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Knowles House Becomes Landmark

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By TOM BRENNAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: July 30, 2008

BRANDON - Barbara Gaylor remembers riding horses through her family's groves on her way to go swimming in the Alafia River.

Those days are long gone, but Gaylor is still optimistic about saving her ancestral home.

Her dreams got a boost last week, when county commissioners voted unanimously to designate the Knowles House at 808 Knowles Road a county landmark.

"I've seen so many houses destroyed and torn down. I just am trying to preserve the part of Brandon that is still here," she said.

The house was built in 1915 by her grandfather, Robert Henry Knowles, for his bride, Marjorie. Gaylor and her two sisters grew up there with their parents and grandparents.

"There were seven of us and only one bathroom," she recalled. Robert Knowles and his brother, Henry, migrated to what is now Brandon by wagon train from Alabama in 1872 with the Hendrix family, who took the boys in after their parents died.

Henry Knowles bought 80 acres, including the home site, in 1902. The family still owns 21 acres. Gaylor inherited the house and the three acres it stands on.

Various family members used the house, but it stood vacant for many years. Gaylor moved back in two years ago.

"I'm trying to restore it," she said. "I try to do the repairs as I can and get it back to where it once was."

Becoming a landmark makes the house eligible for tax breaks if Gaylor wants to make any historically appropriate improvements over the next decade.

But she said it is not about money.

"I want to preserve my family's heritage and Brandon's heritage," Gaylor said.

Research Gaylor did to support making the house a historic landmark showed the Knowles farm was part of a community known as Oaklawn, a settlement that predated Brandon. The name was later changed to Knowles.

Commissioner Al Higginbotham mentioned that history when presenting Gaylor with a proclamation awarding the house landmark status July 22.

"Before there was Brandon, there was Knowles," he said. "The Knowles family brought recognition and fame to our community."

Henry Knowles was appointed Oaklawn's postmaster in 1902. His son later took over that post. The Knowles post office closed in June 1915.

The two-story house off Bell Shoals Road was built in the symmetrical frame vernacular style using local materials, including heart pine. It is clad in clapboard siding and topped by a pyramidal hipped roof.

Reporter Tom Brennan can be reached at (813) 657-4528 or tbrennan@tampatrib.com.

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