished to go to California. Not able to do so, she instead requested that her home in Shelby be built in the architectural styles then popular in California. Maude was inspired by some California-based magazines she subscribed to. The resulting home and its southwestern influenced landscape complete with cactus and other exotic plantings turned El Nido into a local curiosity. The low, one-story house has a varied projecting roofline, with a two-story tower and wide porches. The home is composed of two parts--the main house and the attached garage with the guestroom above. The walls are hollow tile, covered on the exterior with stucco embedded with crushed pink granite and other minerals. El Nido retains many of its original sculptured gutters and roof tiles, the latter of which resemble ceramic but are made of pressed tin. The living and dining rooms feature floors of handmade tiles imported from Mexico.

Very few changes have occurred to the original house, and it still retains all the original hardware, windows, doors and furniture. After World War II the house underwent alterations when Dr. Gibbs health required the remodeling of the kitchen into a first-floor office for him, and the addition of a new kitchen to the rear of the house. Some roof work has been undertaken and with this came some gutter replacements. In 1997 a group of volunteer restoration architects met at El Nido to give guidance about the property and its needs. A grant from the Dover Foundation was used to make substantial repairs to the main roof. Preservation North Carolina, a nonprofit organization, will receive the property and other assets of El Nido by bequest upon the death of Evelyn Ray Gibbs, at which time it is hoped the house will become a museum.

El Nido is located at 520 West Warren St. in the Central Shelby Historic District. It is a private residence and not open to the public.

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