Southern Appalachian Digital Collections

Western Carolina University (20) View all

Solitude

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  • This 1942 image of landscape horticulturist Charles Gaillard Tennent (1894-1979) holding up blueprints next to Solitude, the home of Irving Kip Stearns (1895-1942) and his wife Betty Grueninger Stearns (1896-1971) on Hospital Hill, is part of the Stearns-Grueninger collection. I. K. Stearns was president of Carolina Wood Turning Company from 1928 until his death in 1942. Stearns’ grandfather, Jeremiah Shank, started the company in 1903 as Bryson City Pump Works and it grew to be a thriving industry for the community. In 1911, Stearns was in the first graduating class of Bryson City High School. He had one son, Joseph Pease Stearns (1917-1948). In 1935, I. K. married Betty Grueninger.