Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 11/04/04
SUMMARY
The Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer House was built in 1931, and was used as a single family residence until 2002. Since Matilda’s death, the Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer Foundation worked to develop the house into a museum and nature study center for the public’s benefit and enjoyment. The museum opened to the public in May 2004. The building lost its original windows in the mid-1970’s, which precludes it from listing in the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, the building is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion C as an excellent example of English Tudor Revival style architecture.
ELABORATION
The Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer Museum was a residential home before the deaths of Matilda in 2002 and her husband, Karl, in 1981. They were the sole owners and occupants, along with their two surviving children, of the house from the time they had it built in 1931. Mrs. Pfeiffer was a perfectionist in how the house’s interior was maintained, resulting in the almost pristine condition of the oak flooring and stairs and the Great Room’s pine ceiling and walls.
The home is famous locally, not only as being part of the Pfeiffer legacy in Piggott but also as the location for the swimming pool scene during the 1956 filming of Elia Kazan’s movie “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith and Patricia Neal. Mrs. Pfeiffer, an accomplished swimmer, was hired to be a lifeguard on the movie set.
The town of Piggott developed sometime during the late 1870’s to early 1880’s following the opening of a St. Louis, Arkansas & Texas Railroad route through the area. Along with the business created by the railroad, timber also drove the local economy. When the area’s swamp-like land was cleared and drained, farming opportunities were created, luring many people to the area. Among them was the Pfeiffer family.
The Pfeiffers were a wealthy family from St. Louis, who moved to Piggott in 1913. Paul Pfeiffer was a businessman who saw potential in Clay County farmland and would eventually acquire around 60,000 acres. He was also a philanthropist who helped area residents financially during the Great Depression.
Paul and his wife, Mary, had four children, Karl, Max, Virginia and Pauline, who was the second wife of author Ernest Hemingway. (Hemingway was often a guest at the home of his brother-in-law, Karl, and Karl’s wife, Matilda, whenever he and Pauline visited her parents in Piggott during the 1930’s. Paul and Mary’s home is across the street from Karl and Matilda’s.)
After attending the University of Notre Dame and Harvard, Karl moved to New York, where he worked for Richard Hudnut Cosmetics, a division of Warner-Lambert which was owned by his uncles Gus and Henry Pfeiffer. Karl met his future wife, Matilda Schmitt, in New Jersey at a drugstore soda fountain where she worked, and they were married in 1922. They later had three children, Mary Margaret, Barbara and Paul Mark.
Matilda was born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1904 and was raised in New Jersey. At the time she first met Karl, she was taking classes to fulfill a dream of becoming a designer for movie sets and costumes.This was in an era when society still expected women to be homemakers instead of having careers.
Karl and Matilda moved to Piggott in the early 1930’s. Construction of their home, built in a Tudor Revival style, began around 1931. It is said the English Tudor Revival style was popular in New Jersey at the time and was unlike any of the architectural styles in Piggott.
The house was built in what was once a wheat field. Matilda loved nature and allowed the land to return to a more natural state, planting trees, bushes and flowers and encouraging native growth.
Karl became a member of the board of directors of the Piggott Land Co., owned by his father, which oversaw the production operations of the elder Pfeiffer’s farmland. The Pfeiffer operation was known for its farming diversification, sharecropping system and developing new farming methods including “Pfeiffering” where land was cleared so as to pose the least threat to vegetation and wildlife.
The Piggott Land Company office was located just off Piggott’s bustling court square and employed several local residents both there and at the Pfeiffer’s cotton gin for many years before it closed in the 1950’s.
Karl and Matilda were involved with the construction of Piggott’s first public library in 1937, a project organized by the Piggott Civic Club. Karl was a member of the project’s fundraising committee, and Matilda was a member of the building committee.
Karl and Matilda’s home was the site of a movie set in 1956 for director/producer Elia Kazan’s “A Face in the Crowd” starring Andy Griffith, Patricia Neal, Walter Matthau and Lee Remick, who was making her acting
debut. The Pfeiffers’ swimming pool and house were among the many Piggott locations Kazan used for the film’s early scenes. Matilda, who was an accomplished swimmer, was hired to be a lifeguard on the set.
Matilda also served as an advisor during Arkansas State University’s restoration of Paul and Mary’s home and Hemingway’s carriage house writing studio following the property’s acquisition by ASU in the late 1990’s. The property is now the Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum and Educational Center.
Karl died in 1981 and Matilda in 2002. Following the wishes dictated in her will, their house has been developed into a museum and study center that opened to the public in May 2004. It showcases Matilda’s extensive mineral and geode collection and Native American artifacts discovered in the local area. The grounds surrounding the house is a sanctuary for wildlife and native plants and trees.
The facility is owned and operated by the Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer Foundation, a 501 [c] [3] non-profit organization.
SIGNIFICANCE
The Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer House was built in 1931, and was used as a single family residence until 2002. Since Matilda’s death, the Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer Foundation worked to develop the house into a museum and nature study center for the public’s benefit and enjoyment. The museum opened to the public in May 2004. The building has lost its original windows in the mid-1970’s, which precludes it from listing in the National Register of Historic Places. As a result, the building is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion C as an excellent example of English Tudor Revival style architecture.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
History of the Piggott Public Library by Marie Hillyer, written account on library’s web site at www.piggottlibrary.com
History of the Piggott Library by Ruth Gwin, 1946.
History and Traditions of Clay County by Robert T. Webb, published by Robert T. Webb, Bruce Brown and Patsy Truscott, 1933.
Tudor Style: Tudor Revival Houses in America from 1890 to the Present by Lee Goff, copyright 2002, Universe Publishing.
Remembrances of Donald T. Roeder, James Richardson and Rosemary Janes – longtime Pfeiffer friends and members of the board of trustees of the Matilda and Karl Pfeiffer Foundation, phone 870-598-3882.