Seasons Spring 2018

Beauty Soars Here

F

United Methodist Retirement Community

RANCIS LOVES BEING OUTSIDE with good friends — and if he drives a beautiful shot off the tee, that’s even better.

“It’s just fun to get out there and find fellowship on the fairway,” he smiles. Retired and now living at Arbor Acres, Francis has more freedom than ever to do the things he loves most. At Arbor Acres, our residents celebrate the endless variations and possibilities of beauty. What is beautiful to you?

www.arboracres.org 1240 Arbor Road, Winston-Salem, NC 27104 336 -724-7921

GREENSBORO 225 South Elm Street • 336-272-5146 WINSTON-SALEM Stratford Village • 137 South Stratford Road • 336-725-1911 www.schiffmans.com

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Visit our new location

419 Pisgah Church Rd. | Greensboro, NC 27455

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Visit us at 138 Cobblestone Walk Drive during the Spring Parade of Homes on Saturday & Sunday, April 28-29th & May 5-6th

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|

w w w.g u n t e r d r e A M H o M e S . n e t

THE UMSTEAD.COM | CARY, NC | 866.877.4141

Spring 2018 64

38

By Jim Dodson

S TYLEBOOK 16 The Hot List

By Jason Oliver Nixon & John Loecke

FEATURES

19 Best of Spring

38 Top of the World

21 Hidden Gem

By Nancy Oakley

Modernism finds a home among the rolling hills of Lewisville

50 Force of Nature

By Cynthia Adams

Remembering High Point design icon Pat Plaxico

55 A Contemporary Mother

By Maria Johnson

Greensboro artist Carol Cole finds nurturing through art and home

64 Twin City Garden Party

55 50

13 From the Editor

By Jim Dodson

A preview of a tour of gardens presented by Garden Club Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County

etc. Consignment 336-659-7786

By Robin Sutton Anders

27 Gardener’s Notebook

By Ross Howell, Jr.

29 Season to Taste

By Jane Lear

35 Almanac

By Ash Alder

LIFE&HOME 69 The Architect’s Son

By Peter Freeman

73 Titans of the Triad

By Billy Ingram

79 The Language of Home

By Noah Salt

80 HomeWords

By Brian Faulkener

etc. Home 336-659-0900

690 Jonestown Rd. • Winston-Salem www.etcConsignmentShoppe.com Monday - Saturday • 9AM-6PM

8 SEASONS •

STYLE

& DESIGN

Spring 2018

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5 Blue Gill Cove Greensboro

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JA R E E TO D D 336 – 601 –4892

MELISSA GREER 336 –337–5233

JA K E L E T T E R M A N 336 –338 – 0136

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Adams Farm 336 – 854 –1333 • Elm Street 336 –272– 0151 • Friendly Center 336 –370 – 4000 • Kernersville 336 –996 – 4256 • Winston–Salem 336 –768 –3300 ©2018 BHH Affiliates, LLC. An independently operated subsidiary of HomeServices of America, Inc., a Berkshire Hathaway affiliate, and a franchisee of BHH Affiliates, LLC. Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices and the Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices symbol are registered service marks of HomeServices of America, Inc.® Equal Housing Opportunity.

Vol. 3 No. 1 336.617.0090 1848 Banking Street Greensboro, NC 27408 www.ohenrymag.com Publisher

David Woronoff Jim Dodson, Editor jim@thepilot.com Andie Rose, Art Director andie@thepilot.com Nancy Oakley, Senior Editor nancy@ohenrymag.com Lauren Coffey, Graphic Designer Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer CONTRIBUTORS Cynthia Adams, Ash Alder, Robin Sutton Anders, Harry Blair, Brian Faulkner, Amy Freeman, Peter Freeman, John Gessner, Ross Howell Jr., Maria Johnson, Jane Lear, John Loecke, Jason Oliver Nixon, Noah Salt

with us in the latest beauty and wellness trends.

h

Your look can range from subtle to dramatic with our array of services such as hair, nails, skincare, and waxing. Now is the perfect time to go for that new hairstyle, blowout, rich color, keratin treatment, manicure, pedicure, or spray tan*. Relax in a warm and luxurious environment as you enjoy a massage, facial, or peel.

ADVERTISING SALES Ginny Trigg, Sales Director

These incredible experiences are provided by highly talented independent salon owners. Each one is located in a unique and beautiful suite that encompasses the artistic expressions of your stylist. Gift certificates are available.

Join us for our oak Hollow Village location grand opening on april 8tH at 4:00 pm. *Not all services are available at all locations. Please contact the concierge for a complete list.

910.691.8293, ginny@thepilot.com Hattie Aderholdt, 336.601.1188 • hattie@ohenrymag.com Lisa Allen, 336.210.6921 • lisa@ohenrymag.com Amy Grove, 336.456.0827 • amy@ohenrymag.com Allison Shore, 336.698.6374 • allison@ohenrymag.com Lisa Bobbitt, Sales Assistant 336.617.0090, ohenryadvertising@gmail.com Brad Beard, Graphic Design

CIRCULATION Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488

Caldwell Court 2709 Battleground Ave. Greensboro, NC (336) 617-6260

10 SEASONS •

STYLE

& DESIGN

Oak Hollow Village 1231 Eastchester Dr. High Point, NC (336) 617-6260

St. George Square 603 – 690 St. George Square Ct. Winston-Salem, NC (336) 893-7978

SUBSCRIPTIONS 336.617.0090 ©Copyright 2018. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited.

Seasons Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC Spring 2018

From the high $200’s - high $300’s From 2,100 - 3,800 sq ft 1 & 2 story homes Two Decorated Models Pool & Playground

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Sales: Shea Group Services, LLC DBA Shea Realty (C21630). Construction: Shea Builders, LLC, 68875. This is not an offer of real estate for sale, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, to residents of any state or province in which registration and other legal requirements have not been fullled. Pricing does not include options, elevation, or lot premiums, effective date of publication and subject to change without notice. All square footages and measurements are approximate and subject to change without notice. Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Equal Housing Opportunity. Home pictured may not be actual home for sale or actual model home, but rather a representation of a similar model or elevation design. Photos depict designer features, optional items and other upgrades that may be available from Seller at additional cost. Furniture not included or available for purchase (even upon the payment of an additional charge).

FROM THE EDITOR

King of Spades Unearthing the delights of spring

By Jim Dodson

ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR

B

eing a true son of winter, yet an increasingly obsessed gardener, I’m always of two minds with the arrival of spring.

On the one hand, I’m always sad to see the crisp days and clear Arctic nights of star-spangled heavens — not to mention the beauty of fresh snowfall upon the leafless architecture of my nodding garden — vanish down the rabbit hole for another year.

On the other, the sudden appearance of daffodils and wild onions sprouting in the perennial border, and a noticeable amping up of birdsong announces a new growing season is upon us — so sleepers awake!

During the years I built and looked after a large faux English garden in the deep woods of Coastal Maine, March and April were never much of a factor. “James,” my late Scots mother-in-law always had to remind me, “best to remember that March is a full winter month in Maine, and April is called the cruelest month for good reason, dear, gray and cold with lots of mud and only teasing bits of sun.”

She was right, of course, at least about the frozen North Country. Some years “ice out” in local ponds failed to occur until Mother’s Day, and many was the Easter when snowflakes or sleet filled the air on the way to church Though I’ve been back home in the middle South for a dozen years, time enough to thin my blood and get semi-accustomed to a spring that seemingly arrives weeks earlier year after year, the suddenness of the season and its attendant To-Do list always seem to catch me by surprise.

Up North, my wife, Wendy, used to joke the first true sign of spring coming to Maine was when a large shrub or young tree suddenly moseyed past the kitchen window where she happened to be standing, seemingly on its own willpower. In fact, the phenomenon was merely her itchy, Carolina-raised, garden-starved husband moving a shrub or young tree to a sunnier spot on our Spring 2018

thawing hilltop estate in the woods, hoping to encourage the return of spring that never fully committed itself until May Day, whereupon the blackflies swarmed in celebration.

Nowadays by mid-April — or is it now late February? — I’m in full operational gardening mode, perpetually dirty, blissfully oblivious to anything else happening in the world beyond my garden gate, lost in the ambitious planting schemes and brilliant ideas that seeped into my dozy off-season brain during the cold, gray days of deep winter.

For Christmas this year, knowing that which maketh her husband tick, my summer-loving bride (we are, alas, your classic mixed seasonal marriage) thoughtfully presented me a handsome, handmade, imported and insanely expensive English planting spade by the house of Spear & Jackson.

As garden implements go, this garden tool is almost too dang pretty to get dirty — or so I briefly thought until I took it outside during middle February’s alarmingly wet and warm afternoons and gave it a full workout transplanting a pair of young Japanese maples from terrace urns to my side garden. After that I moved awakening hosta plants and transplanted three hydrangeas.

In a word, the tool performed magnificently, making its owner feel like the King of Spades.

As you read this, Good Lord willing and the lower back holds up, I’ll have ruthlessly cleaned out the wretched ivy that’s plagued the blueberry hedge forever, trimmed the ornamental grasses back and tidied up my lavender and Indian sage plants along the entry walk. I’ll have seeded the yard with fescue and begun construction of the new wooden side fences and iron gates that I spent far too many (but quite pleasant) hours this winter on Pinterest, combing for ideas, whereupon I shall commence a full-frontal assault on the so-called “Wild Corner” of our suburban backyard.

Half the yard out yonder resembles something vaguely akin to a promising new Japanese shade garden while the other half SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 13

STYLEBOOK

megbrown.com

14 SEASONS •

| Located just off I-40 in Bermuda Run

STYLE

& DESIGN

resembles an abandoned nursery where elderly azaleas, horrible mahonias, half-dead dogwoods, insidious wisteria vines, leggy alders, shaggy buckeyes and unattended-to thorns have ruled at whim for at least a decade.

(Permit me to pause in this spring exegesis and declare that if there’s anything more rewarding in this life than digging out perilously mean-spirited mahonia bushes-gone-wild and yanking out wisteria vines by the hairy root, well, I simply haven’t discovered it yet.)

Once the area is cleared and a fresh canvas of soil and semi-shade awaits, the King of Spades will get down to work installing a new garden of azaleas and dogwoods, new stone pathways girded by lush oakleaf and mophead hydrangeas, hellebores, bleeding heart, woodland phlox and at least a dozen kinds of hosta.

By end of Carolina spring, with a little luck and a consciously blind eye to what I’m spending at the garden centers round town, my winter garden dreams will have more or less taken shape just in time for summer.

Between us, I’m always a little By end of Carolina spring, with a sad when full-throated summer arrives on my patch of Earth. Like little luck and a consciously blind a first date with a beautiful girl, eye to what I’m spending at the springtime’s high expectations and nervous infatuation must yield to garden centers round town, my the task of daily maintenance and weeding — which, I suppose, is not winter garden dreams will have unlike marrying the summer-loving more or less taken shape just in girl of your dreams and finding her to be the perfect companion in any time for summer. season or garden.

Last spring, mindful of summers that seem more Mediterranean than Mid-Atlantic, per her clever suggestion, I replaced all of the dusty and ancient frontyard shrubs (installed decades ago by our home’s previous matron) with beds of French and English lavender, Indian sage and ornamental grasses that grew rewardingly full and stayed lush all the way into the holidays. They even looked starkly elegant beneath the surprise snowfall that came in January.

As of this moment, it’s perhaps too early to say for sure whether they survived the puny fortnight of old-fashioned winter that accompanied the snow, dropping temps to the single digits.

But a garden-nut by nature is nothing if not an optimist at heart. Hard weather makes good timber, as they say up in Maine, and whatever doesn’t kill your tender English and French lavender beds, to borrow a phrase, only makes them — and you — stronger in the end.

The King of Spades can live with such thrilling uncertainty. Part of the fun of making a garden in any season or place, after all, is the life-and-death drama that plays out daily/weekly/yearly at your fingertips and in your head.

I joke to friends who know of my garden affliction — a verdure of blood I inherited from generations of farming kin in these parts — that like more than one of my garden-mad forebears, the day may well come when some kindly visitor to my garden discovers its keeper serenely face-down in the hostas or flowering verbena, permanently at rest and, horticulturally speaking, not a bad way to go at all.

Besides, don’t they say one is closer to God’s heart in a garden? I’ll just consider that a shortcut to gardening heaven.

And that fancy, well-made English spade of mine? I suspect it will outlive its current owner by at least a decade and could come in quite handy for assisting someone else’s garden dreams — or at least spreading a few memorial ashes among the hellebores or Verbena bonariensis. h Spring 2018

THE HOT LIST

Heavy Petal

Why be a shrinking violet when you can blossom with floral-inspired flair?

Gilt Complex • Watch a tired hallway blossom with the glorious Grand Lotus chandelier ($1,420) from Currey & Company in either gold or silver. Available through House Works, 500 State St., Greensboro, (336) 691-9633.

By Jason Oliver Nixon and John Loecke, Madcap Cottage

Scents and Sensibility • Learn how to arrange

flowers easily with the lushly produced book Handpicked: Simple, Sustainable, and Seasonal Flower Arrangements (Abrams, $24.95), by Brooklyn-based florist Ingrid Carozzi. The tantalizing tome would make a perfect host or hostess gift for those upcoming spring fling f®êtes. Available through Sunrise Books, 7 Hillcrest Place, High Point, (336) 397-3755.

Dream Weaver •

Fall asleep in splendor with Anthropologie’s stunning, flower-powered Lillian Farag Floral bedding collection, all in machine-washable cotton (from $58 for Euro shams to $228 for king duvet).

Anthropologie, 3320 West Friendly Ave., Greensboro, (336) 834-2633.

Banish the Beige • The fabled Greenbrier resort in West Virginia is a favorite, easy escape, and we lap up the colorwashed, petal-pushing interiors crafted by legendary design icon Dorothy Draper like kids in a high-octane candy store. There’s nothing quite like waking up in one of the Big G’s fabulous floral-bedecked rooms to recharge the soul and remind oneself that the color beige really is absolutely boring. greenbrier.com.

Something Afoot • Step

In Full Bloom • The Madcap gents have been wearing Gucci Bloom ($124 for 3.3 ounces) for the past few months, and the white-hot scent has brought us serious accolades and knowing nods.

Channel the marvelous, garden-inspired maximalist magic of this heaven-sent scent, and bring the great outdoors within. Macy’s Hanes Mall, 3320 Silas Creek Parkway, Winston-Salem, (336) 768-6330.

16 SEASONS •

STYLE

& DESIGN

out in style with the garden-plucked SP-16 rug in Sage from Momeni ($500) and bring a taste of Eden into your aerie.

Available through Furnitureland South, 5635 Riverdale Drive, Jamestown, (336) 822-3000.

Spring 2018

Paper Trail •

Wallpaper is back and in a big, bold way.

And forget your preconceived granny notions: Millennials are snapping up wallpaper in droves.

So there! A Madcap go-to favorite is Thibaut’s Giselle wallpaper ($98 per single roll) in blue and coral from the brand’s Imperial Garden collection. Pure perfection. P.S. — Thibaut also offers a matching fabric. Available through Huffman Paint & Wallcoverings, 762 North Main St., High Point, (336) 882-8147.

STYLEBOOK Living History • Lavish a foyer table with the stunning Braganza Jewel Basin ($477) from the Port 68 Colonial Williamsburg collection. With its dewkissed blossoms, whimsical animals and gold accents, this porcelain bowl will add just the right exotic flair to any room in your home. Available through Furnitureland South, 5635 Riverdale Drive, Jamestown, (336) 822-3000.

Capital Idea • The Madcaps have just returned from a weekend away in Washington, D.C., at the brand-new, superchic The Line hotel (thelinehotel.com/dc). We explored heiressphilanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post’s incredible Hillwood Estate, Museum and Garden (hillwoodmuseum.org). Oh, the gardens and the Fabergé! Next up was brunch at superstar chef Daniel Boulud’s DBGB Kitchen and Bar (dbgb.com). (Do not miss the bistro’s colorful heirloom carrots salad paired with a white cosmopolitan cocktail.) We finished off with dinner at the festive Siren (sirenbyrw.com), the latest from chef Robert Wiedmaier, with its flower-festooned dishes such as Big Eye Tuna with lime, sesame seeds, seaweed, macadamia nuts, avocado mousse and starflowers. h Floral Fling • Highland House has become one of the breakout furniture manufacturer stars of recent High Point markets. Thank gorgeous shapes, intuitive scale and exceptional details for the muchdeserved hullaballoo. We are especially mad for Highland House’s Josaphine chair with its customdesigned embroidery from India ($6,240). Now that’s a seat with sizzle. Available through Trouvaille Home, 938 Burke St., Winston-Salem, (336) 245-8965. h Spring 2018

SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 17

Come spend a day

with us

in Greensboro.

Centrally located, Greensboro is the perfect place to relax and be immersed in entertainment. Choose from more than 500 restaurants and shop till your heart’s content. Explore our 90 miles of trails, walk the Downtown Greenway, take in a baseball game with the Greensboro Grasshoppers, plan a trip to the Greensboro Science Center or our downtown parks. Visit the Greensboro History Museum and learn about our rich history.

We can’t wait to share Greensboro with you!

W W W. G R E E N S B O R O - N C . G O V

STYLEBOOK

THE BEST OF SPRING

Home Runs

It’s spring, the season to find out what’s old, what’s new — and new again — at three events celebrating all things related to home PRICE-LESS

ILLUSTRATION BY JULIET FURST, PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF PAUL J. CIENER BOTANICAL GARDEN, PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF P. ALLEN SMITH GARDEN HOME

A

s in, Julian Price, Greensboro insurance magnate and philanthropist whose 1928 Tudor Revival estate, Hillside, has been the talk of the Triad. Set in the Gate City’s Fisher Park neighborhood (301 Fisher Park Circle), Hillside was the brainchild of architect Charles C. Hartmann (see page 76) and hub of activity in its heyday. Gradually falling into disrepair, as chronicled in A&E’s much ballyhooed television series, Hoarders, Hillside was rescued by Michael and Erik Fuko-Rizzo with the intention of bringing it back to its former glory. Well, glory be! The sprawling 7,266-square-foot, brick and half-timbered wonder is resplendent once more. Dressed up as a designer showhouse for Preservation Greensboro’s spring home tour, many of its 31 rooms have been reimagined by designers far and near: Audrey Margarite of Bunny Williams Home, Kim Hoegger of Kim Hoegger Home, local stalwarts Laura Redd, High Point Antiques and Design Center, Jessica Dauray and more. Tour Hillside at a coming-out lawn party and gala on April 5 or anytime between April 7 and 29. For tickets and information, visit julianpricehouse.com.

SPRING INTO CIENER

I

n our humble green estimation, every season is a reason to drop by the Paul J. Ciener Botanical Garden in Kernersville to see what’s new and growing like crazy. If you’re serious about spring blooms, mark Saturday, April 14, on your calendar.

First up, from 8 a.m. till 1 p.m., is the botanical garden’s popular plant sale, featuring great plants for sun and shade, selected trees, shrubs and herbaceous perennials. Look for a full list of plant offerings posted on the garden website: cienerbotanicalgarden.org (Better yet — hint, hint — become a member and Spring 2018

enjoy the benefit of PJCBG’s pre-sale on April 12, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.) Proceeds from the sale benefit the future development of the garden.

Stick around from 2 to 4 p.m. and you can catch Ciener’s annual Spectacular Spring Tulip Bloom, a visually ravishing affair involving more than 2,400 tulips in glorious bloom, a true celebration of spring that’s free and open to the public with refreshments, no less.

For more details check out the garden’s website or call (336) 996-7888.

SOUTHERN COMFORT

W

ith so many new design options available these days, what, exactly defines Southern style? Find out on May 5 at the annual design seminar, “A Place to Call Home,” hosted by Winston-Salem’s Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts (MESDA). The program kicks off at 10 a.m. at Old Salem’s James A. Gray Auditorium (900 Old Salem Road), with moderator Tom Savage, director of Museum Affairs at Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library and author of Charleston Interiors. Among the discussion topics: organic gardening, raising animals and the local food movement, courtesy of P. Allen Smith, author, television host and owner of Moss Mountain Farm, his Arkansas estate-turned-laboratory for natural and sustainable living.

Architects Gil Schafer and James Carter will discuss the melding of past and present in historic and new homes, while scholar Katherine Hughes will present her research on the historic house, Piedmont, in Jefferson County, West Virginia.

The event includes a box lunch and cocktail reception. To register call (336) 721-7369 or visit mesda.org. h SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 19

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Providing state-of-the-art care is important to the radiologists at Greensboro Imaging.

We understand that you are concerned about your imaging results. Specialists right here in the Triad read your images so that you can receive prompt information. But it’s not enough to be convenient and responsive. We also provide nationally recognized expertise to every patient—whether they require an MRI, an ultrasound, a lung cancer screening or a mammogram. greensboroimaging.com • 336.433.5000

STYLEBOOK

HIDDEN GEM

Awesome Aubrey Home

From home accents to renovations, the Greensboro design showroom meets all needs

By Robin Sutton Ander Photographs by Amy Freeman

A

quiet, predictable calm settled over Sharon Nussbaum’s life when her youngest left for college. In other words, “I was bored,” Sharon says. “I loved being at home with my kids, and I loved volunteer work. But once they left, it just wasn’t enough. I was moping around and my husband, Jim, told me, ‘You need to get a job,’” she laughs.

Jim had an idea. About that time, he’d sold Southern Foods, a family-owned business with warehouse space on Greensboro’s Old Battleground Road. The warehouse’s front offices were sitting empty. “What if you took that office space and did something with it?” he asked Sharon.

They both had a hunch where all this would lead. As an undergrad, Sharon majored in interior design at Meredith College. Before she and Jim started a family, she’d worked as an interior decorator designing commercial spaces. And after she had kids, she worked now and again for an architect and as an antiques buyer.

Seven years later, an Aubrey Home sign hangs over the entrance of that same industrial warehouse on the edge of Guilford Courthouse National Military Park. Two spiral-pruned ficus trees in ornamental pots flank the doorway. A festive wreath and a bench stocked with plush outdoor throw pillows let passersby know this warehouse has been transformed.

Just inside, a 6,000-square-foot showroom offers Sharon’s

Spring 2018

clientele a mix of furniture, accessories, artwork and gifts. Styles range from vintage to modern, and price points vary to suit most any budget. A resource room — complete with catalogs and fabric samples and a whole wall pinned with patterns, paint colors and textures — lets shoppers order anything they don’t see in the store.

“Some of our customers tell us they’re just coming in for inspiration,” Sharon says. “Others are refreshing a room and need a lamp and some pillows or a rug.” One customer recently came in with an entire set of floor plans, she adds. “We can help with all of that.”

If all you need is a new throw pillow or lamp, the thought of a 6,000-square-foot warehouse may be a bit intimidating.

But that’s not the feeling one gets meandering through Aubrey Home.

When Sharon took over the old warehouse and started to think about how to design her new space, she decided to keep the building’s labyrinth of hallways and offices. Today, the effect is one of a creative journey through a series of small, inspirational rooms.

It’s a technique Sharon learned and perfected as an antique buyer in the early ’90s. “My mom and I would go to Europe, buy antiques, import them and have a big sale six weeks later,” she says. At the time, Sharon didn’t have a retail space, so she and her mother, Nell Williams Schopp, got creative.

SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 21

STYLEBOOK “Mom was a real estate agent, and we would find a beautiful old house that was on the market, approach the owner and ask if we could stage it to host an antiques show.” Winners all around, they figured.

“We’d get people in to see the house, and it would give us a place to show off the antiques,” she says. “When you put furniture in a room setting, people don’t have to use their imagination. They can visualize it in their own house.”

The same goes for Aubrey Home, she adds. “I think that’s why we get a lot of people in here who say they’re just shopping for inspiration — and people who look around and say, ‘I’ll take the whole room!’”

Sharon rents space in her store to 12 designers — each with their own unique style and collection — so each of the rooms showcases a distinctive vibe. One designer likes antiques; another tends toward the exterior with garden items. One designer has a room filled with custom-made throw pillows; another sells baby décor.

Since Sharon opened shop in 2011, the furniture and décor at Aubrey Home has evolved to meet its customers’ needs. “I’ve always loved antiques. When we first opened we had a lot of antiques, but the store has really changed,” Sharon says. “We still have some traditional buyers, but a lot of the young shoppers who come in prefer a more Modern or Mid-Century look. I think we have a nice mix.”

And whereas a large percentage of her inventory used to be consignment, now most of her offerings are new pieces. Buyers find a wide selection of upholstered furniture brands with classic, clean lines — think Lee Industries, CR Laine and Gabby. “This year, I’ve also gotten heavily into gifts and women’s fashion. We carry pocketbooks and tote bags; scarves, ponchos and sweaters; and a couple of different jewelry lines, including the popular Julie Vos,” she says. “It’s not unusual for people to come in looking for a gift or jewelry for themselves.”

22 SEASONS •

STYLE

& DESIGN

When asked if she has a piece of tried-and-true design advice, Sharon answers almost immediately: “If you find something you love, buy it and incorporate it into your home . . .” but then she stops herself and thinks a minute.

“The thing is, it’s easy for me to say that because I have the training to know whether or not a new accent piece — or even large piece of furniture — will work with what I already have,” she says. “But if you don’t have that experience, you may not feel confident layering furnishings or fabric.”

At Aubrey Home, Sharon or one of the other designers on staff can help.

They are trained to work with a customer’s own style. “I think every person’s home should reflect their personality or the colors that make them happy,” Sharon says. “If you love antiques, who cares if they’re all the rage. I like an eclec-

Spring 2018

2101 E MLK Jr Dr • High Point, NC 27260 336.889.7800 www.thestoneresource.com

THE 18 & 20 2017 SON SEA

Shaun Hopper and Joe Smothers Friday, March 23, 2018 - 8:00 PM

Guitarists Shaun Hopper and Joe Smothers merge musical genres, from alternative to folk, classical to country, Celtic to blues.

Sponsored by Gateway Financial.

On Golden Pond

Thursday, April 5, 2018 - 7:30 PM

The Montana Repertory Company presents the story of an aging couple and unexpected young visitor, where family dynamics work to bring healing and hope.

Black Violin

Dawn Wells: What Would Mary Ann Do?

Combining hip-hop, R&B and pop, classically trained violist Will B and violinist Kev Marcus, with drummer Nat Stokes and DJ SPS, redefine the music world.

Part memoir. Part nostalgic journey. Actress Dawn Wells presents The Confessions Tour, based on her 50th Anniversary Tribute book to Gilligan’s Island.

Tuesday, April 24, 2018 - 7:30 PM

Acts and dates subject to change. For the latest news, go to HighPointTheatre.com

Saturday, April 28, 2018 - 8:00 PM

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Spring 2018

SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 23

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STYLEBOOK tic look. Everything doesn’t have to look brand-new.”

Sharon and her team welcome partnerships with other interior designers, who can benefit from her connections with certain furniture and fabric lines. “The way the furniture industry works, you have to buy a minimum amount of inventory,” she explains. “So smaller-scale interior designers may not be able to meet those minimums.” Working through the resource room at Aubrey Home, these designers can easily satisfy their customers.

For Sharon, that’s the whole point. “I love the creative outlet where I can meet new people and help them solve challenges they face in their home. It’s so fulfilling to see somebody get excited about the space where they live.”

Q: What’s this season’s hot new color?

A: At furniture market, we saw a lot of orchid. Pastels — especially pastel pink — are also popular. Ultra Violet is the 2018 Pantone color of the year.

Q: Any color combos?

A: Blue and white continues to be really strong.

Q: What about animal prints? I’m seeing a lot of them. Are they still in style?

A: Yes. We’re seeing lots of them in accessories, like pillows.

People used to say, every room needs a touch of black. Now I think it’s, every room needs a touch of animal print.

Q: Do you have a top-selling fabric?

A: We’re seeing a huge swing toward performance fabrics, like Sunbrella. We also sell a lot of Crypton-treated fabrics that are easily cleanable. It used to be that people with kids would get a dark, durable fabric that would wear like iron. Now you can get a cream-colored sofa in a fabric you can easily clean, and it’s no big deal when kids spill something on it or pets climb all over it.

Q: What’s your personal design style?

A: Start with a neutral base and layer with pops of color.

Personally, I don’t want to look at the same thing all the time. If I use a neutral color for my upholstery and rugs and walls, I can easily get a new look without spending a lot of money. Maybe in the winter I’ll use rich, emerald green pillows and accessories, and in the spring, I can switch it up with a brighter color. — R.A h

Ultra Violet and Animal Prints: This Season’s Design Trends Just down the road from High Point’s market showrooms and a day trip away from Atlanta, Sharon Nussbaum at Aubrey Home has her finger on the pulse of interior furnishings and design. We asked her for some insight into this year’s biggest trends.

Robin Sutton Anders is a freelance writer and illustrator based in Greensboro, and co-author of the recently published book Becoming Durham: Grit, Belief, and a City Transformed.

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STYLEBOOK GARDENER’S NOTEBOOK

Dim Bulbs

Gardeners just aren’t diggin’ bulbs anymore — a trend that’s poised to change

By Ross Howell Jr.

M

y mother, Rachel, would be disappointed to learn that flower bulbs — essential elements of her garden — have fallen into a slump. She’d be even more disappointed to learn her son’s lassitude has contributed to their demise.

My mother was the best gardener I ever met. While I work at being the gardener I’m sure she hoped I’d become, I haven’t been that successful, certainly not by her example.

As a boy, I found tumblebugs, duck chicks and lambs to be far more interesting than daffodils or dahlias. Still, I took note of my mother’s flowers.

Her dahlias were as big as my head, drooping from sturdy, staked stalks. Her gladiola arrangements graced the summer altar of our church, Sunday after Sunday. And her paperwhites lifted their delicate faces every spring, often from a bed covered with snow.

A recent winter morning, I phoned my neighbor in Greensboro, Jane Gallimore.

“Didn’t I give you some daffodil bulbs?” I asked. “Mine are already up five inches.”

Jane politely indicated I hadn’t. I solved the mystery later that day.

I found the bulbs in a neatly folded paper bag. It rested atop a corrugated box of dahlia tubers I’d forgotten to put out a year ago.

My shriveled dahlias and bagged but ungiven daffodils are a sad metaphor for the state of flower bulbs today.

“In a culture obsessed with instant gratification, people have a hard time getting excited about bulbs,” notes Anne Marie Chaker in a 2012 Wall Street Journal article.

“A new generation of gardeners, including urban homesteaders and sustainable living enthusiasts, are into artisanal food and heirloom vegetables, but not really flowers and other ornamental plants,” Chaker says.

She offers some sad facts. In the years following the Great Recession, households with vegetable gardens have increased by some 20 percent, while flower gardening has declined by more than 10 percent. Many flower growers and retailers have left the business altogether.

According to a 2009 poll by the research firm Knowledge Networks, the average annual spending for flower bulbs among gardeners 25 to 30 years old was 36 percent below the average Spring 2018

annual spending by gardeners aged 45 to 63.

Much as I’d like to blame flower bulbs’ woes on millennials, that wouldn’t be fair. After all, there’s a lot to admire in the idea of dedicating time in the garden to growing fresh, healthy food for young families.

The bulb industry acknowledges that most of its customers are women between the ages of 45 and 63.

Given time and gravity — my joints aren’t as fluid as they once were, God knows — the primary bulb market will simply age out.

But bulbs are looking to make a comeback.

Some retailers have expanded their offerings, with tulips and daffodils in far more exotic shapes and colors than the traditional red and yellow.

Some offer big collections of bulbs in sophisticated color palettes. Others offer smaller, boutiquey packages wrapped in attractive burlap as gifts.

And in 2012 the Dig Drop Done Foundation, comprising bulb growers, exporters and distributors based in the Netherlands, kicked off a three-year, $5.7 million marketing campaign to introduce new consumer groups to flowering bulbs, according to Chaker.

Emphasizing the simplicity of planting bulbs with a trademarked “Dig.Drop.Done” campaign, the foundation still targets the female market, but with special emphasis on young urbanites and busy mothers with little free time.

My mom never said much about my failings as a gardener, and my neighbor Jane — kind as she is — would also demur.

So I’ll just say it.

Hopefully the D.D.D. foundation’s bright young consumers will be better at remembering to give or plant their bulbs than I am. h Ross Howell Jr. hasn’t really made progress in improving his memory. He scrupulously records all meetings, events and tasks on his laptop calendar — and then forgets to consult it.

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STYLEBOOK

SEASON TO TASTE

Love on the Half Shell

The subtle saltwater complexity of oysters provokes an elemental hunger.

And there’s no wrong way to eat them

F

By Jane Lear or most folks, their first oyster is a rite of passage, often viewed, if the bivalve is raw on the half shell, with trepidation and/or bravado. Mine was not raw, but an angel on horseback — that is, shucked, wrapped in bacon and broiled until the bacon is crisp. My parents delighted in this inexpensive luxury, and thought to offer me one at around age 8. Never mind that I was adept at filching them from an unattended tray in the kitchen — that suave, salty, officially sanctioned bite made me feel all grown up. I was part of the In Crowd.

We lived in Wilmington at the time, and I soon progressed to the offerings at local “oyster roasts” — the bare-bones seafood restaurants that once flourished out in the country around Masonboro Sound. Our family favorite was Uncle Henry’s, established on Whiskey Creek in 1924 by one Henry M. Kirkum (1872-1954). It remained in the Kirkum family until 1990, when the property was sold and became part of a subdivision. I wonder what they did with the restaurant’s huge midden of oyster shells that had accumulated over the generations.

I remember my mother liked to save the shells that caught her eye. They made practical saltcellars by the stove and on the table, and there were typically a couple on the kitchen windowsill, used to soak seeds before planting or pocket camellia blooms.

My parents started going to Uncle Henry’s when it had a Spring 2018

dirt floor and kerosene lamps; after Hurricane Hazel demolished the original structure, it was rebuilt, although aside from the installation of electric lighting and restrooms, there were few concessions to modernity. Everybody liked it that way.

Among the menu’s listings were clam chowder, clam fritters, seafood dinners, chicken and steak. But no one we knew ever ordered anything except “roast oysters.” By the time I became a regular, Henry’s son Elwood was at the helm in the shed out back. He would shovel bushels of oysters in the shell onto a piece of sheet metal heated from underneath, then douse the mound with water and cover it with wet burlap so the oysters would steam in their own briny juices, or liquor.

My dad would whistle in admiration. “That is hard, hard work,” he would say. “And he makes it look easy.”

One of my father’s favorite methods of cooking the bivalves was something he called “sweetheart oysters,” because it’s best when made for two people. In a small saucepan, he would melt an enjoyable chunk of butter over moderate heat, then tip in a pint of drained shucked oysters. To prevent them from overcooking, he’d stir them around in the pot with his finger, a trick he’d learned from his mother and grandmother.

It only took a few minutes before the oysters’ edges would begin to curl and stirring became too hot for comfort. He would immediately yank the pot off the stove and spoon the

In a small saucepan, he would melt an enjoyable chunk of butter over moderate heat, then tip in a pint of drained shucked oysters

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barryshardeman@gmail.com www.TomChitty.com Spring 2018

STYLEBOOK oysters and their sauce — nothing more than pan juices and butter — into warmed soup plates. This simple treatment has become a staple supper at our house, where my husband and I enjoy it with plenty of hot buttered toast and a watercress salad.

What gives oysters their allure is that their flavors — briny, sweet, creamy, buttery, nutty, metallic; sometimes, there’s even a hint of cucumber or melon — come from the waters in which they grow and the microalgae on which they feed. And although each oyster variety is named for the place it’s harvested, they all come from just five oyster species cultivated in North America. The one indigenous to the East and Gulf coasts is Crassostrea virginica, and among the best known North Carolina virginicas are those from Stump Sound, which stretches from Sneads Ferry to Topsail Island. It is one of the saltiest estuaries on the Eastern Seaboard.

“Here in North Carolina, we have so much variation in water salinity and plankton that the oysters taste really different from place to place,” says Chuck Weirich, a North Carolina Sea Grant marine aquaculture specialist.

Among other North Carolina oysters you’ll find at local raw bars, restaurants and seafood markets are the Bodie Island and Crab Slough (both from the Outer Banks), Cedar Island Selects and the green-gilled Atlantic Emerald, harvested from the North River in the winter, when the diatom that gives the oysters their tinge of celadon are most active.

Unlike many other forms of aquaculture, which can create an ecological problem with excess feed and waste, the cultivation of filter feeders like oysters is environmentally restorative. Virginia leads the way on the East Coast, and its success has inspired other Southern states, including North Carolina, to invest in the industry.

Thanks to advances in refrigerated shipping and scrupulous handling protocols, oysters are no longer an indulgence exclusive to coastal residents. And as for the old adage about eating oysters only in the r months (September through April), it’s tied into the creature’s reproductive cycle. Oysters begin to accumulate glycogen, a sweet-tasting carbohydrate compound, in the fall, when the water temperature drops. The colder the water, the more glycogen is stored, and the sweeter and fatter the oysters.

Starting in April, when the water begins to warm up, the bivalves gradually convert glycogen to reproductive material, so they become less sweet. In early summer, when the oysters are spawning, they produce a milky substance that looks unappealing — in the words of the late, great oyster expert Jon Rowley, they deserve their privacy — and by the end of summer they turn slack and skimpy, losing much of their flavor in the process.

That’s why many growers are turning to what are known as triploids. “The French call them ‘spawnless oysters,’” says Weirich. “That -oid ending kinda freaks people out.” There’s no genetic modification involved, he explained, but these oysters remain plump and juicy throughout the hot months because they’re bred to be sterile. “Like seedless watermelons,” Weirich notes.

I like seedless watermelons just fine, and I like triploid oysters, too. Still, I tend to consider oysters, like tomatoes, a seasonal delicacy. I don’t eat fresh tomatoes in the winter, and I generally lose my taste for oysters in the summer.

But it’s only March, and we still have time.

***

An oyster roast is one of the world’s great outdoor culinary celebrations.

Make sure there are several sturdy surfaces available so guests can open their own oysters; throughout the coastal South, you’ll find large cable spool “tables” upcycled for this very purpose. You’ll want to have plenty of oyster knives (available at seafood markets) and work gloves (to protect the hand holding the oyster) at the ready as well. Don’t forget the beer.

When it comes to embellishments, purists swear by nothing more than a spritz of fresh lemon juice and some saltines as a chaser. And there are those Spring 2018

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32 SEASONS •

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STYLEBOOK who prefer a ketchup-based cocktail sauce doctored with a local favorite, Texas Pete, made right here in the Triad, in Winton-Salem. I like both treatments, but typically add one more — mignonette sauce. The French, after all, love oysters as much as we do.

pizza pan is best for a kettle-style Weber grill.) Cover with wet burlap or canvas tarp and cook until the shells are very hot and begin to pop open.

Serve at once with sauces and saltines.

Mignonette Sauce

Makes 1 cup Coarsely grind 3 tablespoons of black peppercorns. In a glass or stainless steel bowl, combine the pepper with 3 tablespoons minced shallots and 2/3 cup white wine vinegar or a mix of white wine and sherry vinegars. Let stand about 20 minutes before serving. Mignonette can be made a day ahead and refrigerated.

Shucking Notes

Roast Oysters

Hold the oyster in a gloved hand with the cupped shell half on the bottom and the tapered hinged end facing you. Ease the tip of an oyster knife into the hinge and apply a little leverage to coax it open. Keeping the oyster level, so the liquor stays in the bottom half, lift off the top shell. Slide the knife under the oyster meat to sever the muscle that connects it to the shell, and eat immediately.

If the oyster is a big ’un, don’t be afraid to chew to extract every bit of flavor. h

A bushel holds about 100 oysters and typically feeds four to six people. It’s a good idea to scrub the oysters briefly under cold water before roasting. And don’t despair if you don’t have the wherewithal to build a cinderblock fire pit complete with sheet-metal cooktop. I get things working in our fire pit as well as on the grill and can easily feed a small crowd that way.

Spread a generous layer of hardwood charcoal in the bottom of a large fire pit and/or grill. Light the coals and let them burn down until they’re glowing red. The grill rack should rest five or six inches above the coals.

Spread as many oysters as you can in a single layer on baking sheets. (A

Check out the Greensboro Oyster Roast on April 27th. The fundraiser benefits Family Service of the Piedmont. Info: fspcares.org Jane Lear was the senior articles editor at Gourmet and features director at Martha Stewart Living. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Garden Design, The Magazine Antiques, The Oxford Companion to Sugar and Sweets, and the forthcoming Edna Lewis: At the Table with an American Original (to be published next month by UNC Press).

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Spring 2018

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STYLEBOOK

Spring Almanac

It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.

By Ash Alder

– Rainer Maria Rilke

Asparagus Season

R

obin sings a hundred songs of spring. Mirthful tunes of snowdrop and jessamine.

Climbing rose and daffodil.

Iris, crocus, thrift and pussywillow.

Today: songs of cherry blossoms, fiery azaleas and saucer magnolia. Tomorrow: ballads of blue-speckled eggs.

At dawn, he trots across the lawn, chest puffed like a dandy as he bops from worm to plump, delicious worm. Feline twitches in the sunny window.

In Frances Hodgson Burnett’s classic children’s novel, a cheerful robin helps 10-year-old Mary Lennox unearth a rusty key to a longabandoned garden.

The Secret Garden isn’t just a story of forgotten roses and the promise of spring. It’s about the healing properties of the Earth, and how, within and without, love can transmute the bleakest and most dismal places.

Listen to the robin: The key is in the soil beneath you.

The Awakening

Something primal awakens within you on the first day of spring.

You rake the lawn, reseed bare patches, feed the compost, prune the fruit trees, repair the wooden trellis and celebrate the new buds on the heirloom azalea.

Spring is synonymous with life, and each breath ignites you.

Soon, the banksia rose will be a waterfall of fragrant yellow blooms, and foxglove will swoon from the tender kiss of the nectar-drunk hummingbird once again.

When the soil is workable, you sow the first of the peas, spinach, lettuce and leeks, sealing each seed with a silent prayer.

Tuesday, March 20, officially marks the vernal equinox. Urban legend has it you can keep an egg balanced upright at the exact moment that the sun crosses the plane of the Earth’s equator. Perhaps. Although you might have a better chance of cutting a deal with the wisteria.

Let’s just suppose you save them to devil for the next garden party. Garnish with paprika, sea salt, chives — the whole nine.

Greek myth tells that spring is when Demeter, mother-goddess of harvest and fertility, celebrates the six-month return of her beautiful daughter, Persephone (goddess of the Underworld), by making the Earth lush and fruitful once again.

But what on Earth did she do with all those tender green shoots of asparagus?

Quiche. Soup. Risotto. Frittata. Asparagus custard tart . . .

In the spirit of Easter (Sunday, April 1), and with a gracious nod to the festival’s namesake, fertility goddess Ostara, how about a festive beverage to serve up with that asparagus-studded brunch?

Carrot Bloody Mary (Serves 4)

Ingredients 32 ounces carrot juice 8 ounces vodka 6 ounces pickle juice Juice from one-half lemon 5 dashes Worcestershire sauce 3 teaspoons crab seasoning (more for rimming) 3 teaspoons black pepper 2 teaspoons dill 2 teaspoons garlic powder 2 teaspoons ground ginger 2 teaspoons horseradish 2 teaspoons hot sauce (modify by your heat preference) Instructions Add all ingredients into a pitcher, then stir until combined.

Slide the flesh of a lemon around the rim of each pint glass, then place the rims onto a plate of crab seasoning to lace them.

Fill the pint glasses with ice, then pour the carrot juice mixture over top. *Garnish with pickled vegetables, celery or tomatoes.

Enjoy!

When the groundhog casts his shadow And the small birds sing And the pussywillows happen And the sun shines warm And when the peepers peep Then it is Spring.

– Margaret Wise Brown

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Spring 2018 I am going to try to pay attention to the spring.

I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees.

I am going to close my eyes and listen.

— Anne Lamott

Spring 2018

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Top of the World Modernism finds a home among the rolling hills of Lewisville

By Nancy Oakley • Photographs by Amy Freeman

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O

n a hot day last June, Buddy Glasscoe stood on the porch of his Lewisville home, greeting a stream of visitors, some from as far away as Raleigh and Charlotte, who filed through his brand-new dwelling perched atop a woodsy knoll.

As the mellow strains of wind chimes intoned from a passing breeze, he explained, “The kids who used to play here called it ‘Top of the World.’” And certainly, the occasion was a high point for the easygoing designer, builder, craftsman and owner of Timberwolf Designs, and for his wife and business partner, Susan Bradford, who designs kitchens and baths under her own handle, Susan Bradford Designs. Their home was one of the stops on a tour organized by the Triangle-based nonprofit and champion of the Modern aesthetic, North Carolina Modernist Houses.

Its founder, George Smart, had been a fan of Buddy’s, having taken note of another Timberwolf house on the tour, the nearby Kyle Shatterly house. “It’s exceptional. He’s bringing Modernism to Lewisville,” Smart observes. “You don’t see houses like this in rural areas, and you don’t see many contractors who are into this kind of design.”

“We like Modern, Post-Modern and Mid-Century,” says Buddy, praising the work of Winston-Salem architect Adam Sebastian and his colleagues at STITCH Design Shop, along with another Twin City architect, Quinn Pillsworth. “He introduced us to Modern,” Susan says of Pillsworth, recalling that from the time she arrived in Winston-Salem in the mid-1990s until the rise of STITCH in the last five years, the architectural style hadn’t yet gathered steam. By 2008, she and Buddy had hopes of increasing its footprint by collaborating with Pillsworth on a mixed-use project — until the Great Recession foiled their plans. But that was also about the same time that they constructed the Shatterly house, which caught the eye of George Smart.

At that time, the couple was happily ensconced in their Craftsman-style house not far from Graylyn and SECCA, on Vernon Avenue, “which we loved and said we’d never move from,”

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says Susan with her infectious laugh. They’d added 1,600 square feet to the original 1,000-square-foot structure, where they’d raised a blended family. There was only one drawback, says Buddy: “We didn’t have a level backyard,” a requisite for a pool. “Our neighbors had a pool, we love pools,” he adds. Given that the nest was emptying out, with their sons grown up and making their way in the world and raising their own families, the couple entertained the idea of moving and started looking for places in town with either a pool or a lot big enough to accommodate one. But there was none to be had.

S

usan, meanwhile, had been in the habit of taking their two dogs, Pappy, a Pudelpointer, and Ziggy, an aging Jack Russell, to a friend’s parcel of land tucked in a woodsy area of Lewisville. “It was cornfield,” she says of the undeveloped knoll, an ideal spot for the two dogs to run and play. And, as it turned out, an ideal spot where the couple could spend their golden years. They bought the land from their friend and started dreaming about the dwelling that they consider, like all the others they’ve built, “another work of art.” Or as Buddy says more precisely, “a sculpture.”

“We wanted clean lines. We wanted to simplify,” says Susan. “In our other house we lived in three rooms: the kitchen, the room off the kitchen and the bedroom. So we were like, ‘When we build a house, we don’t need anything more than this.’” They established that an open floor plan would work best. Light would determine its exact configuration and the placement of the house.

“We designed this house by, ‘OK, what do we want to wake up to? Where do we sit?’” Buddy explains. “So we would come out here with the dogs and sit, and figure out lighting.”

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“All hours of the day,” recalls Susan, “we’d come out and sit on this knoll.”

The couple considered where they’d like the sun’s rays to penetrate the house as it made its daily arc across the sky. Their reasons were aesthetic — the sky views and as Susan says, “to warm up your soul” — but also practical. “For heating and energy reasons,” she explains. “The goal when we built this house was to make it as low-maintenance, sustainable and energy efficient as possible for aging here. So that we wouldn’t have continuing rising costs of living on a monthly basis.”

Maintenance was another consideration. “If we’re blessed to live another 30, 40 years, what do we want to have to take care of? And what’s going to be solid?” Buddy posits.

He and Susan decided on a post-and-beam structure, positioning it at an angle atop the knoll so that most of it faces east. The adobe-like stucco exterior of the house wouldn’t require painting and repainting — and absorbs the morning sun. An unusual butterfly roof, a last-minute decision, lends a welcoming

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vibe. “It’s kind of going, ‘Hello!’” says Susan, her ready laugh pealing through the living/dining area whose south- and west-window walls offer those soughtafter sky views and let in an abundance of light.

“The sunsets are outrageous,” Buddy emphasizes, as a palette of rosy pinks and lavenders, with streaks of orange sherbet, sets over his shoulder while he relaxes in an armchair on a chilly day. A day on which the inside temperature has reached 77 degrees, thanks to the passive heat from the sun streaming through the windows, as well as a photovoltaic solar system that provides about 40 percent of the house’s energy. (A solar thermal system heats the water, with backup from electricity during the winter months.)

The warmth of the house is not only literal, but aestheti, as well, owing to its generous use of timber, a style that George Smart calls Mountain Modern. “We just like pretty wood,” says Susan, referring to her husband and business partner as “the wood guru.” The load-bearing beams of pine (which allow for the walls of windows) punctuate and brighten the white Spring 2018

ceiling, and complement the floors of white oak. “Most folks don’t want it in their house because it’s got a lot of knots,” Buddy says. But, Susan notes, “It’s got a lot of character.” And then adds, “We were searching for that!”

As wood goes, Buddy enjoys working with walnut when crafting pieces of furniture, such as the round, low-slung coffee table and an end table that maintains its natural, jagged contours. He’s instilled a love of woodworking in his son, Dustin, who fashioned the long dining room table — one of many sold under the aegis of his Burlington, Vermont–based business, Vermont Farm Table.

Echoing these pieces is the use of walnut in the kitchen, in the very center of the house, where Susan applied her design expertise. “I love to cook!” she enthuses. “And I love it when friends and family come over.” But, she adds, because the kitchen is so visually prominent, she wanted it to look inviting. And even though she and Buddy love the appearance and texture of wood, “We didn’t want it to feel kitschy or [look like] just a fad,” a pitfall, she Spring 2018

believes, for clients who inquire about the latest trends. Her advice to them? “‘I don’t want a trend.’ I want something that’s going to look good forever.”

Heeding her own advice, she chose not to place cabinets on the kitchen’s back wall, opting instead for rectangular, white glass bricks arranged in parallel rows, a technique known as straight lay. It adds coolness to the space, flanked by an adjacent wall mounted with glass-paneled cabinets and an integrated refrigerator in the same walnut hues. For the central island she selected a countertop in Marinace granite, whose rounded gray and black patterns resemble river rock. “The inspiration for the house was the natural elements,” Susan explains, “so we’ve got the wood, the glass (the watery look) . . . and the metal,” she says, pointing to the exhaust fan and light fixtures. Adding a humorous touch is the handle to the fridge door: a climbing bronze figure or “Manhandle,” made by a California artist.

It’s one of many whimsical and colorful pieces throughout the house that include a bright yellow sculpture of the sun mounted on the wall of the open SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 47

porch just beyond the sliding glass doors. “That’s from our favorite vacation spot, Ocracoke Island,” Susan says, and indeed, hanging just outside the master bedroom is a photo collage, a panoramic view of Ocracoke’s Silver Lake Harbor, another creation of son Dustin’s. “All of our art means something or comes from somewhere,” Buddy explains, as he follows the circular layout of the rest of the house, past a central hallway (with cleverly concealed cupboards for storage) that connects to the front hallway, before entering the master bedroom. Here, on the wall opposite the doorway hangs a large, vivid canvas of a red rose, a Valentine’s Day gift to Susan. The bed that he built from 100-odd-year-old beams salvaged from a barn is situated adjacent to the western wall. “I’m a morning person so I really wanted the bedroom on the eastern side to capture light,” Susan says, explaining that they had to change the room’s placement to avoid having windows that overlooked their neighbors’ house. It turned out to be another happy deviation, like the butterfly roof: “The morning light, the sunlight bouncing off the western horizon is even more beautiful,” Susan notes, her easy laugh returning.

“We thought we were compromising — it’s even better!”

She spun her design magic on the maser bath, keeping it simple, but distinc-

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tive: a garden tub, a walk-in shower, a double vanity with two glass bowls as sinks, to keep the watery-looking theme going. The modest-sized guest bath, across from the eastern-facing guest bedrooms, reveals more of her inventiveness: an entire wall, covered, floor-to-ceiling in a patchwork of tiles in rich blue, soft grays mixed with ones bearing Oriental scenes one might see on Chinese or Japanese screens or parchment paintings. “I just fell in love with the pattern,” Susan says, explaining that it serves a dual purpose of giving the small space some dimension.

“She laid it out on the floor, too,” Buddy adds, a footnote that elicits another laugh from Susan, who acknowledges the irony of arranging the tiles so they would appear to have been randomly placed.

The two guest bedrooms, like the guest bath, are modest. “Since it’s just the two of us, we took the square footage that people put in their bedrooms and put it in our living room,” Buddy explains. But the rooms are comfortable, owing to his efficient use of space. “In all the rooms we have these little niches,” Susan notes, pointing to a cubbyhole above the closet doors that allows for more storage.

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Along the hallways leading back to the living area are more works of art — a child’s painting of brilliant red-and-green flowers in a shower of blue raindrops (the artist was Susan’s son Ryan), another of a couple lounging on a wide beach, given to Buddy and Susan as an anniversary gift. Two impressionistic landscapes by the late, local and nationally renowned artist Frank Rowland adorn the hallway by the front door. “I took an oil painting class from him,” Susan says, admiring his paintings’ hues in muted greens, grays and purples. “He was just a neat person. It’s a shame he passed.” Her own work from the class hangs on the other side of the front door, a small canvas of a wide green field and a pond. She is modest about her achievement, calling it “a reminder of a fun class I took. And the potential’s there if I pick up a brush again.”

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ausing by the front door, Susan traces her finger along a scratch on its elongated stained glass panel. “Somebody fell into it a couple of weeks ago,” she says. Buddy picks up the thread: “Our friend who was quite the talented chef was here cooking for several of us, and it was dark. And he went to the car and he came back and we heard this ‘Blam!’ He had tripped on this step. We’ll get it fixed some day,” he says, looking at the scratch.

Or perhaps not. For the slight imperfection is now part of the house’s provenance, a reminder of life’s fleeting moments, and, in spite of the mishap that caused it, somehow fitting, given the circular design in the glass panel with a blue swirl splashed across it — the circle of life. It was a Spring 2018

creation of another friend, Brad Brown of Salem Stained Glass, who, as if by telepathy, produced the circle design quite literally at the moment Buddy and Susan conceived of it. “We’ve had relationships with all these artisans and craftsmen. [Buddy’s] been doing this almost 30 years, so [he’s] had relationships all along. I’ve had relationships with them 16 years, sometimes longer,”Susan says.

The same holds true for the paintings they commissioned their friend Mel Steel, of Reidsville: a Kandinsky-esque abstract on the south wall of the living room, and a realistic oil pastel of a street scene evoking Winston-Salem’s downtown summer music series when it first was held in the early 2000s on Fourth Street. “We’d go there and dance,” explains Buddy. “We love to dance,” Susan emphasizes, reminiscing about the “beautiful blend” of people who would flock to the concerts. In the foreground of the canvas depicting a band and an odd assortment of folks are Buddy and Susan, locked in a dance step; he is shown smiling; her head is thrown back in laughter.

The summer music series is more contained these days, with the explosion of growth downtown. But Buddy and Susan won’t lack for diversion: The saltwater pool that they have longed for is under construction just beyond the porch and the smiling Ocracoke sun overlooking the western horizon. The promise of lounging and swimming on long, hot days is just within reach.

For now, as the last of another “outrageous” sunset wanes, Buddy pours some wine, and he and Susan raise their glasses. “Cheers,” he says, “Or as we say here: Top of the World to you.” h Nancy Oakley is the senior editor of Seasons and its flagship, O.Henry magazine.

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Force of Nature Remembering High Point design icon Pat Plaxico

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met Patricia Lynn “Pat” Plaxico at the height of her professional fame in the late 1980s at a log cabin in Colfax, one owned by her friend Patricia Stafford. Overlooking a creek, it was restful, and Plaxico enjoyed going there. It was also quite different from the very romantic Victorian style that Plaxico favored at home.

Watching as she brushed her strawberry blonde curls back and talked animatedly, I was struck: If Julia Child were a designer, she would be just like Pat Plaxico.

That is, if Julia Child had been a tad more flamboyant in style and owned two RollsRoyces. Plaxico (pronounced PLAX-ico) was no shrinking violet, to the delight of acquaintances. She favored the color purple, expressive hats, Victoriana and luxury cars. She was a bon vivant, collecting people and experiences.

It was not an easy thing to stay with Plaxico’s lively mind, which darted between varied interests Her laughter bubbled up from her diaphragm and echoed off the log walls.

Plaxico talked history, gardens, architecture, art and design — and she used her Parsons School of Design experiences in Paris and New York to great effect.

Plaxico died in January of this year at age 78. Close friends — and they were legion — remained close throughout her life. The Forsyth County-born designer defied easy categorization. She counted captains of industry, historians and colleagues among her friends, who spoke to her dimensionality.

Friends also describe her energy and determination to preserve historic properties here and beyond the Triad. She once worked on a major historic streetscaping project for the town of Stratford, Kentucky.

The nexus and apex of Plaxico’s career — allowing her to champion her many interests — was designing the conversion of Market Square, formerly the Tomlinson furniture factory. Market Square became North Carolina’s first multipurpose restoration project, retrofitted for temporary showroom facilities and to house the historic String & Splinter Club. Another legacy achieve-

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ment in High Point was the restoration of Grayson House on Main Street, which houses the Bienenstock Furniture Library. It is also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Though so closely associated with High Point, Plaxico grew up in Winston-Salem and after graduating from Glenn High School went on to UNCG, before finishing undergraduate and graduate degrees in design at Iowa State University. A world citizen at heart, the curious designer would, at different points, study fashion design at New York’s Parsons School of Design, marketing at New York University, and French furnishings and architecture in Paris. Her career took flight in the 1970s, when, as a designer for Alderman Studios (now the Alderman Company), Plaxico was designing and styling furniture sets as well as creating room designs for Sherwin Paints. She worked there until 1981. She excelled at what became Alderman’s signature approach, staging furnishings in realistic and beautiful settings, as they would appear in rooms, and gaining an international reputation as a designer of note. Although design was her vocation, history, art, music, genealogy, travel and preservation were Plaxico’s avocations.

A video about her richly textured life was posted on Bienenstock’s Furniture Library’s Facebook page. The library owed much to her, according to Peter Freeman, architect (and contributor to Seasons), who was responsible for designing the library’s addition. Plaxico personally furnished the library’s carriage house and hired an artist to translate a floral O.Henry magazine cover she fancied onto the carriage house doorway. She served on the library’s board until her death — and maintained a lifelong relationship with its namesakes, benefactors and owners of Furniture World Magazine, Sandy and Bernice Bienenstock.

She had met them during the preservation-oriented redesign of a High Point building and showroom.

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PHOTOGRAPH BY AMY FREEMAN

By Cynthia Adams

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

As her friends point out, Plaxico was a strong, persuasive woman who commanded the respect of powerful business and civic leaders. High Point businessman Dave Phillips was a partner in Market Square. He is also the former North Carolina secretary of commerce and ambassador to Estonia. Phillips recalls first meeting Plaxico in the 1980s when his investor group, including George Lyles and Jake Froelich, hired her. She was to repurpose their High Point factory building, much like a San Francisco factory conversion Phillips had visited during a 1970s business trip.

He credits Plaxico with having vision and restoration-minded sensibilities, and getting his pet project, Market Square, to fruition and, subsequently, listed on the prestigious National Register of Historic Places.

“That,” Phillips says, “was inspired. Pat had the vision for the whole thing, for a factory conversion.” He discusses Plaxico from the 10th floor of Market Square Tower. The handsomely paneled office suite is her design.

Market Square and the adjacent Market Square Tower that followed was certainly Plaxico’s most ambitious and challenging effort.

As Phillips explains, it was Plaxico’s insistence to preserve the building’s industrial past. She wanted to retain the former Tomlinson furniture factory’s wooden flooring, soaring ceilings and industrial-style windows. At the time, some had difficulty embracing Plaxico’s vision, but her preservation-savvy ideas won out. All 500,000 square feet of both phases of a two-phase project were fully renovated within a few years and opened in 1985 — fully leased. That was a triumph, says Phillips, who insists that Plaxico’s end result handily proved all detractors wrong.

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His wife, Kay Phillips, adds, “We all were involved with Market Square. It was a family deal. We all had a blast. And Pat was an integral part of it.”

She stresses that Plaxico understood the benefits of preserving aspects of the original building — an idea that people then found strange and peculiar. “It had charm. She utilized what was there to make it warm and comfortable.”

She and Plaxico remained friends for 35 years.

“She was a thousand cuts above,” Kay Phillips reflects. “Losing Pat Plaxico was one of the most difficult blows. There is no one I would rather sit beside and listen to and hear lecture on history. She was most unusual.”

Along the way to design success, Plaxico, equal parts designer and ardent history buff, melded the two interests.

Also, noteworthy: Plaxico’s penchant for flamboyance.

First, there were her two Rolls-Royces — one, a buttery yellow, and the second, maroon. Plaxico tootled around the Triad in style, using a Chrysler van only for more plebian chores.

Former Alderman colleague and friend Bill Phillips (no relation to Dave or Kay) says the Rollses were a marketing tool.

“When you’re a great interior designer, you want to look like a great interior designer so they remember who you are,” he says. “The Rolls made a statement.”

Dave Phillips, chuckling, agrees. Plaxico even squired him around town on occasion. “Yes, I rode with her in the yellow Rolls.”

He grins widely at the suggestion that he and Market Square investors helped Plaxico buy the luxury auto. “I hope so,” he says warmly. “God, I hope so!”

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Colorful was her modus operandi; she naturally loved flowers, gardens and landscapes. The Bienenstock gardens and grounds, designed by Greensboro’s Sally Pagliai, now bear Plaxico’s name. As she aged, Plaxico’s interest in landscape architecture deepened. A climbing rose garden at High Point University was named in her honor following several design projects she completed at HPU. On that spring morning in 2016, Plaxico wheeled the yellow Rolls into a parking spot near the Bienenstock gardens. She understood entrances, and swept out of the Rolls, grandly tossing a pastel scarf over her shoulder.

Mentally I revised my initial Julia Child impression; perhaps she was a reallife Auntie Mame!

Plaxico had high purpose and big plans, announcing an event called “Celebrate the Old North State.” She launched herself into publicizing it after persuading 35 sponsors to bankroll the celebration.

The North Carolina Museum of History Association, with 10,000 members, were invited to a dizzying program planned to honor the centennial of the Alexander Martin Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

(Plaxico was a longtime member of the DAR chapter.)

She ran through a PowerPoint overview of scheduled parties, fashion shows, concerts, garden tours, street food and lectures. A Sotheby’s auctioneer was to participate. She persuaded Randell Jones, an authority on Daniel Boone, to speak. Drawing on her knowledge of French art and furniture, Plaxico herself presented on the Rothschild family’s collection encompassing both.

Plaxico’s enthusiasms didn’t end with the pending DAR event. She wanted to discuss the papers of Reginald Tillson, a notable landscape architect.

“Reginald was a breakout in landscape architecture,” Plaxico explained, seeking publicity for Tillson, who created private and public gardens in the Triad from the 1920s to the 1970s. She had persuaded N.C. State University to digitize Tilson’s drawings for inclusion in their Special Collections, after Plaxico herself had organized his work.

Landscape architecture was an extension of design, as Plaxico saw it.

After the meeting ended, Amy Freeman and I met at her nearby house on Brookside in downtown High Point. It was a modest Cape Cod (incongruous

PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

Plaxico was among the most valued and intelligent people he knew. “Pat was one of my favorite colleagues on a lot of different ventures,” he says.

Friend Bill Phillips similarly described Plaxico as “a well of creativity” and “talented.” It didn’t hurt that her name was alliterative. She enjoyed opera, lending her seemingly boundless energies as a volunteer to Piedmont Opera, so the melodious name was fitting. He recalls how she led guided tours to favorite places, and loved road trips and describes her as a Renaissance woman, one with a taste for luxury and design in all its forms.

They met when Bill Phillips was a college student working part time at Alderman Studios. “Everybody praises Pat. All her years of work, and she had a thousand ideas a day!”

Plaxico, he recalls, was in high demand by all the furniture manufacturers to design their photography sets. “We were friends since those days. I thought the world of her and everybody else did too. And she certainly was a great interior designer.”

Bill Phillips returned to High Point after retiring from state government and currently serves as president of the High Point Historical Society. “When I came back from Raleigh, one of the first people I saw was Pat,” he remembers.

“I called on her for ideas. She loved history, and we were on the Historical Society board together.

“I was with her the night she passed away,” he says, adding that Plaxico’s “great creative mind set her apart. She had a well there that was really deep.”

The well of creativity that Plaxico drew upon seemed to deepen, rather than diminish.

In spring two years ago, I met with her at the Bienenstock Furniture Library, along with Seasons and O.Henry photographer Amy Freeman, wife of Peter Freeman.

“She would always wear these fabulous hats to the Pink Ribbon luncheon,” recalls Amy Freeman, who photographed the High Point charity event annually and usually captured the effusive Plaxico.

“One was a pink straw hat, embellished with flowers,” she continues. “I felt Pat had great style. She always wore colorful clothes.”

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PHOTOGRAPH PROVIDED BY HIGH POINT UNIVERSITY

with the Rolls in the driveway) with a screened side porch. Inside, Plaxico’s home was a veritable museum of decorative arts and Victoriana (including a gypsy fortune teller’s screen). The compact home was filled with faux painting (on walls, ceilings and floors) by artist Alan Mackeraghan and a mix of antiques and collectibles.

Although she loved all things Victorian, she had recently updated Dave and Kay Phillips’s sleek penthouse on the top floor of the Market Square Tower. It is minimalistic with aspects of Art Deco.

Months after I first met Plaxico, as Dave Phillips leads a tour of the condo, he emphasizes its spare and contemporary design, a contrast to her affection for traditional.

As he points to the hipster décor, he stresses Plaxico’s versatile mind. He repeatedly credits Plaxico for making the massive Market Square project a viable and workable reality. In his view, it is also a surprisingly warm one despite the fact that the “combined footage is on par with the Empire State Building.”

He adds, “Pat brought it all together.”

What couldn’t Plaxico do?

“She didn’t cook a lick,” Kay Phillips answers, giggling. “She went out to eat for every meal. But she was interested in everyone and everybody. An innovator,” she adds.

Charles Simmons, whom some call the unofficial mayor of High Point, frequently met Plaxico at Penny Path Café for crepes and conversation. He also frequents the String & Splinter Club (another Plaxico design) on the ground floor of Market Square. Simmons believes “Pat put High Point on the map” given her extensive network of friends, business contacts and clients. “She had a heart of gold. If she loved it, she did it. She didn’t care about the money! Pat would talk slow, but her mind was so fast! It’s going to take about four people to replace her talent.”

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Designer Patricia Stafford was another longtime friend who knew Plaxico for 50 years. “I met Pat while at Thomasville Furniture Industries when I was responsible for the photography. Later I went to work at Alderman’s, and they paired me with Pat, who was a senior designer.” Stafford, who was younger, was assigned as a junior designer working with Plaxico.

“We were close. My husband and I got married in Pat’s house,” she says. “I kept a scrapbook on Pat with letters she would write on her travels. The scrapbook just goes up to maybe the 1980s. I enjoyed her witticisms. I have a letter from Paris in 1981, and she sent a picture from her room with a Mansard roof.

She called herself Miss P.” Miss P. resolved the problem of two fast friends with the same first name. “‘What would Miss P. do without Pat?’ she wrote to me in a letter I’ve kept in my scrapbook.”

Like others, Stafford remembers Plaxico’s self-deprecating humor.

“In many pictures, she looked a lot like Sister Parrish; I think they had a lot of similarities. But Pat herself thought she looked a little like Bess Truman. She likened herself to Harry Truman’s wife.” As Stafford explains, Plaxico thought Bess Truman exerted a lot of influence over the president, and was no figurehead.

Although their interests had diverged over time, they renewed their closeness when Plaxico grew ill last fall during furniture market. Stafford was with her friend to the end.

Apart from her enduring legacy as a designer, Charles Simmons affirms that Plaxico “would most want people to know how much she loved High Point.”

He pauses before adding, “But the most important thing was, Pat had very strong friends.” h Cynthia Adams wows her public with a silver Honda hybrid. She writes for O.Henry and Seasons.

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A Contemporary Mother Greensboro artist Carol Cole finds nurturing through art and home

By Maria Johnson Photographs by John Gessner

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earing a halo of gray curls, which radiates her considerable energy, Carol Cole throws open the doors of her heart and her home with equal freedom.

So you do the natural thing. You step inside the modern, geometric nest for a chat and a gander.

You gawk and swivel at the rectangular spaces, taking in planes of glass and concrete and white walls slathered with contemporary art.

Art, art, art, art, art.

Drawings. Paintings. Sculptures. Mixed media.

On walls. On pedestals. On tables. On shelves.

Works made by Cole. Works collected by Cole.

They draw you closer, tickle your cerebral cortex — seat of reasoning and judgment — and tug at your smile muscles.

There are a lot of nipples here.

Like, a lot.

But these breasts are not peep show material. They’re provocative in another way. They signify nurture, sometimes pleasurable, sometimes painful, often overlooked.

“People don’t value nurture,” says Cole. “We don’t value the people who take care of us.”

The collection also tells the personal story of Cole, who has spent a lifetime nurturing art, first as a creator and later as artist, collector and philanthropist.

In the past 30 years, she has nourished emerging talent and venues, becoming a mainstay on the contemporary art scene locally and nationally.

“There are very few artists in New York who are not aware of who she is,” says Paddy Johnson, an art critic and founding editor of the NYC-based blog Art F City. “I would call her a mother of contemporary art.”

The evidence hangs in Cole’s airy home.

“The whole thing is an installation,” says Cole, who is brisk at age 74.

Now, the public can see a sample of the art that she and her husband, Seymour Levin, live with daily.

An exhibit, Carol Cole: Cast a Clear Light, opened earlier this month at UNCG’s Weatherspoon Art Museum.

The Weatherspoon, a stronghold of contemporary art, occupies a front row seat in Cole’s heart. She is a past president of the board,

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and she retains a lifetime non-voting seat. She has bought and donated several works to the museum. She has hosted social events and put up Weatherspoon guests in her home.

The museum embraces Cole’s contributions, but the show isn’t flattery, says Emily Stamey, Weatherspoon’s curator of exhibits and co-curator of Cast a Clear Light.

“This is not a project we’re doing because Carol lives and works in Greensboro — or because we love her, although we do. This is an incredibly compelling collection of art. The first time I went to her house, I was completely blown away. It seemed to me that it needed to be in a museum exhibition so more people could see it.”

The show corrals 24 of Cole’s own works, arranged chronologically, and 62 works by other artists, including sculptors Lynda Benglis, Nancy Grossman, Willie Cole, Niki de Saint Phalle and Marisol Escobar; and painter Lee Lozano.

The exhibit also includes a piece called Midnite Show, a backside view of

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a nude jester on stage, by playwright/painter Tennessee Williams, a favorite author of Cole’s.

“I feel like I know his characters,” she says. “There’s reality in that Southern Gothic thing.”

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he grew up in a volatile place and time.

Cole was a student at the University of Mississippi in 1962 when James Meredith became the first black student to enroll. Most students didn’t mind, she says, but outsiders did. A French journalist was killed in the rioting.

Cole was 22.

Two years later, the bodies of three young civil rights workers — Michael Schwerner, James Chaney and Andrew Goodman — were found outside of Cole’s hometown of Philadelphia, Mississippi.

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happen in my hometown.”

By then, Cole had graduated (she wrapped up a Latin-math-English literature triple major in three years), married and moved to New Orleans, where her husband was in medical school.

Cole had thought about majoring in art in college but dropped the idea after struggling with Abstract Expressionism in Art 101.

“I couldn’t draw an orange like it tasted,” she says.

At age 27, as the mom of two young sons, she took another run at art, studying from time to time with accomplished artists around the country. She tinkered with photorealism and gradually loosened her style.

One of her early works, Zinnia, which appears in the Weatherspoon exhibit, shows her willingness to play with color and form.

Her work grew increasingly abstract as she grappled with a troubled personal life.

“I was desperate,” she says.

She launched a series called the Bubble Blower, breast-like domes with inverted nipples that symbolized her withdrawal, even as she tried to sustain others.

“I was the mother of everyone,” says Cole.

She initiated two more series — one abbreviated as F.E.A.R.S., the other called Anti-Nothingness Image — before taking her sons and leaving her 14-year marriage to the doctor in the late 1970s.

“I left with good reason,” she says.

Cole entered the work force. She relied on her math skills, programming IBM mainframe computers for a bank. While married, she had taken computer language classes, as well as art classes.

Harmonizing the logical left side of her brain with the emotional right side was critical to her survival, she says.

“I was in the left brain, the safe side, for most of my life . . . My art was all a part of embracing my right brain, which was emotions, fears, colors, letting people know me. It was art that made me realize my humanness,” she says.

“I really feel like it’s important for artists to be in touch with both sides of the brain.”

Cole’s studio life slowed to a trickle when she was a single mom, but she stayed connected to the art world by subscribing to trade magazines.

The chief curator at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson hired Cole after seeing her work and learning that she knew the gallery side of the business, too.

“He said I was the only person in Mississippi who knew the art world and could talk to the artists — and he didn’t have the money to do a national search,” she says.

Cole did her share of grunt work as an assistant curator.

“We drove the trucks, hung the shows, everything,” she says.

When she needed a better salary to raise her sons, she leaned on her left brain again and returned to computers as a freelance writer of software user manuals.

Later, she modified code for distributor of JD Edwards’ accounting software.

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Cole liked the work, but she craved a better art scene and a better school for her younger son, who was still at home.

Enter North Carolina.

Cole knew about the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem.

She tripped over Greensboro on a scouting trip to the area in 1984.

The city worked. Her son found a public school he liked, and Cole found a job selling and installing the same software she’d been working with.

A couple of years later, at age 43, she started her own business, Computer Results Co., which she operated out of an office on Banking Street.

She traveled internationally. Between trips, a friend introduced her to Seymour Levin, who ran a scrap metal recycling business in the town of Elon. They married in 1988. Cole sold her business the following year and plunged back into art. She rented studio space and became a strong supporter of the Weatherspoon.

Thirty years later, she dedicates her show to Levin, who encourages her love of art.

“I married a ‘breast,’” she says, bestowing the compliment she gives to people who nurture others.

“That’s the best kind of guy.”

The show illustrates how Cole, the artist, jumpstarted the three series she’d begun years before.

She picked up F.E.A.R.S again.

Thorns, a breast shape covered with rose-like barbs, appears in the exhibit. It represents the fear of being tough. Another sculpture, Vessel, stands for the fear of water, which Cole conquered by learning how to swim.

She also revived the Anti-Nothingness Image, or ANI, works.

The Dissection of ANI is part of the exhibit. The androgynous sculpture is a phallic column that folds back on itself to look like breast on the outer edge and womb on the inner edge: three powers in one.

Cole refreshed another thread of work with the Resurrection of the Bubble Blower.

Unlike the earlier breasts, the Resurrection breasts — some made within the last five years — are lavish domes, many with nipples out, a sign that Cole was ready to give again.

“I think Carol would describe her work as visual psychoanalysis,” says Johnson, the New York art critic and co-curator of the Weatherspoon show.

Johnson first saw Cole’s collection in 2013, when she stayed with her while covering a show at the Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill.

Cole is on the Ackland board.

Johnson recognized the significance of Cole’s work.

“She is the classic still-to-be-discovered feminist artist who has made work that is deeply personal. It ties her psychological, emotional growth with her art-making practice,” Johnson says.

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Cole joins a wave of older female artists who have been brought to the fore in the last five years, thanks largely to the efforts of art-world women like Johnson and Stamey. Separately, the duo hatched the idea of an exhibit and ran it by Cole.

Cole got the two together, displaying her flair for making connections. A consummate networker, she uses her computer-like mind to store, sort and link the people she knows.

That’s a lot of people.

Cole attends art show openings, fundraisers and fairs around the country.

She is a regular on the New York gallery scene, sometimes hosting get-togethers at her apartment in midtown Manhattan.

When contemporary art muckety-mucks come to North Carolina, she often hosts them in her home, on the edge of Greensboro’s Irving Park.

The place has a creative pedigree. Fashion designer Robin Mack Davis, owner of Mack and Mack custom clothing business, grew up in the Mid-Century home that was built in 1958. Cole and Levin bought the home in 2000 and did a major overhaul, converting the daylight basement to the main living area.

With the help of Charlottesville architect W.G. Clark, they excised a chunk of floor between two levels to create visual breathing room and wall space for art.

“I want people to see how we live with art,” says Cole.

They also added a 1,000-square-foot studio for Cole, a lap pool and an apartment for guests.

Overnighters have included Jerry Saltz, three-time Pulitzer Prize nominee and senior art critic for New York magazine; Saltz’s wife, Roberta Smith, and an art critic for The New York Times; and Charles Bergman, chairman of the PollockKrasner Foundation, named for artist-spouses Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner.

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Connoisseurs or not, most visitors to the home are captivated by doublewhammy of art and architecture. Cole recalls an appliance deliveryman who’d never seen anything like it.

“He said, ‘Hey, can I bring my brother back?’” she remembers.

But the mammary menagerie can be overwhelming for some, as it was for one partygoer.

“He couldn’t handle it. He had to leave,” Cole says. “I know how controversial the breast is when it’s not sexual.”

In general, she says, readers of literature are the most likely to understand her collection.

The show’s subtitle, Cast a Clear Light, is based on something Tennessee Williams once said in an interview with Guilford-County native Edward R. Murrow: “Let us not deny all the dark things of the human heart, but let us try to cast a clear light on them in our work.”

That’s Cole’s goal.

“I’m trying to share what I’ve been through and what I’ve learned.” h Maria Johnson is a regular contributor to Seasons and O.Henry. She can be reached at ohenrymaria@gmail.com.

On March 20 at 4 p.m., Cole will be in the Weatherspoon gallery to talk about her life as an artist and collector. Discussion guides will be George Scheer, director of Elsewhere, a thrift-store-turned-creators’-space in downtown Greensboro, and Anna Wallace, a graduate student who worked on the Cole exhibit. The exhibit runs through June 17. See more information at www. weatherspoon.uncg.edu SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 63

Twin City Garden Party A preview of a tour of gardens presented by the Garden Club Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County

By Jim Dodson

A

ccording to one old saw, there’s always something new to see or learn even in an old garden — especially when spring is at hand.

Fresh hands and inspiring adaptations might well be a theme of “Cultivating Community,” 2018’s spectacularly diverse and ambitious build-your-own tour of 15 unique gardens scheduled for April 28 by the redoubtable Garden Club Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.

The daylong event and fundraiser features everything from the gardens of National Register homes in Buena Vista to an innovative farm-to-table garden beside an artisan pub in West Salem. The itinerary, aimed at illustrating the impressive breadth of Winston-Salem gardeners, also includes historic adaptations throughout West End, contemporary, traditional and classic restorations in Washington Park, even a sensational rooftop garden in the Old Salem area that scales the heights of beauty.

“We couldn’t be more excited about this year’s tour,” notes event chair Liza Smith, “because it refects the wonderful diversity of our city’s talented gardeners. We represent 22 garden clubs with 850 members who share a strong sense of mission to beautify the city and provide 20 active grants for education and preservation.”

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On a recently balmy day at the shank end of winter, with daffodils exploding and cherry trees erupting weeks before their traditional arrival, we enjoyed a sneak peek at three very different gardens debuting on this spring’s tour — plus one breathtaking rooftop garden with a view.

M First stop was the restored Washington Park garden of real-estate maven Michael Ryden and his partner Arthur Easter, surrounding a Charles R. Fogle-designed Craftsman house dating from 1917. When Ryden and Easter purchased the historic house in 2000, they inherited a classical overgrown garden they’ve spent almost two decades judiciously reshaping and pruning.

The impact of their sensitive editing beneath towering ancient white oaks showcases a front yard yew hedge that frames robust beds of perennials and stately foundation shrubs. The crowning glory is a cedar arbor designed by Ryden and Easter.

A clever stone driveway scored by Dwarf Mondo Grass plantings — the handiwork of Jeff Allen — leads to a former “drying yard” now transformed into a magnificent rose garden bordered by original boxwood hedges. With Spring 2018

a screen of cedars and trained holly trees, the landmark house has a splendid sense of privacy on its hilltop above the city.

A lower side garden hosts a small goldfish pond with a moss-wreathed water feature that dates to the property’s original owners.

“Arthur was the designer and I’m the pruner,” Michael Ryden was quick to give proper due, pointing out a pair of beautiful winter hazels already in bloom, and an artfully shaped pierius tree he assured us would be “covered in beautiful white flowers by the time the guests tour the garden.” We made a note to return.

M Just around the corner on South Main at Gloria Avenue, longtime Winston-Salem landscape designer John Newman artfully transformed an existing traditional landscape at the Thomas S. Kenan Institute for the Arts into a public open space. Its blend of stone pathways, Eastern statuary and benches with large foundation shrubs and specimen plantings conveys an unmistakable Asian feel.

A circular patio area at the rear of the property is one of several key focal points surrounding the house that invites staff and visitors to pause and reflect, a key intention of the designer. “The elements of stone and steel are meant to project an environmental simplicity,” Newman says, explaining that they draw the eye to the surrounding landscape of older magnolias, crepe myrtles, witch hazels, viburnams and Yoshino cherries, which he notes “provide an enhanced connection with nature.”

He points out that the current state of the garden at Kenan is simply part of a multiyear plan to expand use of the outdoor areas for events and gatherings. The gorgeous stonework and hillside plantings above South Main, he observes, will feature new bulbs and perennials that should make their debut at tour time, with a future phase devoted to a similar transformation along Gloria Avenue.

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M When Dan Falken and wife, Sidney purchased the magnificent stucco house on a graceful curve of Summit Street in West End, they inherited a house and garden with a venerable history.

Built in 1921 exclusively for Dr. Arthur Valk, R.J. Reynolds’ JohnsHopkins-trained personal physician, the house had only known three occupants until the Falkens moved in.

During their two decades in residence, with the help of designer Steve Hickman, the Falkens painstakingly restored the interior of the house while making only rudimentary changes to the existing landscape. That all changed several years ago when Greensboro-based landscape designer Chip Callaway brought creative eye and team to the task of transforming the oddly shaped property into something truly special.

“I’ve loved that house forever, but the triangular side yards and back were something of a tired and overgrown jungle,” notes Callaway. “After clearing much of that away, we set out to create gardens that were accessible to people walking past — this is a neighborhood where everyone walks in the evening — but would give the Falkens some much-needed privacy.”

On the upper east side of the house, a overgrown “mess” of Virginia creeper and English ivy was replaced by elegant boxwoods and hydrangeas, highlighted by a parterre under the canopy of an ancient crepe myrtle and filled with acanthus and pachysandra.

The house’s heavily shaded west side yard perhaps got the biggest facelift when a new retaining brick wall was added to replace a fence covered by honeysuckle. Callaway’s staffers created a classic “wedge garden” that recalls a Charleston side garden done largely in green foliage from viburnums, camellias, several varieties of hydrangea, poet’s laurel, cast-iron-pot plants, sweet box and low-maintenance Distylium shrubs.

Elements of an original boxwood garden survived the backyard makeover, where Callaway and company added a distinctive water feature for focal interest and a screen of carefully sculpted yaupon trees to provide the owners extra privacy. Roses and azaleas and selected spring bulbs bring splashes of color to the area through every season, while a discreet stone pathway bordered by snowdrops leads off down a tunnel of vegetation to a neighboring secret garden.

“We really couldn’t be more pleased with the garden and how easy it is to maintain,” says Dan Falken, the garden’s chief maintenance man, with a proprietary grin. “Our family loves it and so do folks walking by in the evening. I think the people who take the garden tour will pleased by what they see, too.”

M

Our last stop was another Chip Callaway creation — at the official residence of UNC School of the Arts Chancellor Lindsay Bierman.

Perched on the edge of Old Salem, it is highlighted by a rooftop garden with one heck of a view.

“What we had there to begin with was a large space that was so hot most of the time it was almost inhospitable and thus underused by Lindsay’s predecessor.

One thing Lindsay missed in Winston was his vegetable garden from back home in Alabama, so we created a triparte garden with one intimate sitting space shaded by smaller-scale stewartia trees, with side gardens for growing vegetables.”

Weight was of critical concern, which is why Callaway employed special fiberglass boxes filled with engineered soil that was far lighter than traditional raised beds for growing lettuce, rhubarb, kale and winter vegetables.

“The view of the city is now to die for,” quips the designer, “and certainly to entertain with. He is out there all the time.”

Bierman gives Callaway props. “Before Chip did his magic, the terrace was as uninviting as a parking lot in summer. The effective heat was so intense we even had to run the air conditioning in winter,” he recalls. “Chip transformed the space into something very practical and beautiful, a sensational garden that is perfect for entertaining and daily use. The plantings and trees reduce the heat significantly and I am able to enjoy a great kitchen garden,” he says. “The view is like a bonus, really amazing.” h The Garden Club Council of Winston-Salem and Forsyth County presents its tour of 15 gardens and fundraiser, “Cultivating Community,” from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 28. Proceeds from the self-guided tour benefit grants for community beautification, conservation and restoration projects. Tickets: gardenclubcouncil.org.

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Jim Dodson is the editor of Seasons and the author of several books including a gardener’s foray into South Africa, A Beautiful Madness.

Spring 2018

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LIFE&HOME

THE ARCHITECT’S SON

All I Really Need to Know Simple and profound lessons from the work of Louis Voorhees

By Peter Freeman Wash your hands before you eat.

Flush.

Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.

Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.

Take a nap every afternoon.

When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together . . .

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

— Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten

W

ith some luck, the straightforward and powerful lessons we learned from kindergarten remain with us. Of course, I loved the swing set, games, the cookies and punch, and even naptime. I remember that painting was important and that my teacher, Mrs. Voorhees, spent a long time showing me appropriate colors for a tree I was painting, and that the limbs of the tree were commanding and magnificent and should be depicted that way. But more important, I felt safe, I felt like I mattered, and I was in a place that promoted learning. I was encouraged to be curious.

What I didn’t know then was that a deliberate intent for me to find independence had been built into the space that surrounded me. I learned how to easily gather up my own art

Spring 2018

supplies, which would serve as the tools of my enrichment.

I also learned that I could navigate my way to the restroom or reach the sink to wash up — something that was also quite literally by design. I was surrounded by architectural cues so I could command the space around me. At the time I didn’t know it was all by design. I just knew that I could easily grasp the Play-Doh or clean up after splattering paint. I vaguely remember the teacher bending down to walk through the doorway to the classroom while my classmates and I easily raced down the stairs to be the first ones on the monkey bars on the playground outside. Much later it dawned on me that the place of my early wonder years had been carefully designed and specifically with smaller people in mind.

My kindergarten teacher’s husband, Louis Voorhees, was an SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 69

where shopping is a nursery rhyme

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LIFE&HOME important High Point architect with many commissions grander in scale than the small kindergarten cottage he designed behind his family Colonial Revival home in Emerywood. For instance, he had designed the 1938 Guilford County Courthouse, the High Point Friends Meeting House, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, the U.S. Post Office Building in High Point and the High Point Public Library, among others. But I daresay the impact of the kid-scaled space that was called the Town and Country Kindergarten had a profound effect on those of us who were lucky enough to attend it.

Not to take anything away from the gentle lessons and creative spirit of Elizabeth Voorhees and her colleague Martha Adkins. In fact, just the opposite, as I believe Louis Voorhees’ thoughtfully scaled space with child-height countertops, doorways and furniture enhanced the lessons of these giving and talented teachers. The Voorheeses’ vision of early childhood education put the child at the center of the learning environment, a place geared toward little hands, little feet and growing minds.

In addition to scale, Louis Voorhees brought a sense of whimsy and charm to the kindergarten classroom. The space was adorned with paintings of brightly colored landscapes and simple forms, all by the architect’s hand. The memorable painting of Winnie the Pooh once displayed in the kindergarten cottage now has a prominent place in the collection of High Point’s Theatre Arts Gallery, which showcased Voorhees’ talent in a recent exhibition of his work.

The same consideration for scale, whimsy and user-friendly details is evident in the Little Red Schoolhouse, moved to and preserved on the grounds of the High Point Museum in 2016. In 1930, the Ray Street Elementary School was crowded and needed to expand to accommodate a growing student body.

Rather than bite off an expensive addition to the school, the High Point school system commissioned Louis Voorhees to design and build a single classroom.

The structure was constructed with repurposed lumber from houses that were being demolished. Voorhees took particular interest in the project and designed the space similar to the self-contained single-room schoolhouses that were common in smaller communities across the U.S. at the time of his childhood. The building is a thoughtfully scaled and detailed structure with a bay reading window. Similar to the kindergarten of my youth, the size of the space, door openings, windows and trim are gauged to the user in a way that is comfortable and friendly. The detailing is familiar so as not to distract students from learning. Both of my parents attended Ray Street Elementary School and fondly recalled not only their excitement of being assigned to the Little Red Schoolhouse, but also their impressions of Elizabeth Voorhees, who taught first grade at that time. What a far cry from the anonymous, premanufactured mobile classroom units trailered to overcrowded campuses today.

My colleagues at Freeman-Kennett and peers in the industry have rekindled our interest in the one-room schoolhouse model through our educational commissions, as well as other opportunities that call for grouping small simple buildings around a central courtyard used as a gathering space for discovery.

We develop these concepts in partnership with fellow architect Tom Lowe of Charlotte, known for his expressive work for similar “learning cottages.” His use of traditional detail is familiar, comfortable, user-friendly — rather reminiscent of Voorhees’ projects.

Louis Voorhees’ work offers important lessons to consider and echo Robert Fulghum’s tenets. Above all else, these lessons are simple and yet profound: Remember who you are designing for; attend to the details; add a little whimsy, charm and a sense of familiarity; and, above all else, make sure occupants can reach the cabinets, turn on the faucet and flush. h Peter Freeman is a practicing architect in High Point and a 1966 graduate of the Town and Country Kindergarten.

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Spring 2018

LIFE&HOME

TITANS OF THE TRIAD

A Builder for the Ages The iconic buildings of architect Charles C. Hartmann

By Billy Ingram

I

n 1918, Charles Conrad Hartmann was a 29-year-old journeyman architect under the employ of William Lee Stoddart in New York, a firm that specialized in designing some of our nation’s finer hotels. He came to the Triad in 1910 to supervise progress on two projects he had designed, the O.Henry Hotel in Greensboro and the Sheraton in High Point.

By 1921, Hartmann had so impressed local business leaders, he was offered a $2.5 million contract to fashion a singularly grandiose headquarters for Jefferson Standard Life Insurance Company.

With one caveat: Hartmann would have to establish his practice in Greensboro. This he did, resulting in a plethora of architectural gems scattered across the Triad and Piedmont.

Examples of Hartmann’s genius resonate all around us, forever defining our center cities. For instance, in Greensboro, the Country Club Apartments, and Grimsley and Dudley high schools are local landmarks. Atlantic Bank & Trust Building, with its Art Deco design, graces downtown Burlington. His trademark ionic columns add grandeur to Historic Palmer Memorial Institute, site of the Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum, in Sedalia. And the Modernistic splendor that was Lexington Memorial Hospital was repurposed as apartments in 2012.

Throughout his career, Hartmann was an architect who shattered outdated traditions, erecting monuments of stone and steel that somehow manage to exist harmoniously with simpler storefronts blooming around them An itemized detailing of every home and superstructure he designed could fill volumes. His output was so prodigious we may never know exactly how many structures he had a hand in.

Let’s instead examine what Hartmann accomplished in just the first five years of his works during his 45-year-long career here in central North Carolina.

O.Henry Hotel — Greensboro — 1919

In 1919, most small town skylines were defined by church steeples peeking above the trees and little else. That year the O.Henry Hotel literally expanded the horizon in Greensboro, towering over its surroundings to become the city’s tallest building, eight stories of luxury accommodations.

Many locals marveled at the O.Henry’s stunning lobby, punctuated with rows of two-story-high marble, oak and plaster columns below a domed ceiling. Dark veined marble baseboards topped a floor carpeted with wall-to-wall, intricately laid tiles in two alternating designs. Upper tier balconies, Art-Deco, oversized curtained windows, glass-paned doors leading to an elegant dining room contributed to the hotel’s glamour. To guests checking in at the dark marble and oak desk, it must have looked like a Roman emperor’s palace.

As was the custom of the day, the O.Henry was conceived as a city under one roof with a grand ballroom hosting some

Spring 2018

of the most fashionable affairs of the last century, a full-service restaurant, coffee shop, newsstand, shoeshine station, hair salon, pharmacy and cigar shop. The lower lobby, which had an entrance from Bellemeade Avenue, featured a barbershop and florist. Decades later, it would house WBIG radio studios.

What made the O.Henry so impressive is what ultimately led to its demise. This marvel of 1920s technology, with cavernous spaces to heat and cool, had become a model of inefficiency just as new hotels and motels were springing up in and around the city in the early 1960s. Having to make do with antiquated infrastructure and plummeting occupancy rates, by the 1970s the O.Henry was reduced to little more than a flophouse.

In January 1976, a fifth-floor tenant who had been smoking in bed set off a fire that took his life and resulted in the hotel being shuttered by the fire department for building code violations. The O.Henry, once the pride of the Old North State, succumbed to the wrecking ball in 1979.

Jefferson Standard Life Building — Greensboro — 1922

For a short time the tallest structure between Atlanta and Washington, D.C., the Jefferson Standard Life Building was an opportunity for Charles C. Hartmann to indulge himself and forge a reputation or fall flat on his face. Blending together the disparate architectural influences he was drawn to — Gothic, Art Deco, Baroque, Romanesque, Neoclassical — he confidently sculpted an unlikely masterpiece.

Its 17 stories have been labeled “a veritable catalog of classical ornament,” swathed, as they are, in terra-cotta and granite motifs of every ilk. Above the main entrance, an august bust of Thomas Jefferson gazes out over Elm Street.

Below him, richly detailed, swirling water-leaf moldings surround the exterior doorways. The ground floor features huge windows. Above them are relief carvings of a Native American male in silhouette, similar to the one seen on the Buffalo nickel, buttressed on either side by the scales of justice.

The building’s U-shape provided for better air and light distribution on the upper floors. Street-level storefronts included

SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 73

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LIFE&HOME Remington Arms, Lady Fair Beauty Salon, a print shop, law offices, insurance agencies and the studio of architect Charles C. Hartmann.

Twenty-four boxcars of Mount Airy marble went into the interior hallways.

Above a bank of elevators, embedded in floor-to-ceiling, cream-colored marble, are three blanched stone tablet sculptures depicting the Founding Fathers, plus a 1919 street scene and the seal of the state of North Carolina encircled by daisies. Adjacent to the elevators, a solid marble staircase spirals from the ground floor to the mezzanine.

A 20-floor addition was constructed on the west side of the Jefferson Standard building in 1990 after the company was acquired by Lincoln Financial. In an unusual move for that period, Lincoln’s architects purposely referenced Hartmann’s distinctive style.

Lincoln Financial’s high-rise annex is arguably more spectacular than the original structure, currently undergoing a five-year, inside-and-out, floor-by-floor renovation. The extensive upfit involves gutting the interior to the steel framework, then adding new doors and windows, chosen to fit the period.

Sheraton Hotel — High Point — 1921

“A Good Hotel in a Good Town,” the Sheraton opened at 314 North Main Street in 1921. It was designed to accommodate an influx of retailers from all over the nation, coming to the Furniture Capital of the World to do business at the nearby Southern Furniture Exhibition Building.

The hotel’s hefty stone base was dotted with large rounded windows framed in steel, affording a panoramic view of North Main, where large oak and elm trees lined the boulevard on

all sides. Overhanging and fanciful metal eaves shaded visitors entering the hotel, a Hartmann signature. The sole design extravagance was a Tuscancolumned cornice atop the penthouse framed in white brick, embellished with Romanesque banisters and bas-reliefs depicting fountains. During the 1920s, the Sheraton featured all the amenities business travelers expected — a barber, beauty shop, cigar stand, the Sheraton Grill, shoe repair, Elliot’s Flowers & Gifts, Western Union and an upholstery shop (this is High Point, after all).

Host to future president John F. Kennedy and longtime broadcast home of WGHP in its heyday, the Sheraton was converted to apartments for seniors in 1982 and underwent another facelift in in 2011. The iconic wrought iron staircases and handsome tiling that defined the interior were restored. Regrettably, the enormous windows were covered over, but you can still see their footprint.

Commercial National Bank — High Point — 1922

A few blocks south from the Sheraton on Main Street sits Hartmann’s next masterpiece, the second major office building ever constructed in High Point. Commercial National Bank headquarters, with seven above-ground floors, features a dramatic arched entryway carved into a stone base.

Its upper floors, framed in brick, are graced with terracotta columns rising up to an almost gothic entablature below an especially elaborate, temple-like cornice.

Commercial National went under during the Depression. Security National Bank made this their main branch in the mid-1930s, merging with American Commercial to become NCNB in 1960 — and later, Bank of America. NCNB commissioned High Point architect William Freeman, a specialist in Modernist

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LIFE&HOME designs, (and father to Seasons columnist and architect Peter Freeman) to remodel the interior in 1963.

Christened the Radio Building after its longest tenant, WMFR-AM, this rewired and re-energized landmark retains its status as downtown High Point’s crown jewel.

Mary Taylor House — Greensboro — 1924

Mary Taylor was secretary to Julian Price, Jefferson Standard’s president, the man who lured Hartmann to the Triad. When Taylor told her boss about a quaint little cottage she saw in a movie, expressing a desire to own one like it, Price put Hartmann to the task.

The result was something, well, out of a motion picture. This two-story A-frame Tudor-inspired chalet, razed in 2001, featured a protruding front bay with French windows opening out into a garden. To the left, a round-top wooden door was sheltered by a smaller, shingled A-frame. Looking like something plucked from the Maine countryside, this Irving Park home on Elmwood Drive was painted white with the exception of a ribbon of red bricks below the windows and surrounding the front door. Five years later, Hartmann would also design Julian Price’s sprawling mansion, Hillside on Fisher Park Circle in the Tudor Revival style, but on an infinitely grander scale. (see page 19)

Alamance Hotel — Burlington — 1925

With cleaner lines and an Art Deco flair, this imposing edifice is seen by some as the architect’s most mature work to date.

Burlington was growing at a pace four times faster than the average American city in the 1920s, ranking fifth for hosiery production and second in the nation for the number of new industrial plants and overall expansion. It was entirely fitting that Charles C. Hartmann was tapped to build a Neoclassical seven-story hotel to reflect the city’s economic prominence.

Below a terra-cotta parapet, street-side, double decker windows front this red brick building. Upper-floor windows are crowned with cathedral-like extensions, with white stuccoed panels resting between them.

Originally, there were 85 rooms, a barbershop and a private dining room on the mezzanine next to the ballroom. Horizontal metal eaves are positioned over the doors. An up-and coming Elvis Presley passed through them to spend a night here in 1955, when the first-floor restaurant was one of the nicest eateries in the city.

This hotel closed in 1974, spurred by the collapse of the Triad’s manufacturing sector. Yet, it was somehow spared the fate of Greensboro’s O.Henry Hotel and so many once noble titans. Its exterior has seen very little change, and today the Alamance Plaza stands tall as a state-of-the-art residential complex for elderly and disabled individuals.

All of these properties, with the exception of the Mary Taylor House, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Charles C. Hartmann retired in 1966 and died about a decade later. The buildings he designed are, without question, products of their time, bestowing a grace and nobility to public institutions and industry that’s sorely lacking today, given our jaded worldview and frenetic pace. Perhaps that’s part of the structures’ timeless appeal, speaking to the architect’s vision of a bright future as they do — an equally enduring part of Hartmann’s legacy, as the treasured monuments in stone, brick and concrete that still stand. h Billy Ingram is the author of five books, including Hamburger², a book mostly about Greensboro.

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LIFE&HOME

THE LANGUAGE OF HOME

Birdhouses for Our Souls

For us and our feathered friends, avian dwellings represent the hope of spring

By Noah Salt

B

ut of course, everyone knows a birdhouse is much more than that. These days birdhouses are a statement of one’s regard for the future of the planet or at least a boon to the winged life of one’s backyard.

A simply constructed birdhouse is, on the surface, a simple metaphor, but it’s also a soaring metaphor of our best hopes for nature’s most emblematic creature — the bird, a lone survivor from the age of dinosaurs — in a world increasingly under assault by man and nature.

It might surprise you, dear backyarder birder, that birdhouses were originally developed in Belgium and Holland and Germany not for protecting birds but exploiting them simply for their food supply, specifically eggs and chicks, typically accomplished with a mounted wooden or, later, clay edifice resembling a pot hung on a post or garden wall, with a narrowed entryway. In time, this gave way to the construction of aviaries and dovecotes where birds could breed and congregate for the dual purposes of feeding and inspiring their human counterparts.

The artist Pieter Bruegel depicted such birdhouses in several of his notable paintings.

Even earlier come reports of artistically elaborate structures constructed exclusively for the protection and procreation of birds in ancient royal courts of China and the Ottoman Empire — some of which you can still see today in places like Beijing and Istanbul.

In America, English and German immigrants moving into the Western and Southern frontiers were introduced to the value of birdhouses by Native American tribes who used birds not only for food but also for their feathers. A typical birdhouse made by early American Indians featured a durable shelter of wood wrought from a hollowed-out birch log that included a platform for a perch — a refuge able to protect nesting birds from harsh storms, ground predators and natural disasters, a boost to the propagation of species. To this day, many tribes specialize in making such birdhouses that last for years. In early Williamsburg, citizens enthusiastically adopted the use of European “bird bottle pottery” to encourage the growth of local bird populations and a hedge against insects and other garden pests.

In an increasingly urbanized and suburbanized America, where thousands of acres of forest disappear on a steady basis, reducing the number of tree cavities that many bird species prefer, a vibrant industry of commercial birdhouses has grown up,

Spring 2018

in part inspired by the growing environmental consciousness of the nation — but also by our simple timeless attraction to the freest and most poetic living things on Earth.

Visit any farmers market or craft fair these days and you’re all but guaranteed to find a wide of assortment of imaginative birdhouses built in the shapes of mini castles, Victorian cottages and even churches. Many are true folk art gems, with price tags that reflect their provenance Perhaps the most coveted occupant of any backyard birdhouse is the native Eastern bluebird, Sialia sialis, a secondcavity nester (meaning their beaks are too short to create their own protected spaces). They are admired for their colorful plumage and unforgettable birdsong, and poets, artists and bird-admirers from Plato to Henry David Thoreau have hailed them as the true harbingers of spring’s return. With the accelerated loss of habitat and wide use of pesticides between 1920s and 1970s, bluebird populations across the United States were nearly devastated.

Thanks to a variety of avian and wildlife organizations and the rising consciousness of their value to the life of the planet, however, bluebirds have been making a healthy comeback in recent years. Almost every home supply and hardware store in the land sells native bluebird birdhouses, tight little boxes mounted on steel poles designed to dissuade predators like snakes and cats from robbing their young.

To this very point, late last fall we put up an elaborately designed bluebird birdhouse by a gifted Triad birdhouse builder in our side garden, hoping it might bring some winged blue magic to our garden, come spring.

Not two afternoons later, pulling into our driveway from church, we were blessed to see a pair of bluebirds — a pragmatic female and a male in his royal blue finery — thoroughly inspecting our fancy new birdhouse. We sat in our car transfixed as the pair surveyed their potential home for 15 or 20 minutes, a magical moment before they flitted away.

“I think they were house-shopping for the springtime,” observed my wife. “They bring such happiness. I do hope they liked what they saw.”

Only time will tell, of course. It’s nice to think our swanky new birdhouse might become their home and grow their numbers in the neighborhood. h

A box, typically made to resemble a house, provided for a bird to make its nest in.

— New Oxford American Dictionary

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LIFE&HOME HOMEWORDS

Digging Into Spring And striking pay dirt

By Brian Faulkner Illustration by Harry Blair

I

’ve decided that, way back when, somebody got it wrong. Christmas should be in the spring. There’s so much natural joy built into this season, so much fresh surprise. An early March walk through WinstonSalem’s Reynolda Gardens will convince you of that.

The daffs strung along the paths and scattered among the trees delight like young girls in sundresses.

As kids, we did not have our minds on flowers. We couldn’t wait till the ground dried out enough to dig in the dirt. Our mom was less enthused, however, because of the dirt we brought home, although she was otherwise fair and even stuck up for us when Dad got mad when we messed with his tools. She wanted to be a writer something crazy but settled for doing the cooking and the laundry and cleaning up after four children who attracted dirt to themselves like a magnet draws ten-penny nails.

She would have appreciated knowing that, decades down the road, medical science finally decided that a little springtime dirt is good for children because it helps build their immune systems after the winter sniffles season.

The father of a friend three houses down drove a big old dump truck and, about the time the lawns started coming alive, would unload a huge pile of loam on the bare side of his yard.

He may have meant to make a stand of grass out of it but never seemed to get that far. So we kids dug intricate roadways in his dirt mountain and ran our toy metal cars over them for hours at a time. Another dirt-laden pastime was digging to China from our backyard, which we pursued with considerable gusto.

Dad, however, found the idea more annoying than amusing and made sure that we filled one hole back in before digging another, which severely retarded our progress.

You might have thought I’d end up building roads for a living or doing landscaping, like one of my daughters. Alas, my digging mostly has been limited to a half-hearted whack at a vegetable

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garden from time to time and burying newly-deceased pets in the woods behind our house, a task that requires more slashing at roots and rocks than digging in the shallow topsoil.

My parents had no suggestions I can recall regarding what their firstborn might do for work, and I had little idea myself.

Athletics were out. I was a whole-hearted disgrace at football and a middling baseball player — even got fooled once into playing “left out.” Academically, I was a classic underachiever and didn’t seem cut out for much of anything, especially if it required higher order math. I had my nose in a book almost all the time, however, and developed an ear for words. But I didn’t find a practical use for them until late in high school, having at last discovered that a well-crafted word blizzard was a pretty good substitute for actually knowing the material. I can still see the picture that formed in my teenage mind: me in my cluttered writer’s nook bending to the task with pleasure, knowing it was deep and serious and good. “When you find something at which you are talented,” says Stephen King, “you do it until your fingers bleed . . . or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head.”

For this man who used to be a boy who loved digging in the dirt, that something is writing (and photography, which is writing for the eyes). For others, like my neighbor Cindy, it’s gardening — all she has to do is glance at something green and it will leap into bloom, or so it appears. For you, maybe it’s fishing that brings pleasure or hiking . . . or even daydreaming. Spring is perfect for all of these things, and you don’t need an outsized talent to enjoy them. So go ahead. Cast off winter’s shabby coat, don your warm weather duds and dig into spring. It’s Christmastime . . . in March. h Based in Winston-Salem, Brian Faulkner is, among other things, a five-time Emmy award-winning writer of magazine-style programming on UNC-TV. Spring 2018

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