NEWS

Learn more about the Puckett house in this wonderful article by a granddaughter of this house. (News of Davidson photo)

By Susan Byers Manning

The Cain Center will be having a grand opening of the new Pottery Center in the historic Puckett House located at 21212 Catawba Avenue in Cornelius on May 6, 2026. But before it was purchased by the Cain Center, it was the family home of John M. and Norma W. Bost, my maternal grandparents, from 1933 to 1979, so we have 46 years of wonderful memories in that house.

My mother, Yvonne Bost Byers, was the oldest daughter of John and Norma Bost, and she remembers moving from Davidson, where my grandfather worked in the post office for many years, to the house in Cornelius in 1933. It was the height of the depression, and it was the first house that my grandparents owned. They had previously rented two houses in Davidson, both of which are still standing.

My mother was six years old and getting ready to start elementary school, and her parents wanted to purchase a home for their growing family and get my mother settled before school started. She attended the Cornelius School, from grades 1 to 11, which was located just across the street from the backyard. Her parents purchased the Puckett house in1933 for $2500 from the W. R. Puckett family, who had owned the house since 1911.  But the history of the house predates both the Bost and Puckett families.

The Perry Goodrum house is located next door. (News of Davidson photo)

According to the Mecklenburg County property records, it was built in 1901, in the Folk Victorian architectural style. This style is a simpler, more affordable, and symmetrical subset of Victorian architecture common in American suburbs and rural areas from 1870 to 1910. The Perry Goodrum house next door is of the same style and era and was also purchased by the Cain Center in 2025.

When my grandparents purchased the home in 1933 and moved from Davidson to Cornelius, they had two children, my mother born in 1927 and her brother, Johnny Bost, born in 1929, and one on the way, Ed Bost, who still lives in Cornelius. He was born in October 1933 after they moved into their new home and lived in the homeplace (as we called the house) until he left to join the Army.

Two more children would soon follow, Joe Bost in 1938, and Jane Bost Putnam in 1940, both of whom still live in Cornelius and Huntersville, respectively. It was a lively house with five growing children, and my grandmother made all their friends welcome, including my daddy, Edd Byers, who grew up across the street and courted my mother on the big front porch until he went off to war in 1942.

The family attended Cornelius Presbyterian Church, which was just across the street, where my mother and daddy married in May 1945 as the war was drawing to a close. Eventually, all the Bost children married and had children, and as the oldest grandchild, I remember spending many happy times at “Mimi’s” house for birthdays and holidays. I loved the location on Catawba Avenue with its wide sidewalks because I could walk to the library, Cashion’s grocery store, and even to the Five and Dime store farther down the street. Mimi hosted my fifth birthday party at her house and invited all the neighborhood children. I still remember the excitement of celebrating my birthday with all the Cornelius friends and family in the big shady front yard. (Sadly, the huge oak trees are no longer there).

The entrance to the Puckett House. (News of Davidson photo)

In 1966, when I was sixteen, my grandparents decided to build on Lake Norman and moved to the lake full-time after the new house was built. But they kept the “old homeplace” until 1979, when the house was sold to Phil Howard. During that time, some of the family lived in the house including my great aunt Ethel, who retired after many years as a Methodist missionary to China and Japan. She taught piano lessons on the old upright piano in the family room in her retirement years.

The Howards owned the house from 1979 until 2025, when it was sold to the Cain Center. The Bost family was very happy when the Cain Center purchased the property, especially after learning the plan was to preserve as much as possible of the Puckett and Goodrum houses. We were able to tour the Puckett house, which we’ll always think of as the Bost homeplace, before the reconstruction started.

Many of us had not seen the house since we were children. Forty-six years in one house holds a lot of memories for the five Bost children and the 15 grandchildren of John and Norma Bost, but we are excited to see what the next chapter holds for this special house, and we are happy that the entire community will be able to enjoy it into the future.