Blue Ridge Parkway Update with Rita Larkin

Grand Revival: Renovations Renew Flat Top Manor’s Exterior

By Rita Larkin

For years, peeling paint, crumbling woodwork, decaying columns, and even a boarded up window at Flat Top Manor signaled that the former country home of Moses and Bertha Cone was desperate for repairs. Historical buildings require lots of care, and the circa-1901 Colonial Revival style manor needed as much as it could get.

After 14 months of exterior renovations, the grand 23-room manse gleams from its perch overlooking Bass Lake. To complete the transformation, crews removed columns, balusters, and windows, repairing as many elements as possible and recreating those that could not be saved. Each piece of compromised clapboard siding was replaced before the entire exterior was repainted. The cedar roof shingles were replaced with a sustainable composite shingle from Enviroshake. Even the beadboard ceiling of the spacious porch was refreshed.

The cost of the exterior renovation was approximately $2.4 million. The renovations were funded by generous Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation donors and the National Park Service (NPS).

“Not in its 120-year history has the exterior of Flat Top Manor undergone such an extensive restoration,” said Kevin Brandt, Project Manager for the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. “With proper annual maintenance this work should last a generation or longer.”

Architects from the Denver Service Center, the National Park Service’s planning, design, and construction management office, led the restoration work. The center tackles the park system’s largest projects including preservation of Mount Rushmore, the Statue of Liberty, and the Wright Brothers Memorial. The NPS hired Ritz Construction, Inc., to lead the onsite effort to complete the restoration. Double Hung, LLC, was responsible for the process of delicately removing all the windows, columns, and railings. At the company’s workshop in Greensboro, N.C., the team meticulously repaired and repainted the features before returning them to their original locations on the building.

The project is one of many that Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation donors and volunteers have made possible at the estate, including the construction of restrooms at Bass Lake, clearing of vegetation on carriage trails, care of the hydrangea garden, and the installation of a fire suppression system in the manor.

“Flat Top Manor is grand again thanks to the outpouring of community support for its rehabilitation,” said Carolyn Ward, CEO of the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. “The home is an iconic feature of North Carolina’s High Country and the Parkway, and we are delighted visitors today and for years to come will now see its true beauty.”

Moses H. Cone Memorial Park is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The park was owned and developed as a gentleman’s country estate by Moses H. Cone, an American captain of industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, who with his brother, Ceasar Cone, brought denim production to the South with several mills based in Greensboro, N.C.

Beginning in 1897, Moses carefully created an impressive 3,500-acre country estate featuring carriage trails, lakes, orchards, fields, and forests. His vision was influenced by a great regard for the natural landscape.

Before his untimely death in 1908, Moses and his wife, Bertha, constructed Flat Top Manor as the centerpiece of this idyllic mountain retreat. After his passing, Bertha operated the estate for 40 years, adhering to his original concept. The estate became part of the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1950.

To learn more about the project, visit BRPFoundation.org/remakehistory.