On the second Saturday of September, the oldest house in Gaston County opens its doors to the public for a few unhurried hours, and for one day the quiet hill above the South Fork of the Catawba River comes alive again. The Annual Open House at the Hoyle Historic Homestead in Dallas, North Carolina, returns on Saturday, September 12, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., a free, rain-or-shine gathering that has become a beloved ritual for local history lovers and a rare chance to step inside a dwelling that has stood watch over the Carolina backcountry for more than two and a half centuries.
The homestead at 1214 Dallas Stanley Highway is not merely old; it is a landmark of a particular kind of American story. Its roots reach back to a German miller named Pieter Heyl, who, with his wife Catharine and their children, arrived in America on September 11, 1738, aboard the ship Robert and Alice. The family, whose name would later be Anglicized to Hoyle, first settled in northeastern Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, then lived for a time in Frederick, Maryland, before moving by 1753 to what is now Gaston County, then part of Anson County. Peter Hoyle died before January 20, 1761, but the land he and his descendants worked would carry his name forward for generations.
The exact date the house was raised remains a matter of scholarly debate, with sources placing it anywhere from the 1750s to the 1790s. What is beyond dispute is the remarkable way it was built. The Hoyle House is a rare surviving example of traditional German-American construction in North Carolina, employing a heavy timber frame with vertical corner braces and tightly fitted horizontal log infillings. The house stands on a hill overlooking the South Fork of the Catawba River, its earliest section resting on a foundation of small stones still partly visible today. A major renovation around 1810 added late Georgian and Federal finishes, front and rear shed porches, and the beaded siding applied with cut nails that survives beneath later weatherboard. Around the main block, a brick well house and a frame smokehouse, both dating from the nineteenth century, sit among nearly nine acres of grounds shaded by large walnut trees.
The property's ownership history is as layered as its architecture. After Peter Hoyle's death, the land passed through his descendants, and in 1794 the property was conveyed to Peter's grandson Andrew, a farmer and entrepreneur known as "Rich Andrew." Andrew may have acquired the house already standing and improved it, or built it himself and upgraded it in the early years of the nineteenth century.
By the late twentieth century, the aging house had survived the centuries but needed champions. In 1991, a group of preservation-minded residents formed Hoyle Historic Homestead, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit educational organization, to purchase and preserve Gaston County's oldest residence. Two years later, in 1993, the site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Since then, the organization has sustained the property through memberships, donations, and grants. Board members and volunteers are on hand throughout the day to answer questions, and the house itself is open for guests to explore, offering an up-close look at the corner-post log construction and the careful craftsmanship.
The 2026 edition promises the familiar pleasures that have made the event a fixture. Local craftsmen will offer demonstrations, live music will drift from the porch, and visitors can stroll the grounds at their leisure. Food will be available for purchase from Milltown Meats BBQ and Easy Peasy Handcrafted Beverages. The event is free and open to the public, though donations are welcomed to support the nonprofit's work.
The open house also reflects the quiet, steady progress of the preservation effort. In recent years, the board and its building committee labored for about two and a half years to create restroom facilities on the grounds, a project completed with support from state grants and the Honorable John Torbett. The new facility is now open, a small but meaningful sign of the organization's commitment to making the historic site welcoming to all who come to learn about a significant family in the Carolina backcountry.
For those who cannot make the September gathering, the homestead remains a place of ongoing research and restoration, with volunteers always welcome and school and group visits available by arrangement. But the annual open house is the moment when the old house truly comes to life, when the porch fills with music, the grounds fill with neighbors and newcomers alike, and the oldest home in Gaston County once again opens its doors to tell the story of the German miller who crossed the Atlantic in 1738 and the generations who built a life on this hill above the Catawba. It is a story written in timber and stone, in beaded siding, and on a September Saturday it is waiting to be told again.