Stewart-Kyle Funeral Home: Facilities: Facilities - Features: Stewart-Kyle Funeral Home

T he original building was built in the 1860’s by Joel Smith. The Smith family had a timber farm in the Chestnut Ridge area north of Hubbard. All of the lumber was brought to the building site by horse and wagon and milled on site. The interior woodwork on the east side is solid walnut, the wood on the west side is butternut both are hand carved. There were eight fireplaces in the original rooms, leaded glass in the front and formal dining room, and handmade cupboards in the dining room installed in the early 1900’s. One of the building’s most unique features is the ceiling in the formal dining room. The scroll molding was applied to the ceiling and a painter laid on his back on scaffolding to paint birds and leaves with over 29 colors. It remains the same today only the ceiling itself has been painstaking painted over the years.

In the early 1900’s the property was bought by the Jewell Family, they also were instrumental in starting the Hubbard Banking Company. In 1927 the Stewart Family purchased the property to move their funeral business into. In 1927 Mr. Arthur Dennison, a local contractor, was hired to build a 6 car attached garage with a porte co-chere, elevator shaft, new room on west and south side of the original building, a casket display room the first one of its kind in the area, and an embalming room. In the new addition on the first floor a Wick’s Pipe Organ was installed in 1936 to specifications for that area, and still is in operation today.