House of Prayer By Maria Johnson

House Of Prayer

High Point restaurateurs Tu and Todd Sen revere the history of their Johnson Street home

By M a R i a JoHnson • P HotogR a PHs By a My FR eeM an

The real estate listing popped up on Tu Sen’s Facebook page around midnight.

She went r unn ing to fi nd her husba nd, To dd, who wa s m ind ing a back yard fire pit w it h t he c ouple’s daug hter Tif f a ny Va n hpr a seut h a nd go dson Chr ist ia n T homa s.

T he family had just gotten home f rom work ing at their restaurant, 98 A sian Bistro in High Point.

“I said, ‘Oh my God, Todd, my dream house is for sale! We have to see it!’” Tu remembers.

Todd k new which house she meant, a wide-set Prair ie-st yle gem that would fit r ight into Oak Park, Ill., where famous architect Frank Lloyd Wr ight lived and worked.

Built in 1910, Tu’s dream house sat squarely in High Point’s Johnson Street Histor ic Distr ict on the easter n edge of dow ntow n. Of ficially, the place was called the Bur nett-McCain House, af ter the str uct ure’s first t wo ow ners.

A cent ur y later, whenever Tu and Todd passed the house at the cor ner of Johnson Street and East Far r iss Avenue, Tu would ask Todd to put on the car’s emergency flashers and stop at the curb so she could get out, jab a couple of incense stick s in the cor ner of the yard, light them and pray to the house, ask ing per mission to live there and take care of the str uct ure some day.

Todd k new that Tu loved the house because it looked A sian, with

its simple hor izontal lines and deep f ront porch.

He k new, too, that she thought it would be a good home for the many Buddha stat ues that she kept in her prayer room, a shr ine she created inside a storage shed at their suburban High Point home.

But even in t he f ac e of Tu’s exc itement ab out t he h istor ic prop er t y, To dd wa s overc ome by wor r ies ab out money — a nd by a n unsp oken fe el ing t hat p e ople l i ke h im a nd Tu, who c a me to t h is c ount r y a s ch i ld ref uge es f rom war-tor n S out he a st A sia in t he 1970 s, shou ldn’t , a nd c ou ldn’t , l ive in a big house l i ke t hat.

“We can’t af ford it,” he told her that night. Undaunted, Tu made an ap pointment to see the house the next mor ning. A f ter the showing, she called Todd. “We have to make an of fer,” she said.

T he house was char ming and sophisticated, she repor ted. It was f ull of moder n f ur nit ure and — although the ow ners weren’t Buddhists — it contained several Buddhas already. “I said, ‘No wonder I liked it,’” she recalls.

T he ow ners were ask ing $350,0 0 0. T hey had three of fers already.

Tu — who had a good idea of what she and Todd could af ford — wanted to of fer $358,990. Cash.

Todd k new how deter mined his wife could be when she wanted something. Usually, he was happy with the outcome. “OK,” he said. “Do it.”

T hey made an of fer.

A few days later, Tu toured the house again. T his time, she took f resh f r uit as an of fer ing, spread it on a white sheet in the foyer, lit 10 white candles and O.Henr y 69

had a chat with the house.

“I said, ‘I’m here. You already k now me. If you want me to be your next caretaker, choose me. If you feel I’m not the r ight person, I will accept it.’” Two week s later, the agent called. T he ow ners had taken their of fer.

T he Sens moved into their new- old home in November 2019.

Sitting in the f ront room, on a plush beige sofa that matches the couple’s blond York shire ter r iers, Bang and Blue, Tu explains why she believes the for mer ow ners accepted their of fer.

“T he house talked to them” she says. Todd chuck les and points out that Tu talked to the house first.

“I’ve been with my wife 29 years and let me tell you,” he says, “I’ve seen miracles around her when she prays.”

Tu nods, adding that she prays for many things: family, f r iends, her hometow n.

By hometow n, she means High Point, not the U.S. militar y base in L aos where she was bor n 48 years ago. A lot has happened bet ween then and now. “I pray for healing,” Tu says. “For what I went through.”

She remembers the sound of helicopter rotors slapping the air. T hen a toddler, Tu was strapped to her mother’s chest with a bed sheet. Her mother had one foot in a Black Hawk helicopter and was telling Tu’s father to come on. Because Tu’s father had worked for the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in L aos dur ing the Vietnam war, the A mer icans of fered to evacuate the family as Vietnam and neighbor ing L aos fell to Communist forces. If you stay, they will k ill you, her mother told her father.

I’ll be fine, he said. Tu’s mother stepped out of the helicopter. L aotian of-

ficials ar rested her father and threw him in jail, where he was chained in a dark basement. Tu, her mother and t wo sisters lived nearby. Her mother cooked and kept house for her husband ’s captors. Gradually, they tr usted her enough to release her husband. But he wasn’t the same when he got home.“He was broken,” says Tu.

Her mot her, who wa s T ha i, de c ide d t he f a m i ly shou ld r isk a n esc ap e to T ha i la nd. O ne n ig ht , when Tu wa s ab out 8, her f a m i ly a nd a few ot hers b oarde d c a no es to padd le across t he Mekong R iver to T ha i la nd. R a in la she d t he c a no es. T hunder r at t le d t heir a lre ady r aw ner ves. L ig ht n ing st rob e d, ex p osing t heir lo c at ion to T ha i sold iers, who shot at t hem. “My mom told a l l of us to l ie dow n,” Tu says. T hey made it.

A couple of days later, T hai police picked up the g roup, soaked and traveling on foot. Event ually they were taken to a ref ugee camp. T he family stayed in camps for about four years. Tu remembers room dividers made of newspaper and bamboo. She remembers getting one fish, one bowl of r ice and a five-gallon bucket of water ever y day. She remembers T hai vendors selling apples outside a barbed wire fence.

“I wished I could taste that apple,” she says.

Once her family was cleared for g reen cards because of her father’s ser vice to the U.S., camp of ficials asked her mother where they wanted to go. Her mother pointed to a post card of the Stat ue of Liber t y in New York Harbor.

“She said it was the land of gold,” Tu says. “My father said the A mer icans would never leave us. He believed that.”

T he family lived in Jersey Cit y, N.J., for several years, then followed their middle daughter, Mar y, to Greensboro.

Tu’s parents worked in a mattress factor y in A sheboro. Mar y worked at a sock factor y and g rocer y store in Greensboro. Tu waited tables in a Chinese restaurant, Empress Garden, in Greensboro.

“I did so well I had people waiting to sit in my section,” she says. “A ll my customers were elderly. T hey tipped me really well. T hey k new I was a single mom.”

Years later, when Mar y and her husband, James, opened T hai Chiang Mai, a restaurant in High Point, Tu and her second husband, Todd, joined them in the family business.

Bor n in Cambodia, Todd also had lived in a T hai ref ugee camp — though not the same one as Tu — before his family immig rated to South Bend, Indiana. One spr ing weekend Todd came to a f r iend ’s wedding in L exing ton, N.C.

His parents saw photos of him wear ing shor ts in Nor th Carolina while they still wore coats in Indiana.

T hey saw the red clay soil, which promised a longer g rowing season for their garden.

T hey were sold on the South. T he family relocated to the Piedmont, worked in f ur nit ure factor ies, and planted a huge garden.

“I think my mom has never bought a vegetable,” Todd jokes. “For the older generation, they g row st uf f to connect them to the old countr y. Myself, I go fishing because that’s what I did when I was younger, in Cambodia, for food.”

His fish-g r illing sk ills came in handy when he and Tu opened their ow n place, 98 A sian Bistro, in 2015. T he upscale restaurant, which occupies par t of a for mer Chevrolet dealership on Main Street in High Point, memor ializes the year Tu’s father died, 1998.

Tu a nd To dd insist on honor ing t hose who have pave d t he way for t hem.

In their home, they have set aside the master bedroom to venerate the home’s second ow ner, physician H.W. McCain, whose family lived there more than 40 years. No one sleeps in the k ing-size bed, which is strew n with photos and wr ite-ups about the home.

A nother bedroom is Tu’s prayer room, which t wink les with bank s of metallic fig ures representing both sides of her family: Buddhist and T hai cult ures for her mother; Hindu and Indian cult ures for her father. Fresh flowers, f r uit, candy, bottled water and sweet dr ink s welcome the spir its. Incense per f umes the air.

A third bedroom ser ves as a closet for Tu and Todd.

T he couple sleep in a modest four th bedroom. It’s the only room that they have f ur nished themselves.

T he home’s for mer ow ners, Michael and Patr icia Bellocchio, who ow n a f ur nit ure manufact ur ing company, lef t behind many sleek pieces — the ar mless sofas in the f ront room, the minimalist dining room table and chairs — as well as car ved Spanish Mission-st yle chests, sideboards and ar moires that har monize with Easter n flavors.

A pair of decorative wooden doors — supposedly f rom an A sian temple — are set into the wall of a professional k itchen that spor ts a si x-bur ner gas stove, a concrete-and-mahogany topped island, an extra-wide ref r igerator and f reezer, a double oven and walls text ured with stacked quar tz stone.

Other than painting the home’s inter ior wa lls gold and g reen, the Sens have done ver y lit tle updating. T hey’ve filled in the gaps bet ween f ur nishings w ith a bev y of treasures, many of which have

been g iven to them or sold at a discount by f r iends in the f ur nit ure industr y.

T he fau x pink cher r y blossoms that fill g iant metal vases on either side of the fireplace? A customer ordered them for her daughter’s wedding and gave them to Tu af ter ward.

T he bron ze Ch inese l ions in f ront of t he house ? Tu saw t hem in a Hig h Point store more t ha n 10 ye ars ago. “I sa id, ‘If you st ay here, I’ l l c ome back for you,’” she says. W hen she ret ur ne d, t he big c at s were wa it ing at a f r ac t ion of t he or ig ina l pr ic e. She to ok t hem home a nd dr ap e d t hem w it h re d st r ings of Budd h ist pr ayer b e ads.

T he burbling orb fountain with water slipping dow n the sides? A g if t f rom the ow ners of the Phillips Collection, who are Tu’s customers.

T he hou s e - w a r m i ng g i f t t h at she w a nt e d t he mo st — a n A me r ic a n fl a g — c a me f r om t he H ig h Poi nt C h a mb e r of C om me r c e , wh ic h n a me d he r Bu si ne ss wom a n of t he Ye a r i n 2016.

“I always said I wanted to have a piece of A mer ica,” says Tu. “O w ning this home is a piece of A mer ica.”

T he house continues to inspire dreamers, Todd says.

“Ever y once in a while somebody will stop their car in f ront of this house, get out and take a pict ure.” OH