Kenworthy Hall, also known as the Carlisle-Martin House, Carlisle Hall, and Edward Kenworthy Carlisle House, is a distinguished plantation house located near Marion, Alabama. Built from 1858 to 1860, it is one of the best-preserved examples of Richard Upjohn's Italian villa style, adapted for the Southern climate and plantation lifestyle.
Edward Kenworthy Carlisle, born in 1810 near Augusta, Georgia, migrated to Perry County, Alabama with his mother, Susan Curry Carlisle. After marrying Lucinda Wilson Walthall in 1841, Carlisle became a prominent landholder and cotton factor. In 1858, Carlisle commissioned architect Richard Upjohn to design Kenworthy Hall as a symbol of his family's social standing in the Black Belt region.
Carlisle's correspondence with Upjohn, beginning in May 1858, sought a design for a country residence. Despite difficulties in sourcing skilled labor, construction commenced with master mason Philip Bond in November 1858. The family moved into the house by 1860.
The Civil War, which began in 1861, affected Carlisle’s fortunes, though his cotton trading firm, Carlisle and Humphries, prospered during the Union blockade. After the war, Carlisle's wealth diminished, and the estate's value decreased. Upon his death in 1873, his wife Lucinda inherited the property, which she later gave to their only surviving child, Augusta Carlisle Jones, in 1899. Lucinda passed away in 1912, and Augusta sold the estate in 1914.
The house went through various owners and suffered decline, including vandalism in the 1950s. Kathryn Tucker Windham recorded a ghost story associated with the house in her book *13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey*. The story involves a ghostly young woman in the fourth-floor tower room awaiting her lover, who died in the Civil War.
Karen Klassen of Birmingham bought the house in 1957 for $4000 and began restoration efforts. The Martin family purchased it in 1967 and continued restoration for thirty years. Kenworthy Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 2004.
Kenworthy Hall is a rare residential example of Upjohn's Italian villa style, adapted for the Southern climate. It features a massive four-story tower, variable-sized windows with brownstone trim, and a distinctive division of family and public spaces.
The house is constructed from locally made dull red brick with brownstone belt courses. It includes a partial basement, three stairways, multiple hallways, and seven major rooms on the first floor, among other features. Ancillary structures contributing to its National Historic Landmark status include a detached two-room brick kitchen, a brick smokehouse, a water cistern, and a well house.
The house’s original porches, or piazzas, were replaced or removed over time. The remaining architectural elements include a Serliana brownstone arch at the main entrance, a bracketed balcony, and a roof with wide eaves decorated by flat wooden brackets. The interior features decorative cabinetry, oak moldings, and one of the earliest uses of ornamental stained glass in the Deep South. Much of this stained glass was destroyed by vandals in the 1950s.
Kenworthy Hall is reputedly haunted by the ghost of a young woman who waits in the fourth-floor tower room for her lover, who died during the American Civil War. This tale is featured in Kathryn Tucker Windham's *13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey*.