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
The French Farmer’s Wife European Antiques ArchitecturAl • FArmhouse • GArden
2018 BARN SHOW DATES: JULY 26-28, SEPT 6-8, NOV 8-10 • 9 9Am-4Pm 1 9 8 7 B e e s o n R o a d • K e R n e R s v i l l e • n o Rt h c a R o l i n a • 8 0 5 . 2 7 9 . 6 6 2 8
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Reinert Fine Art on Main Street in the beautiful village of Blowing Rock, NC offers original artwork that celebrates, not only the area's natural beauty, but the joy of sharing it with family and friends. Visit all three galleries, including two in Charleston, SC featuring the artwork of Contemporary Impressionist Rick Reinert & original works by over 50 regional and nationally acclaimed artists.
“Sitting Quietly” • Oil Roger Dale Brown, OPAM
“Lovely Lemons” • Oil MaryBeth Karaus, OPA
‘Finale II • Oil Rick Reinert
“Spring Vista” • Oil Carolyn Anne Crocker
“Slow Drift” • Oil Stephanie Marzella
“Splash” • Oil Nancy Seamons Crookston, OPAM
“Colorful Subject” • Oil Heather Arenas, WAOW
“Mare and Foal” Bronze Lorri Acott
REINERT FINE ART
“Like it Used to Be” • Oil Karen Lawrence
1153 Main Street • Blowing Rock, NC 28605 179 & 202 King Street • Charleston, SC 29401 828.414.9580 ReinertFineArt.com 843.694.2445
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FEATURES
40 A Life Made by Hand
Summer
By Jim Dodson How a pair of childhood lovebirds became two of the South’s most respected preservationists and collectors of rare antiques
2018
52 The Art and Magic of Living
40
By Nancy Oakley A storied High Point home enters its third act
62 A Tale of Two Clubs By Lee Pace Spiritual cousins from the Golden Age of American Golf, WinstonSalem’s Old Town and Roaring Gap Club share more than sporting DNA
70 Water Babies Photography by Lynn Donovan
19
13 From the Editor By Jim Dodson
STYLEBOOK 16 The Hot List By Jason Oliver Nixon & John Loecke
19 Hidden Gems By Nancy Oakley
23 Designer Profile By Robin Sutton Anders
29 Hunt & Gather
29
By Annie Ferguson
33 Season to Taste 37 Almanac By Ash Alder
LIFE&HOME 75 The Architect’s Son By Peter Freeman
16
79 The Language of Home By Noah Salt
80 HomeWords By Jillian Weiss Cover Photograph by John Gessner
8 SEASONS •
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Summer 2018
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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. 2 336.617.0090 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 Brad Beard, Graphic Designer Alyssa Rocherolle, Graphic Designer
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CONTRIBUTORS Cynthia Adams, Ash Alder, Robin Sutton Anders, Harry Blair, Lynn Donovan, Annie Ferguson, Amy Freeman, Peter Freeman, Sam Froelich, John Gessner, John Loecke, Jason Oliver Nixon, Lee Pace Noah Salt, Jillian Weiss
h ADVERTISING SALES Ginny Trigg, Sales Director 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
CIRCULATION Darlene Stark, Circulation Director 910.693.2488 SUBSCRIPTIONS 336.617.0090 Caldwell Court 2709 Battleground Ave. Greensboro, NC (336) 617-6260
10 SEASONS •
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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
©Copyright 2018. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is prohibited. Seasons Magazine is published by The Pilot LLC
Summer 2018
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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.
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FROM THE EDITOR
Heat and Memory The simple pleasures of a Southern boyhood come full circle By Jim Dodson
omething unexpected is happening to me. I’m starting to really like summer. I know, crazy huh? Who the heck doesn’t like summer? Evenings on the porch. Weekends on the lake. Vacations with the kids. Reunions with aunties and uncles and old college chums. Golf and gardening till dark, sun tans, gin and tonics, grabbing a nap in a hammock with your favorite novelist. Summer pleasures are seemingly endless. But once upon a time, that was exactly my beef with summer. Summer was too hot, too long, too much of everything I didn’t enjoy doing including visiting elderly relatives on Sunday afternoons, I used to think my constitutional dislike of summer stemmed from being a true son of winter, born during a February snowstorm. To this day, I still feed off the energies of snowstorms that shut down the world — probably the reason I could happily reside on a forested hilltop near the coast of Maine for two decades. Summers in the North Country are sweet, cool and brief, all seven or eight days of it. My hostas grew the size of Volkswagens almost over night. I also wonder if my somewhat solitary childhood in the Deep South might have ruined me for summer. During my first six years of life, we lived in four different states because my dad was a newspaperman whose career took us to Texas, Mississippi and two places in the Carolinas before coming home for good to Greensboro. Our houses in those places were always older affairs in sleepy neighborhoods where I knew no one my age and there were few if any signs of human life beneath domes of summer heat and stillness. The only sounds I heard were those I made or the lonely drumming of
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY BLAIR
S
Summer 2018
cicadas in the long afternoons. To break the spell, I spent many hours conducting elaborate ground wars with my plastic armies of Roman soldiers and Medieval knights in the cool, shaded earth beneath our house, pausing to examine interesting spiders and other critters I found beneath our porches. In an age before TV dominated daily life, I spent many an afternoon reading chapter books lying in a creaky glider on one of the screened porches, hoping for a thunderstorm or puff of breeze to stir the world and cool me off. My mother suffered a pair of devastating miscarriages during these years. She was slowly recovering her strength and learning to cook from a lovely African-American woman named Jesse May Richardson who came to our house every weekday one summer in South Carolina. Jesse May drove me to Vacation Bible School in the mornings in her Plymouth Valiant and picked me up for lunch, sometimes stopping by the newly air-conditioned Piggly Wiggly market on the way home. I liked the Piggly Wiggly much more than Vacation Bible School, I’ll admit, even more so after a prune-faced teacher named Miss Betty informed me that Jesus saw everything I did and wrote it down for future reference. As a result, I spent summer days compiling mental lists of things so that Jesus couldn’t possibly know what I’d been up to, like how many legs are on a caterpillar or what Miss Jesse May would be making for supper. Needless to say, I greatly preferred the company of Miss Jesse, as I was instructed to call her. She not only taught my mother — the youngest of 11 and a Maryland beauty queen — to cook “Southern style” vegetables, biscuits and fried chicken, but also showed me how to “feet dance” to gospel SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 13
STYLEBOOK music that played from the transistor radio she kept in the kitchen’s screen house is a serious gardener who seems to be giving our former backyard a window. I was skinny enough to stand on her bare feet holding her hands as major overhaul. she shimmied us around the kitchen to tunes like “I’ll Fly Away” and “Just Two doors away, I’ve spent a year and a half redoing the gardens of my Over in the Glory Land.” mom’s best pal, Merle Corry. I’ve planted several peonies that should be someWhen I complained how hot and dull summer was and moaned how I thing to see next spring. The Japanese shade garden I filled with hostas from wished cold weather and school would return, Miss Jesse would give me a my Maine garden and various kinds of ferns absolutely exploded this summer. certain look and declare, “Better not wish away time, child. Working alone in my summer garden is a kind of therapy, The Good Lord only makes so much of it. Besides,” she a little like being that solitary kid in the dirt beneath our “Better not wish away porches in South Carolina. My favorite garden tool — by a added, “summer is when things grow, including you. Why look at all them books you can read now? It’s best to love time, child. The Good Lord wide margin — is a small saucepan with a wooden handle what you got right now.” that my mom used for boiling eggs and making hot chocoShe had a point. Miss Jesse sometimes took me to her only makes so much of late. It’s perfect for scooping soil and mulch, and connects me own backyard to fetch greens for supper and encouraged my to her love of Southern cooking and gardening. it. Besides,” she added, recovering mama to plant peonies that autumn, flowering The summers here are still a little too hot for my taste at shrubs that prefer cooler weather but somehow were radiant times, but the unexpected pleasure of an attic fan and the “Summer is when things the following spring. Peonies were my mom’s favorite flowers. cooling effect of afternoon thunderstorms are even better grow, including you.” By the time we moved home to Greensboro for good in late than air-conditioning at the Piggly Wiggly. 1959, she was hooked on gardening and cooking and in the Best of all, I’ve learned that Jesse May Richardson was fullness of time became accomplished at both. The peonies she right. The good Lord only makes so much time and I’ve grew on Dogwood Drive in Greensboro were second to none and were still putlearned to love what I’ve got, even in summer — a garden where I can ting out voluptuous blooms when I reluctantly moved her to a beautiful assisted disappear for my sanity, friends coming for supper on the porch, dawn and care place on the coast of Maine decades later. Forcing her to say goodbye to evening walks with my wife and the dogs, just enough vacation time to miss her beautiful backyard shade garden and sunny perennial beds was perhaps the home, books galore and even family reunions where I’m now as old as the toughest duty I ever had. She took her old dog Molly with her. uncles and aunties. Heat and memory weave their own magic. Two years ago — proof that life really is a circular affair — my wife Wendy Besides, summer makes autumn — when it finally comes — all the more weland I purchased the Corry house just two doors from the house where I come. Summer pleasures aren’t endless, I’ve learned. But they are real. h grew up on Dogwood Drive. The pleasant woman who bought my mother’s
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14 SEASONS •
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Summer 2018
THE HOT LIST
Haute to Trot Keep cool this summer with these white-hot lifestyle finds By Jason Oliver Nixon and John Loecke, Madcap Cottage
Spin, Spin Sugar We have always had a love-hate relationship with ceiling fans — that is, until we met the saucily named Haiku by Big Ass Fans brand with its clean lines and chic silhouettes. A favorite in the line is the 60-inch Haiku with its caramel-hued bamboo airfoils ($1,095). This stunner would work as well in a hard-edged Winston-Salem industrial loft as it would in a trad-leaning Irving Park family room. haikuhome.com
Angels & Insects Take those tired walls and allow them to spring eternal compliments of Wendover Art Group’s stunning Papillon Garden 2 and Butterflies and Bugs 1 wall prints ($395 each). They that truly bring the great outdoors within. Available through Vivid Interiors, 513 S. Elm St., Greensboro, (336 ) 265-8628.
Off the Wall Tired of that dated thermostat creating an eyesore on your wall? Want to save electricity and control your AC usage from afar? Turn to the Nest Learning Thermostat ($249). Sleek and stylish, the Nest unit helps save energy, and you can control it from anywhere with the Nest app. Now that’s technology that makes sense. Nest.com
16 SEASONS •
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Make a Splash Transform your humble shower into a luxe spa-like retreat with Kohler’s WaterTile wall-mounted 54-nozzle showerhead with soothing spray ($350). In fact, why not add in two or three! Available through Hughes Supply, 140-E. Cloverleaf Drive, Winston-Salem, (336)-760-0715.
Green with Envy Your bedroom will become a cool, soothing retreat with the sumptuous Gemma bedding range that mixes florals and graphics to stunning effect. Handmade in Thomasville, North Carolina, by Wildcat Territory, the line includes duvets, coverlets, shams, decorative pillows and bed skirts and is sold separately à la carte or as sets (sets from $1,600). Available through Furnitureland South, 5635 Riverdale Drive, Jamestown, (336) 822-3000. Summer 2018
STYLEBOOK Urn One’s Keep Make a big, bold statement in your garden with this opulent set of four English garden urns upon stands from the early 1900s that hail from High Point antiques dealer extraordinaire Randall Tysinger. Of course, such provenance and craftsmanship come with a hefty price tag, aka, $44,000. Randall Tysinger, 208 N. Elm St., High Point, (336) 885-7174.
White Nights Capture the sublime scent of the garden year round with the White Jasmine & Gardenia scented candle from Cochine Saigon ($65). With more than 50 hours’ burn time, Cochine candles will gently infuse any room to create a delicately evocative and inspiring atmosphere. Plus, the unique silver glass gives a beautiful glow when the candle is lit. Trouvaille Home, 938 Burke St., Winston-Salem, (336) 245-8965.
Think Global, Drink Local Sip in style this summer with the cool, refreshing 2015 Sauvignon Blanc from the Yadkin Valley’s Grassy Creek Vineyard & Winery ($18). Think light and clean with bold grapefruit flavors. And why not make a day trip to the winery’s stunning Tasting Room, situated an hour-long drive west of Greensboro, to embrace the sublime viticultural experience? 235 Chatham Cottage Circle, State Road, (off Klondike Road), (336) 835-2458, Grassycreekvineyard.com
Going Bananas! Capture a slice of Hollywood-style glamour — hello, Beverly Hills Hotel! — with the banana-emblazoned Veranda VR-62 Green rug outdoor rug from Momeni ($299), handhooked of 100 percent polypropylene for easy care. Cheap and chic! Available through Furnitureland South, 5635 Riverdale Drive, Jamestown, (336) 822-3000.
Orange Crush Bring form and function to the backyard with the Everdure by Heston Blumenthal The Furnace Grill in eye-popping Orange ($899.95). This innovative grill — designed in tandem with British superstar chef Heston Blumenthal — fully ignites and heats quickly while three interchangeable cast-iron flat plates and grill plates provide numerous cooking options. Plus, the grill looks like a million bucks. Williams Sonoma, 3320 W. Friendly Ave., Greensboro, (336) 294-2063.
Summer 2018
Head for the Hills! John and I have just returned from The Swag, the in-the-know escape tucked into the Smoky Mountains outside Asheville, and the experience was exceptional. We checked into one of the inn’s 14 individually decorated, super-comfortable rooms and lapped up the postcardperfect views before heading out for a short hike, capped off with with an invigorating round of croquet. Next up was dinner with old friends. The hotel is all-inclusive, so that means that all meals are covered included in the rate. And, oh, the mountain trout paired with a Biltmore Estate Sauvignon Blanc! We rounded out our stay with more hiking, a picnic in the tree house and much-needed reading time. Perfection. 2300 Swag Road, Waynesville, N.C. Theswag.com
SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 17
________ 99 Reynolda Village Winston Salem, NC 27103 336-722-8807
________ bellemaisonlinens.com
18 SEASONS •
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& DESIGN
Summer 2018
STYLEBOOK
Elizabeth’s at Hanes Park HIDDEN GEMS
Browser’s Delight Three Triad shops offer one-of-a-kind finds By Nancy Oakley
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAM FROELICH
Elizabeth’s at Hanes Park, 851 Reynolda Road, Winston-Salem; (336) 723-2009 or www.facebook.com/ elizabethsathanespark/ Setting foot into Elizabeth’s at Hanes Park is a bit like setting foot into someone’s loft. Contemporary furnishings mix with vintage pieces, while an appealing blend of colorful accessories, from pillows to tableware, rugs, lamps, baskets, vintage suitcases and framed prints fill the store — without overwhelming the eye — exactly as Tammie Rudisill intended. “I did not want stuff overload with tons of bric-a-brac,” she says. As the third owner of the shop in the Twin City’s West End neighborhood, which she originally bought with Denson Hauser, she kept the name, “Elizabeth’s,” but transformed its dark interior and Gothic signage into a more open, airier space. And whereas the former incarnation tended toward heavier traditional offerings, Rudisill curates “a good mix” of pieces and accents. “I have a Moravian corner cabinet from the 1800s, industrial, Mid-Century . . .” she explains. A kitchen and bath designer, Rudisill also paints and refinishes furniture. She’ll do custom pieces or consult with clients in their homes. She favors a clay-based paint from Debi’s Design Diary and DIY, which requires no prepping or priming. “I love the layers of color and drip texture,” Rudisill observes, adding that the multi-hued effect is best used sparingly, “for statement pieces.” And there’s a practical reason for offering them, as well: “I can’t sell brown furniture,” Rudisill says. She does, however, sell “as close to local as possible” — farm tables crafted by two woodworkers at the Sawtooth School, or a custom line of soaps from an artisan in Stokes County, for example. Half the store is allotted to other vendors, including former Summer 2018
owner Hauser, among others such as Brandywine Cottage, which produces finds like a vintage picnic basket, say, and then there’s the mother-daughter outfit, Home to Roost, selling pillows with pithy sayings (“Home is where your mom is.”). Sprigg Parker offers a touch of green with unusual potted plants, along with nostalgic items (note the old Premium Saltines tin), while Grey Door Market, a recent vendor, has introduced a bright, shabby chic vibe. There’s a waiting list for any booth that should become available, but Rudisill selects carefully, “according to the needs of the store.” She’s also considering opening up the capacious area in back to hold classes in furniture finishing, lettering or perhaps weaving, giving further credence to the store’s billing as “a collection of creativity.”
Sweet Tea Studio & Boutique at Irving Park, 1819 Pembroke Road, Greensboro; (336) 763-8280 or ilovesweetteastudio.com Meg Norris and Dawn Quigley swore they would never open up a storefont — until they drove by the warren of brick offices and boutiques between Greensboro’s Battleground Avenue and Irving Park “and fell in love with it,” Quigley says of the space. In October of 2014 the two artists moved their concern with the delicious Southern-sounding name, Sweet Tea, from downtown to No. 1819 Pembroke Road, and almost immediately, their working lives changed. “All we used to do when we started [in 2013] was to rescue furniture; we made pillows, home décor, refinished furniture,” says Quigley, the spokesman for the duo. But once in Irving Park’s backyard, “when people discovered us, we could do their furniture.” They had also included a boutique SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 19
with the studio, but closed it in 2017 to accommodate their clientele, who, as Quigley notes, don’t often have the know-how to take on such projects, or how to pull together a desired look. But with their artists’ collective eye and training, she and Norris can “do professional finishes,” in addition to making their own glazes and mixing their own stains. Typically in about two to three weeks, they can transform a run-of-themill office end table into a high-gloss piece with a laquer finish with gold trim that looks as though it were fashioned by Art Deco designer Erté. They do a brisk trade in lawn furniture, especially this time of year. Norris and Quigley can also rebuild, cane or make custom pieces such as the old radiator cover they converted to a cabinet. “Furniture is our canvas,” Quigley says. By Christmas 2017, an Instagram post on Triad Local First, the nonprofit that champions local independent business owners, had caught the attention of the two artist-proprietors. The post contained a photo of their old boutique and brought back memories, so they invited vendors to join their beloved space on Pembroke Road. The response was overwhelming. Norris and Quigley judiciously choose local items that would speak to their devoted customers. Among the 15 vendors’ items are unusual objects, such as Beau Chateau Antiques’ framed vintage postcards of Greensboro Country Club — one circa 1916; coasters made from Scrabble letters; handcrafted jewelry by Quiet Life Handmades, floral paintings and pet portraits by Katie Anderson, wreaths made from German hymnals, painted frames, vintage dishes and more. “It’s fun,” Quigley allows. “There’s not a day I don’t wake up and want to come in here.”
State & Main, 1702 N. Main St., High Point, (336) 509-0873 Though it’s tucked in a small strip mall in High Point’s Uptowne, State
Sweet Tea Studio & Boutique & Main Vintage & Eclectic, at the corner of State and Main Streets, is instantly recognizable: Just look for the claw-foot tub brimming with potted plants and flowers outside the main entrance. Inside, you’ll see the shop’s owner, Katie Culler, likely chatting with customers, or her assistant and photographer Bill Guy. “The joke is, I’m either here or at home. You have to come by to see me,” she says. And sure enough, in walks a customer ready to retrieve two oversized, framed prints of leaves hanging on the wall behind the front desk. After Guy has removed them, Culler notes, “We’ll have to find something to fill that space.”
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#1 KELLER WILLIAMS TEAM IN THE TRIAD. #1 IN SALES VOLUME IN US
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THE NEXT GENERATION IN REAL ESTATE 20 SEASONS •
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& DESIGN
Summer 2018
PHOTOGRAPHS BY SAM FROELICH
STYLEBOOK
STYLEBOOK Shouldn’t be a problem, given the seemingly infinite supply of paintings, photographs, prints and mirrors — and those are just a handful of items adorning the consignment shop’s walls. Literally from the oriental rugs on the floor to wall sconces grazing the ceiling, you’ll find tables, chairs, curios, shelves in all manner of styles. A metal, contemporary screen partitions an area consisting of armchairs chairs, and a table of vintage jewelry from a display of a “Fun and Funky grab bag” of necklaces, bracelets and earrings, plus vintage Barbie dolls. Over here, a set of shell-shaped wicker baskets, over there, a ceramic set of wind
State & Main
chimes with a nautical motif. One cabinet contains ladies’ beaded and petitpoint evening bags, another nearby holds several sets of cocktail and champagne glasses — while Jean Harlow, grinning from a black-and-white blowup surveys the scene. A lamp whose base is a figure of a cocker spaniel appears to guard a set of salt and pepper shakers shaped like chickens. A tea set doesn’t sit too far from a shelf of books on Impressionism, photography or flea market chic. In other words, there is a decided flow to the inventory in the store. Perhaps because Culler, with a background in photography, curated artists’ exhibits when she lived in Georgia. “I’m used to putting it all together,” she says, explaining that she typically chooses pieces that she would want in her own home. She is also quick to credit a good group of friends, or as she calls them, “magical elves” who help her arrange State & Main’s contents — all of it consignment, all of it local. “High Point is a kind of word-of-mouth place,” Culler notes. And a good thing, too. For when she first tried her hand at the trade a few years ago, she set up shop just off Business 85. “It was a bust!” Culler admits, largely because folks had trouble accessing the location. But now, a year after moving to State and Main? “It’s fantastic!” she enthuses. And sure enough, another customer arrives, inquiring about a “parrot tray” he had seen in the store. “I sold it,” Culler tells him. He leaves and on his heels comes another patron who wanders about before sitting down on one of the overstuffed chairs for a chat. She bursts into giggles as Culler models a conical faux fur hat, circa 1970 or so, and then reaches to switch on a phonograph — an oversize music box, actually — from the 1890s. The strains of its simple tune bring a contented pause in the conversational hum, a good indication that State & Main will likely become a local mainstay. h
2101 E MLK Jr Dr • High Point, NC 27260 336.889.7800 www.thestoneresource.com Summer 2018
SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 21
We Service What We Sell & Offer Personal Attention 2201 Patterson Street, Greensboro, NC (2 Blocks from the Coliseum) Mon. - Fri.: 9:30am - 5:30 pm Sat. 10 am - 2 pm • Closed Sunday
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22 SEASONS •
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Summer 2018
STYLEBOOK
DESIGNER PROFILE
Live from Greensboro Tasha Agruso’s evolution from legal eagle to design diva By Robin Sutton Anders asha Agruso was folding clothes when she got a call from one of the producers of the Rachael Ray show last year. “They were putting together a segment on rooms that were made-over for less than $100, and they saw my laundry room in Pinterest,” Agruso says. Two days later, the Greensboro native and internationally known lifestyle blogger boarded a plane for an all-expense-paid trip to New York City. As Agruso walked onto the bright stage facing rows of cameras and a live, studio audience — her own larger-than-life image projected on the big screen behind her — she felt the rush of one of life’s most surreal moments. Rachael Ray shook Agruso’s hand and introduced her to the audience. “She introduced me as Tasha Agruso from Greensboro, North Carolina — not as a professional blogger,” the blogger remembers. “They felt I would be more relatable as just a normal person out there who figured out how to renovate her laundry room for $71.” And really, she adds, “that’s how it all started.” Rewind six years, and Agruso was a partner in her law firm, often working up to 60 hours a week — defending doctors and nursing homes in medical malpractices cases. Her husband, Joe, was a firefighter. As parents of twin girls, toddlers, the Agrusos needed more space. So Tasha and Joe made an offer on a 1986 home
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in Greensboro’s Starmount Forest neighborhood. They didn’t exactly love the place, but it was functional. “Before we bought this house, we’d only ever lived in historic homes, and this was a two-story contemporary — the kind of newer house with no character I’d sworn I was never going to buy,” Tasha says. “It had the typical hallmarks of a Brady Bunch– style home — vertical painted cedar siding, skylights. It was definitely going to be a challenge.” They decided to do something about it and started in the laundry room. “It was an easy decision to make over the smallest room in the house,” Tasha laughs. For starters, she had leftover paint to cover the faux-brick, vinyl floor and orange oak cabinets. There was also that set of sunny, floral curtains lying around that didn’t match any other room. The makeover was simple and cheap — $71 later, one room in their house looked brand-new. The couple stepped back and snapped a few pictures of their success. Then Tasha started a blog, “Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body.” She figured, why not? She wanted her friends and family to see the before and after, and besides — this was only the beginning of her renovation projects. She sent an email to her nearest and dearest letting them know how, if they were interested, they could follow her renovation progress, room by room. A few months later, Tasha learned her blog had been SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 23
STYLEBOOK reposted by the popular “Apartment Therapy” blog. Within hours, her nearest and dearest had skyrocketed to an international following. Laundry room: check. Powder room: check. Family room: check. With every $20 concrete bathroom countertop or $30 herringbone plank accent wall, Tasha’s online followers grew. “Most weekends and evenings after work, Joe and I were doing stuff on the house,” she says. “On average, we were probably working 10–20 hours a week.” Some families have game night; others bond over movie night. The Agrusos host renovation parties. “We’ve come up with creative ways of getting the twins involved in projects. While we were painting my office, they were still small. I have pictures of Joe painting with the girls on his back, giving them piggy-back rides.” Last month, while they were overhauling their garage, Tasha spread out a huge role of brown paper for the girls to paint their own murals. When they turned their focus to redecorating the twins’ room in time for their third birthday, Tasha learned a major lesson in blogging: People respond best to easy, bite-size projects. “Average people don’t want to spend 20 hours a week on their house,” she observes. “They just want a simple project they can wrap their heads around.” Like bed skirts held together with safety pins, for instance. As parts of the girls’ room reveal, Tasha and Joe made headboards and duvet covers; they painted and repurposed Ikea furniture into custom, built-in storage chests and bookshelves. As the big day approached, she had one project remaining: bed skirts for the twin beds. “I just didn’t have it in me to make them. I was working full time and doing all the house things, and I was tired,” she says. So Tasha figured out a way to make a tailored bed skirt just using safety pins. “People went bananas for this thing. I was so surprised because I almost hadn’t published it.” Tasha’s readership grew. Within 10 months of starting the blog, her data
showed she was receiving more than 200,000 page views a month. Playing around with the idea of monetizing her blog, she’d included a few ads and sponsored posts. “But I realized, holy cow, people are making a full-time living at this. About that time, I heard about a six-figure blogger who was teaching a course on monetizing.” Tasha signed up. Considering her blog’s traffic, it occurred to her that she could be one of those people. Six months later, the lawyer was trapped no more. Tasha quit her day job to focus 100 percent on her blog. “You hear people say that you can turn your passion into a living, and I believe that is possible,” she says. “If there’s something you really love, chances are you can find a way to turn it into a profitable gig.” Having an analytical mind helps, especially when it comes to writing tutorials for her 50,000 email subscribers and 131,000 social media followers. “I’m pretty type A and detail-oriented. Realizing my DIY tutorials will reach this big audience, I try to be super detailed in my instructions and take good photos of each step so people can really follow along,” she says. Tasha also pays attention to what works and what doesn’t. If she pins a photo on Pinterest and it doesn’t perform, she stops pinning it. “Same with Instagram. You have to really study what you’re doing and how people are responding to it.” For fellow bloggers looking to turn their passion into a full-time gig, she offers a key piece of advice: “Stick with it.” Tasha says most blogs don’t survive beyond the 12-month mark because their authors lose steam. “The people who are able to take it to the next level are willing to see a project through to fruition, and then do it again and again. That’s what sets them apart,” she says. Do It Yourself: Top Five Home Projects Anyone Can Tackle From making her children’s bedding using safety pins to painting the kitchen floor, Tasha Agruso takes a can-do approach to almost every home-
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STYLEBOOK renovation project. You can, too, she says — starting with these easy endeavors.
doesn’t mind a bit of outsourcing.
Painting interior walls. “I don’t want to pass judgment — and I did hire someone to paint a vaulted ceiling one time, but painting is the easiest job in the world. It’s instant gratification and so rewarding.”
Painting exterior walls. “To do it well, you’d really need an expensive professional-grade paint sprayer, and when are you ever going to use it again? Also, just as a practical matter, professionals get discounts on paint that the average person doesn’t get.”
Installing linoleum or tile flooring. “Even if you don’t have DIY skills, laminate and tile flooring are really do able.”
Repairing drywall. “Even people who are pretty skilled at DIY stuff can make a drywall look like a bad patch job. It’s worth it to hire a professional.”
Creating your own art. “I can’t paint or draw, but it is easy to find graphics on Etsy. You can buy a graphic for $2 and print it off at Office Depot.”
Hardwiring lights. “While it is easy to replace a light fixture, if you have to start from scratch, I would hire out electrical work. It’s just safer.”
Rehabbing furniture. “Unless it’s a really intricate piece, it’s pretty easy to refinish or stain a piece of furniture you find at a consignment store. It’s easy and it can save you so much money.”
Plumbing or drainage work. “The problem here is that it’s too easy to mess up, and you can end up with a really expensive mistake.”
Making your own headboard. “Maybe you can’t build a bed, but it’s really easy to follow a tutorial for making a headboard. We built two in the afternoon while our girls were napping.” Phone a Professional: Five Projects Best Left to the Experts Sometimes, however, it’s better to leave it to the pros. When faced with one of these jobs, Tasha
Installing natural stone tile. “Natural stones are not totally uniform in thickness, and you have to level them with the mortar. When we did it in a bathroom, it turned out great but it was painstaking. I’m not sure I would do it again.” For more tips and how-tos visit Tasha’s blog at designertrapped.com. — h Robin Sutton Anders is a Greensboro-based writer who has big dreams of renovating her laundry room.
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336.714.6848 | navigationbysalemtowne.org 28 SEASONS •
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STYLEBOOK
HUNT & GATHER
Red, White and Blueberries Look no farther than Gibsonville to find your Blueberry Thrill By Annie Ferguson Photographs by Amy Freeman
y children think frozen blueberries are dessert. They “sneak” them from the freezer only to be betrayed moments later by indigo-hued lips so deeply tinged you’d think they’d been swimming in the Arctic. Considering blueberries have zero fat, 80 calories a cup and antioxidant properties, health-conscious moms call this superfood obsession a win-win-win. What could be sweeter? Well, fresh blueberries, of course. That, and living near Gibsonville’s aptly named Blueberry Thrill Farm where we can pick blueberries to our hearts’ content for two straight months. Rick and Nanette Langhorne have owned the pick-your-own produce farm since 1982. “Believe it or not, blueberries weren’t popular in the Piedmont 30 years
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STYLEBOOK ago. Some didn’t even know what they were,” Rick Langhorne says. “It may be hard to believe, but people just didn’t grow up eating them.” Yet the berries are native to North America, he notes. In fact, Native Americans called them star berries because the blossom end of the fruit forms a star-shaped scar. “People often say things are as American as apple pie, but apples aren’t native to this country; it’s really blueberries.” Langhorne explains. Because they’re a native fruit, the United States has a huge head start in production, growing 90 percent of the world’s blueberries. North Carolina ranks No. 7 in U.S. production, with the eastern part of the state growing the lion’s share of the state’s haul. The Langhornes grow three varieties of Southern Highbush blueberries, which ripen early and aren’t common to the area. This keeps visitors getting their “thrill on blueberry hill” from early June to early August when the later varieties ripen. Langhorne says everything’s looking fabulous for all their crops this year barring any unpredictable weather issues (check their Facebook page for details). The farm also offers pick-your-own blackberries, peaches, apples and flowers during the same timeframe as the blueberries. A veritable fount of information, Rick can tell you just about anything you want to know about the crop varieties. Be sure to ask him about their Johnny Appleseed apples. Nanette can be found directing customers to the crops (and to Rick advising customers in the field) as well as ringing up orders and providing shears for picking flowers. Undoubtedly there are countless responsibilities for running a successful farm, but the Langhornes make it look easy. If Rick’s positive predictions are any indication, my kids are sure to pick enough blueberries to warrant throwing a few in the freezer even if Mom says fresh is best. h
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STYLEBOOK
SEASON TO TASTE
A Moveable Feast late summer afternoon, a slight breeze, a golden cast to an expanse of grass where kids toss a Frisbee, dogs squirm contentedly on their backs, and where a red-checked tablecloth is spread out for a picnic. What’s in the basket? We asked a couple of our favorite foodie friends to contribute to a satisfying, moveable feast.
A
festival in Knoxville many years ago. It is a little unusual and people are pleasantly surprised when they taste it.”
1618 Midtown, 1724 Battleground Ave., Greeensboro, (336) 285-9410 or 1618midtown.com Grilled Lamb Chops Chef Jon Player’s grilled lamb chops upon a blood-orange, cucumber salad topped with Vidalia-onion jam
Salem Kitchen, 50 Miller St., Winston-Salem, (336) 722-1155 or salemkitchen.com Tennessee Cornbread Salad 2 boxes Jiffy cornbread mix made as directed on box (We use our homemade cornbread.) 1/2 pound bacon 2 chopped tomatoes 1 chopped cucumber 1 chopped red onion 1 chopped green pepper 1 cup ranch salad dressing 3/4 cup mayonnaise 3 tablespoons sweet pickle relish Cube cornbread. In a large bowl add cornbread, bacon, tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and green pepper. In a separate bowl, combine ranch dressing, mayonnaise and sweet pickle relish. Gently stir in liquid mixture to cornbread mixture. The recipe, says Salem Kitchen President Elizabeth Johnson, makes about 5 pounds. “It was found by my sister at a cornbread Summer 2018
Blood orange vinaigrette In blender or food processor, combine: 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard 3 cloves garlic 1 shallot 3 tablespoon sugar 1/3 cup rice-wine vinegar 2/3 cup salad oil ( olive or canola) Salt to taste Splash of fresh lemon juice Vidalia-onion jam 3 onions 1 cup vinegar 2 cups sugar Splash of lemon juice 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 teaspoon nutmeg Dice onions. Put in a sauce pot with vinegar and sugar, and SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 33
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STYLEBOOK cook until caramelized. Add a splash of lemon juice and cinnamon and nutmeg. Cool in fridge for an hour. Slice lamb chops and season with salt and pepper. Grill for about 2 minutes a side. Toss the salad in vinaigrette, add slices of blood oranges and sliced cucumber and arrange in a bowl. Place grilled chops atop the salad, finishing them with the jam. Lemon Strawberry tart Executive Pastry Chef Cherish Cronin’s lemon strawberry tart with ginger honey glaze Basic cookie dough for tart shell 3 cups all-purpose flour 2 cups butter, room-temperature 1 cup sugar 2 eggs Vanilla to taste Cream butter and sugar until soft. Add eggs one by one, still beating slowly. Add vanilla. Mix in flour until incorporated. Roll out dough until about 1/8-inch thick. Spray pie tin and carefully place dough into tin. Line dough with either parchment paper or plastic film wrap. Fill with dry baking beans and bake for 8 minutes. Remove beans and continue baking the shell until golden brown. Lemon curd 1 1/2 pounds (6 sticks) butter 1 cup sugar
2/3 cup of fresh lemon juice 4 large eggs 21/2 egg yolks 2 tablespoons butter Melt the butter, sugar, and lemon juice in a double boiler, stirring constantly. In a separate bowl whisk together yolks and eggs. Once butter mixture is warm and sugar is melted completely, gradually stir in the egg mixture. Continuously whisk the mixture, until it reaches the ribbon stage, about 15-20 minutes. At the very end, stir in butter until melted. Place the bowl in an ice bath, stirring occasionally until cold. If egg lumps develop, push the mixture through a sifter. Ginger honey glaze 1/4 cup sugar 1/4 cup water 1/2 cup honey 2 tablespoons minced, fresh ginger Bring sugar, water and ginger to a simmer. Allow the mixture to simmer for about 5 minutes. Strain out ginger and mix with honey. Final assembly: Strawberry preserves Fresh strawberries Whipped cream (optional) Unmold tart shell. Line tart shell with a thin layer of strawberry preserves. Fill tart with lemon curd. Top tart with cut strawberries. Drizzle or brush honey glaze on strawberries just before serving Add whip cream, if desired. h
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Summer 2018
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Midsummer Magic June 30 | Gerard Schwarz, conductor | William Wolfram, piano
Romance
Sat. July 7 | Dana Aud. | Guilford College | 8:00 pm Gerard Schwarz, conductor Anne Akiko Meyers, violin
Crossing Currents July 14 | Gerard Schwarz, conductor | Misha Dichter, piano
American Stories
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36 SEASONS •
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JUNE 23-JULY 28
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Summer 2018
STYLEBOOK Food for Thought
Summer Almanac By Ash Alder
ummer is here and you are fishing on the bank with Papa, readjusting his faded straw hat seconds before it slips down your brow again. You barely notice. You are busy staring at the water’s surface, thinking about the dancing cricket at the end of the line. Summer sends us time traveling. Shucking sweet corn on the front porch with Mama. Potato-sack racing with cousins. Sparklers on the lawn. Ripe blackberries straight from the bush. But nothing tastes sweeter than summer love. You relive that first kiss, stolen beneath the Southern magnolia. Daydream on the tire swing while the evening shimmers with a thousand living, blinking lights. Papa reaches for the bagged lunch you packed together, unwraps a tomato sandwich, takes a pull of iced tea from the thermos. He is flashing back to his own childhood summers when you feel the tug on your line. You wrestle a tiny sunfish, straw hat now slipping over your eyelids. The fish is too small to take home, but Papa won’t let you know it. He puts down his sandwich to help you remove the hook. You slip your first-ever catch into papa’s bucket. He lifts the straw hat from your eyes, winks and kisses your brow.
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Summer doesn’t last forever. We’ve lived long enough to know that. As the cicadas serenade you into dreamy oblivion, allow visions of your autumn garden to come into focus. Plant seeds. Beans, carrots, Brussels, greens . . . A gardener must always plan ahead.
Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language. — Henry James
Cozy with the Crickets Sure as the summer garden yields ripe cantaloupe and sun-kissed tomatoes, the Perseid meteor shower returns. Following the new Sturgeon moon on August 11, the annual show will peak on the night of Sunday, August 12, until the wee hours of Monday, August 13. A thin crescent moon should make for excellent viewing conditions. Cozy up with the crickets. Breathe in the intoxicating perfume of this summer night. Look up. Believe in magic.
Midsummer Perhaps stemming from the ancient Druid belief that Litha, aka Summer Solstice, symbolizes the “wedding of Heaven and Earth,” many consider June an auspicious month for marriage. This year, Solstice falls on Thursday, June 21. Celebrate the longest day of the year with sacred fire and dance. Now until December 21, the days are getting shorter. Sip slowly the magic of these golden hours. When the sun sets on Saturday, June 23, bonfires will crackle beneath a near-full moon in the spirit of Saint John’s Eve. On this night, ancient Celts powdered their eyelids with fern spores in hopes of seeing the wee nature spirits who dance on the threshold between worlds.
Listen . . . Emerson fancied that the Earth laughs in flowers. Perhaps you know what he meant. Phlox and milkweed giggle sweetly. Ditto sourwood and torch lilies. Crape myrtle and Rose of Sharon. Trumpet creeper sounding all the while. Summer 2018
The hum of bees is the voice of the garden. —Elizabeth Lawrence
Lady’s Fingers Some like it hot. Some like it cold. Whichever your preference, fresh okra is one of summer’s most delicious offerings. Also called lady’s fingers, okra is a member of the mallow family (think cotton, hollyhock, hibiscus). The edible seedpods of this flowering plant are rich in vitamins and minerals that promote healthy vision, skin and immune system. Because it’s an excellent source of fiber, okra also promotes healthy digestion. Father’s Day falls on Sunday, June 17. Say “I love you” with a jar of pickled okra — from the farmers’ market and with a kick.
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Summer 2018 “We might think we are nurturing our garden, but of course it’s our garden that is really nurturing us.” Jenny Uglow, British author
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A Life Made by Hand How a pair of childhood lovebirds became two of the South’s most respected preservationists and collectors of rare antiques By Jim Dodson • Photographs by John Gessner
t’s an old-fashioned love story and kind of a funny,” says Dr. Tom Sears Jr. with a smile. “I suppose you don’t hear many stories like ours these days. It’s almost like we were destined to be together from the very beginning. We were even delivered by the same physician, Dr. Hubbard.” From such humble beginnings grew a love story of a different kind that eventually transformed Tom and Sara Sears into a pair of the South’s leading authorities on Southern decorative arts, enabling them to assemble one of the region’s finest collections of antiques and create a meticulously handmade home in Greensboro that is a living tribute — and nothing short of a stunning museum — to the glorious craftsmanship of the past. Young Tom Sears was in the first grade in tiny West Jefferson when he met shy and pretty Sara Hunter. Tom was the class clown, aping to make his classmates laugh. Sara giggled at his, well, tomfoolery. The two shared classes all the way to the fourth grade, when Tom’s family moved to Apex, where his father, Thomas Sr., took on broader duties as a statewide appraiser for the Department of Agriculture. “Dad was really an agricultural missionary, helping farmers across the state improve their yields. He was gone six days of the week.” This was followed by another move to working-class Gillespie Park in Greensboro, just as Tom entered ninth grade, where he made good grades, played on the basketball team and was elected vice president of his class. “My folks were hard working people who didn’t really understand the peer pressures in a big city school,” he reflects. His next year at Greensboro High (now Grimsley) illustrated the point. “It was the toughest year of my life. I mowed lawns and delivered papers but never quite fit in. Those kind of things stay with you.” A third move saw the Sears family relocate to tiny McLeansville, where Tom graduated in a class of 21 as class salutatorian, and one of only seven kids in Guilford County to be nominated for a Morehead Scholarship. He just missed earning a Morehead. Looking back, however, he thinks, this kind of social baptism by fire strengthened his resolve to do things his own way — literally, with his own hands. Hard weather, as a saying in the country goes, makes good timber. Tom’s Baptist faith helped him endure the sting of disappointmnent along the way, aided by Christmas cards and Valentine greetings from his childhood friend, Sara Hunter. “I knew from the eighth grade that I wanted to work with my own hands, either as a surgeon or dentist because that would give my life more control,” he remembers. By the end of high school, he’d settled on dentistry. A guidance counselor suggested he consider Elon or Guilford College, which had strong
“I
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programs in science and mathematics. Elon offered him a scholarship along with a job as a dorm counselor. During his freshman year, he and Sara, a student at Greensboro College, reconnected and finally started dating. The After three years at Elon, Tom was accepted at UNC Dental School where, four years later, he graduated with honors. He planned to spend a year working as a general practice dentist in Greensboro before going on to orthodontic training at UNC, but three weeks into the job received his draft notice, winding up in Oklahoma serving as a captain in the United States Army Dental Corps. In 1966, the couple married and Sara joined Tom for two years in Oklahoma before returing to Chapel Hill. The couple moved into student housing. Upon graduation, Tom’s talent for brilliant lab work and skilled hands eventiually earned him several offers to join leading
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practices around the state. He chose a popular orthodontics practice in Greensboro. he Sears’ love story might have taken a very different turn had a friend back in their student housing days in Chapel Hill not observed a spinning wheel and old dental cabinet in their otherwise Spartan apartment, assuming that they might fancy antiques. “We’d really never given antiques much of a thought,” admits Sara, who laughs at the memory of their first live antiques auction they attended in the western part of the state. She raised her hand to bid $15 on a grain measure, painted blue, and sold it to the man who bid against her for $16. Sara likes to say the couple more or less “stumbled” into their pas-
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sion for antiques, old houses and historic preservation. As Tom put it to The Magazine ANTIQUES in 2012, still nimble with a joke half a century after breaking up their first grade class, “Sara put up her hand and never put it down.” As Tom’s practice thrived — his steady hands went on to shape and correct thousands of Triad mouths and jaws over the next 38 years — the couple’s fascination with antiques took on a life of its own. At an auction in Ashe County in 1970, they acquired their first real antique for $75 — a 19th-century pie safe made by a North Carolina cabinetmaker named George Washington Ray. The collecting bug bit hard. As Tom is wont to say, “Antiques are living pieces of history. They tell a story if you take the time to listen.” The couple took a deep dive into antiques literature, attending lectures and hitting live auctions from the Carolinas to New England. “We’d hoped to start a family right away but since that didn’t happen as hoped we devoted our vacations to seeing museums and historic houses up and down the East Coast.” Tom explains. “We bought some nice pieces and met important people who deepened our understanding of preservation and the beauty of old things.” In 1973, one of the key people who stoked the fires of preservation passion was Dr. Laurence Alspaugh, a fellow Greensboro dentist and serious collector who, along with wife Helen, more or less took Tom and Sara under their wings. The Alspaugh house in Greensboro was an exact brick-for-brick reproduction of the Lightfoot House in Summer 2018
Colonial Williamsburg. “Thanks to them we began to learn about architecture and America’s rich tradition of decorative arts,” Tom says. Visits to Williamsburg, Delaware’s Winterthur and Old Salem led to their first lectures at the Museum of Early American Decorative Arts (MESDA) in the historic Moravian settlement. Inspired by a subsequent tour of a well-preserved Federalist houses along the Shenandoah Valley, the couple decided to build their own house based on a historic property, brick-by-brick. “From our first visit, Old Salem really spoke to me,” Tom remembers. “The precision and orderliness, the beautiful architecture and amazing craftsmanship of the buildings and furniture . . .” he trails off. “Sara’s heritage was half-Moravian and I had been a Baptist all my life, but I fell in love with the Moravian approach to life, their focus and humble style and great workmanship, nothing ostentatious, strong middle-class tastes, nothing sloppy. I never did anything sloppy. The Moravian way spoke to me.” So did, in particular, the Federalist brick house built by John Vogler in 1819, a gifted silversmith and watchmaker who lived to be 97 and served the Old Salem community in various capacities over a long and productive life. Ironically, the Searses first saw a drawing of the Vogler house in a monograph on Colonial American Architecture at an antiques shop in Southbury, Connecticut, during one of their extended antique sorties. In a word, it was love at first sight. The clean lines and saw-tooth brickwork of Vogler’s house beSEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 47
came their inspiration and working model for the home they hoped to build someday in Greensboro. That same year — 1976 — Bill Moore, a good friend who served as director of the Greensboro Historical Museum, (now Greensboro History Museum), drove the couple to see an abandoned house in northeast Guilford County. “It had been sitting vacant for 31 years. The outside looked like it was about to collapse,” Sara remembers. “The insides, however, were something incredible.” “It blew our preservationist socks off,” Tom adds, ever the quipster. Built in 1815 by a wealthy planter named Francis Lucas Simpson, the only thing they found worth saving was a trove of painted woodwork, wainscoting, fireplace mantels, window trim and doors. Unfortunately the main chimney was infested with bees and wreathed by poison ivy. Sears paid the owners of the house — which was scheduled to be demolished — $800 a room for the chance to meticulously take apart four rooms, piece by piece. This the couple accomplished over three bone-chilling weekends in 1977, when bees and poison ivy weren’t a danger, dismantling the place with the precision of a surgical orthodontist rebuilding a patient’s jaw. Tom did the removal work himself, while Sara and his father toted pieces out to a truck, to be housed in the couple’s basement. In his workshop, while keeping up his busy dental practice by day, Tom cleaned every piece by hand, using an extra set of dental instruments. One of the rooms he took apart was donated to the Greensboro Historical Museum. Later that year, they embarked on an even more ambitious project — the reproduction of the reproduction of the historic John Vogler House from Old Salem, near Greensboro’s Bill Craft Park.
ith master builder D.C. Patton from Burlington and woodworker Roger Harvell from Greensboro (who once worked for famed designer Otto Zenke) — not to mention a lot of their own sweat equity — the Searses raised a near perfect replica of the Vogler House, incorporating three rooms of the Simpson house into their new home. It included five fireplaces and eventually a copy of Old Salem’s bake house for a tool shed, plus a replica of the Moravian firehouse on the square for a garage. “We moved into the house before it was finished,” Sara explained to a visitor during a recent walk-through, pointing out 90-year-old pine floors that came out of a Durham warehouse and the Simpson mantels and woodworking that glow as if they were displayed in a MESDA gallery. Tom cleverly built door panels into the kitchen counter, “giving us, I figure, the oldest kitchen cabinets in Greensboro,” she jokes. The dining room, master bedroom and library are the original Simpson rooms. The house’s beautiful rooms are furnished with period pieces the couple has spent decades seeking out and collecting, some of them made by important Carolina cabinetmakers Mordecai Collins and his apprentice John Swisegood. A Swisegood corner cabinet anchors their dining room. Their breakfast room contains a cupboard made by Mordecai Collins, circa 1810, a chandelier copied from the original one that hung in Old Salem’s Home Moravian church, and a staircase handrail and baluster Tom decided to copy from Old Salem’s Tavern, circa 1784. On the staircase landing stands a tall and stately 1810 clock once owned by a Quaker family from Guilford County. Their upstairs bedroom features a magnificent four-poster bed made of tiger maple
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by a celebrated Old Salem craftsman and a handsome blanket chest with decorative inlay, a rarity in Moravian furniture. Over the mantel hangs an 1885 painting of Trinity College — which began life in Northern Randolph County but eventually moved to Durham to be renamed Duke University. Since Tom’s retirement from dentistry in 2002, the couple has devoted their lives to preserving important pieces of furniture, traveling to seminars and workshops to deepen their encyclopedic knowledge of Southern antiques and — in Tom’s case — taking his passion one step further by becoming a master furniture maker in his own right. In the dining room stands a set of six rare Annapolis chairs, circa 1755, that Tom has made eight additional exact replicas of. He has transformed himself into such an accomplished craftsman and now serves on the executive council of the Society of American Period Furniture Makers. His immaculate workshop at the rear of the house even boasts a pair of massive antique work tables from Wisconsin and Iowa that are so spick and span, they don’t look a minute over 100 years old. Various civic and woodworking awards adorn the walls, along with a citation from the governor announcing Tom’s induction into the Order of the Longleaf Pine Society. Just outside his workshop door — a massive affair with 2-and-1/2-inch double panel mahogany that Tom copied from an Old Salem original herringbone pattern — hangs a whimsical wood sign that announces the name of this handmade paradise — “Crow Hill.” Over the decade and a half, both Searses have served as advisors on the Board of MESDA, with Tom doing a two-year stint as chairSummer 2018
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man. He remains a member of the board of Old Salem Museums & Gardens and director of Grounds and Buildings. “I haven’t been over there,” he quips, “since yesterday.” That’s appropriate since their love of the restoration extends to a second hisitoric house the couple purchased in the heart of the Moravian settlement in 2010 and has faithfully restored since that time. “Tom worried that we might not have enough period furniture to fill it with,” Sara loves to tell furniture groups that have toured their Vogler-inspired home in Irving Park. “I asked him , ‘Have you looked in our attic lately?’” Somehow over the past two decades, he’s served as a board member of Youth For Christ in Greensboro and recently oversaw the refurbishment of the 1914 bungalow on North Elm Street — a former dentist’s office, naturally — that serves more than 1,400 kids across Guilford County. The expanded facility is scheduled to open this June, celebrating the 70th year of YFC in Greensboro. “It’s been quite a journey,” Tom Sears says as he walks his visitor
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down a pebble stone driveway that resembles the streets one finds in Colonial Williamsburg. “When Sara and I started out in our married life way back when, we never imagined anything like this. We both wanted children. But since that never happened, we were fortunate to make a life in which we can share love of the past and help others learn to appreciate it. “Besides,” he adds, “I have thousands of kids all over this region whose teeth I fixed and lives I helped shape with my hands. I still see them, as young people who have grown up, but they always thank me for what God gave me the ability to do.” “Do you have any advice to them?” “Yes,” he answers quickly, with a coy little smile. “I tell them: ‘Don’t forget to wear your retainers!’” h As he gets long in the tooth, Jim Dodson has asked Tom Sears for a set of historically correct wooden dentures, if necessary.
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The Art and Magic of Living A storied High Point home enters its third act By Nancy Oakley • Photographs by John Gessner
n 2013, after they had been house hunting for two years, Patrick and Susan Harman had more or less decided on a modern-looking house in High Point’s Emerywood Forest neighborhood. A contemporary look was familiar to Susan, who had grown up in Miami. “Then our Realtor, Elizabeth Sheffield, said, ‘Let me show you one more house.’ It was a gray, rainy March day,” Susan recalls, when they drove through Old Emerywood. After a quick turn on a side street, there it was, crowning a steep hill carpeted with grass and surrounded by old hardwoods: a stately manse with a beige stucco exterior and red-tiled, hip roof. “She showed it,” Susan continues, “And Patrick . . . When I saw his face . . . It didn’t matter what I wanted,” she says with a broad, easy grin. “He’s so stoic. I have to watch for those facial cues. Me? Everybody says, ‘Susan! I know what kind of day you’re having!’” Something about the house had spoken to her husband’s quiet, pensive nature, a complement to her lively animated demeanor. “I grew up in High Point and really wanted an elegant home,” Patrick says. “I came in this house, saw the library . . .” His blue eyes sparkle as he recalls the moment, before continuing. “Old houses have more character. They’re not cookie-cutter.” And this one is anything but. “It is important because of its unusual architectural style,” says Preservation Greensboro President and High Point native Benjamin Briggs. “My gut instinct on this
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house is, High Point was adventurous in its architecture in the 1920s, I think because it was involved in the furniture and design industries,” he adds. Period revival — Tudor, Dutch Colonial, and so forth — was de rigueur among the city’s prosperous citizens, each “giddy” to choose a different architectural style. “That’s where magic happens,” says Briggs. This particular piece of magic was conjured in 1923 by Arthur Ernest Taplin, a civil engineer and builder who helped develop Emerywood and another Uptowne suburb, Sherrod Park. The house bears similar characteristics — the stucco walls and hipped roof — of the better-known A.E. Taplin Apartment Building on nearby Parkway Avenue. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the apartment building (where A.E. Taplin and his wife, Ruth, lived until construction on their house was completed in 1927) is often described as “Spanish Colonial Revival.” But in Briggs’s view, the Taplin house is closer to Italian Renaissance style. “A Spanish style would have had a lower pitched roof and lower eves,” he observes. “This is a tripartite house with a pavilion over the door. There’s symmetry. Popping out are classical columns by the front doorway, rounded arches . . . It’s right out of Andrea Palladio [architect of the Italian Renaissance.] The English copied Palladio.”
hich might explain its appeal to Patrick Harman, an ardent Anglophile, whose shelves of books in the lovely pinepaneled library he so cherishes include tomes from British history to U.K. travel guides — and a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories. “Patrick likes to study the struggles of the working classes,” Susan explains, as the two prepare for a trip to Shrewsbury and its environs. During his stint as an adjunct in political science and public policy at Elon University, Patrick was, in 2016, recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship to University of Durham, where he could study how the Brits approach community revitalization programs. The sabbatical would inform his role as executive director of his family’s philanthropic organization, the Hayden-Harman Foundation. Formed in the early aughts by Patrick’s mother, Phoebe Norville Harman, a native of Alamance County, and his father, Pat, of NorthState Communications, the foundation has supported myriad causes in the Burlington area such as Alamance Regional Medical Center and the Children’s Museum of Alamance County, as well as initiatives in High Point, including the John Coltrane International Jazz & Blues Festival and revitalization efforts of the city’s historic African-American business and entertainment district along Washington Street. Having retired from UNCG’s SERVE Center, where she and Patrick met while working as senior evaluation specialists, Susan lends a hand to the foundation, particularly with writing grants. Otherwise, her days are filled serving on boards, volunteering and working on her lifelong passion, art. Her pieces such as a felt landscape she fashioned while she and Patrick were in England, along with colorful gallery
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acquisitions — with her favorite pops of red — adorn all the rooms. She works on various projects in a small studio in the back of the property, and for 13 years has taken classes from local watercolorist Alexis Lavine and has collected several of the artist’s works. usan comes by her talent naturally, from her mother, Virginia Cary Stemples. “She couldn’t stand to have her hands still,” Susan recalls. “We’d be watching TV and she’d be knitting. She did ceramics, so she had a great knowledge of mixing glazes, and that’s a mix of chemistry and just smelling; what works and what doesn’t. Just a wonderful, wonderful woman, and I’m just so thankful that she was my mom.” Several of her mother’s sculptures are scattered throughout and each one has a backstory: On the dining room mantel is an early mother-and-child relief sculpture, Caring, (“This piece she hated,” Susan says. “She hid it on a shelf where my dad would put the mail behind it.”) Farther down the mantel is an animal sculpture done in I976 and puckishly titled Bison-tennial. Elongated metal figures reminiscent of Modigliani (“during her welding phase in the 1970s,” Susan explains) stand sentry by the front door. Across from them is
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a similar one, “a pivotal piece,” when her mom was transitioning from metal to wood. The wood sculptures are more rounded, such as the two hugging figures that comprise Comforted. It was done from a photograph of Susan as a child, bidding farewell to a playmate when her family moved from Chicago. “She always wanted people to touch her sculptures to create that connection.” And a connection to Susan’s father, John Graydon (“Gray”) Stemples, as well, for he and Susan would take the family’s Boston Whaler out on Florida’s waterways to retrieve pieces of wooden flotsam and jetsom broken off from other boats or ships. “He’d collect this,” Susan recalls. “Work with it, sand it, or whatever to prepare it for my mom’s work. So any piece like this of my mom’s in wood, my dad found it somewhere in the water or on a beach.” Including two more pieces, Sibling Rivalry, a comic tower of children literally climbing over one another, and the rounded, cherubic figure, Cary, named after the Harmans’s eldest child, who along with sisters Allison and Meredith, have grown up and flown the nest. When the Harmans bought it in 2013, the nest, to Susan’s artistic eye, “had so much potential,” for it had been home to the same family for 50-plus
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years. Benjamin Briggs remembers driving by the place with his father, who always commented, “That’s Jack Rochelle’s house.” John Hardin “Jack” Rochelle was one of High Point’s larger-than-life figures, known as much as a business and civic leader as the head of Globe Furniture Company. He was also a passionate outdoorsman and all-around bon vivant. He and his wife, Gloria, purchased the house in 1961 — from its original owner and builder, A.E. Taplin. “My mother had always loved that house,” says Rose Marie Boone, the youngest of the Rochelle daughters, along with Ashley Culler and Julie Rochelle-Stephens. “It was white.” Family lore has it that Gloria Rochelle had gone to Charleston, S.C., for a weekend. “And Dad knocked on the door and said, ‘My wife really loves this house,’” Boone recalls, admitting that the mists of time and memory might have burnished, if not embellished, the absolute facts. “But I think my mother came home from Charleston and got the house she’d always wanted,” she says. For Boone and her sisters, “Growing up there, it was a wonderful home, but truly a home.” She remembers her parents — “big entertainers” — throwing Christmas parties, and St. Patrick’s Day parties, for which they were known. “They had a player piano and I got to stay up for the party, because I was small enough to pump the pedals,” Boone says. “They had green beer, green everything. One year Dad put green dye on his white hunting dog. That took the cake!” She recounts summers on the huge screened porch, a later addition “where we lived,” because the house had no air conditioning. And the backyard “which went on and on,” with pockets and secret passageways cordoned off by hedges of boxwoods. The breakfast nook was a
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favorite of her mother’s, who in later, years, liked to sit by its windows watching the birds. “They loved that home,” Boone says wistfully, adding that one of its practical features, an elevator, allowed them to stay in it for so long. he elevator was one of many elements that caught Susan and Patrick’s attention as they set about to refresh the 1920s confection. But first things first: “We had to have about 10 trees removed,” Susan says. Likely there since A.E. Taplin’s day, the towering hardwoods “were threatening the house,” Patrick explains, remembering some of them crashing down during the ice storms of 2014. The next step was to refurbish the garage apartment, where the Harmans lived for 10 months while the house was being renovated. “You should have seen these three guys carrying this big piece of granite up the stairs,” she says of the kitchen countertop. Their contractor, Bill Waller, came up with the idea of installing a tray ceiling to accommodate Patrick’s height. And a good thing, too, given that the apartment’s current tenant, Blake Tickle, a first-year divinity student at Wake Forest, is a few inches taller. “I think of it as a treehouse,” Susan says of the comfortable space furnished with Mission-style pieces and a few vintage lamps from one of downtown Greensboro’s shops. A painting of jazz musicians hangs prominently as an homage not only to the Coltrane jazz festival but also to Patrick’s and Tickle’s love of music. Both play in the band at their church, Fellowship Presbyterian, on New Garden Road in Greensboro, where Tickle is music director. “That’s what happens when you’re middle-aged,” jokes Patrick. “You go from playing in a rock band to playing in the church band.” For Tickle, the living arrangement is ideal. He can study in peace and quiet,
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“But there’s the security of knowing, if I need anything, they’re there,” he says of his landlords and friends. While the Harmans inhabited the apartment, the house would enter its third act. Its symmetry would not change dramatically. But the artist in Susan understood that the key to its transformation was to open up some of the spaces and let in more light. Patrick saw that a downstairs master bedroom would serve them in later years. What better use for that “huge” screened porch that Rose Marie Boone remembered from her childhood? The result is a calm, airy room in neutral tones, and a shower/steam room with double sinks converted from a narrow half-bath. Three small wrought iron chandeliers with crystal accents hang overhead. Susan chose them, along with everything else in the house. “I walked around for the longest time with pieces of granite and stone in my purse, like this,” she says, clowning around with one shoulder sagging, as if to ape the Hunchback of Notre Dame. “And I’d love to have a garden off the bedroom,” she adds, opening a pair of French doors. On the opposite side, a small fountain gurgles among playful metal sculptures of animals — birds, insects, a lizard — while a flagstone path leads to a patio where a bench invites one to sit and read or meditate among the hostas, Summer 2018
wind chimes and an impressive fig bush. In this lush oasis, it’s as if the city of High Point didn’t even exist. Just beyond is a fenced in grassy area where their two rescue Labs, Jackie and Hoover, can roam. Down another path is Susan’s studio, where, on a long worktable, lies a heap of clay rectangles, which many mistake for wind chimes. “It’s a surround to camouflage the air conditioner,” she explains. “Everybody says, ‘Susan, weren’t you making this a year ago?’” She laughs. “I got bored.” Adjacent is an old gardener’s shed, now a potting shed, and in between, Patrick’s vegetable garden, consisting of neat rows of tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, mint, basil and rosemary. Back up the pathway, one notices those secluded pockets. It ends at the circular driveway and garage, and where, eventually, the Harmans will install an archway by sculptor Jim Gallucci. Across the driveway, another set of French doors covered in elegant wrought iron grillwork leads to Patrick’s pride and joy, the library. With floorto-ceiling bookshelves, leather sofa and chairs before a fireplace (converted to gas), it exudes coziness, without a hint of stuffiness. “The bookshelves weren’t here; it took 13 iterations of stain to match the original [pine paneling],” Susan says. A couple of attached ladders that Henry Higgins would envy make for easy access to the top shelves. “I’ve used them,” Patrick says, proudly. SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 59
In the corner by a window is another addition, a bar. “I use the bar as my desk,” Patrick says. To lighten up the space, they had glass artist Skip White construct a panel that runs around the periphery near the ceiling, creating a pub-like effect. t echoes the use of glass in the front foyer, on the other side of the handsome, cherry-paneled dining room, where the Harmans’s gray cat, Sasha, leisurely strolls through. The front hallway, says Susan, “is where there’s the most change.” Starting with the stairs, which sagged and had to be reinforced. The hall’s original, cantilevered ceiling once extended all the way to its back wall, but again, Susan’s eye saw that it could be opened up, the upstairs railing reversed, creating more depth — not to mention a space for a chandelier. The room’s other significant modifications? The old elevator that was such a help to Jack and Gloria Rochelle in their waning years was converted to a powder room — handsomely decorated with a reproduction of a London Undergound poster from 1923, the year the house was built. The other major change to the foyer was the front door. In that the only source of light was the Palladian window above it, Susan asked Skip White to install two narrow glass windows on either side and fashion a beveled and slightly stained-glass panel for the door. It
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opens onto a flagstone terrace, which was laid on top of the original, badly damaged tile. “So thousands of years from now, if they chip away . . .” Susan jokes, trailing off. Standing on it, looking down at the long, grassy slope of lawn, she extols landscapist Benjamin Escalante, who maintains the lawn. “We couldn’t do everything we wanted to do at once,” Susan allows, “so I was like, Benjamin, let’s try this this week. Let’s do this much.’ So it’s a work in progress. But he is very patient with us and will do whatever,’” she says, stopping to admire a purple iris, likely planted by Gloria Rochelle years ago. “I just love her little touches,” Susan comments. She did little to Gloria’s favorite spot, the breakfast nook, with its charming built-in corner cupboards, other than persuade Bill Waller to remove the old linoleum and restore the floor to its original wood surface — a feat he didn’t think possible. In the kitchen/den or “keeping room,” a wide arch creates the illusion of a much bigger space. Throughout, Susan uses a palette of soft grays, the better to set off her cheery pops of red, whether a pair of salt and pepper shakers in the breakfast nook, or in the keeping room’s various accents: a crimson throw; a petal-shaped votive, a gift from Alexis Lavine; the red river in her felted landscape; the whimsical bright red figure (Susan’s) alongside another in silver (Patrick’s) attached to the den wall, as if they were scaling it.
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Upstairs, she has repeated the neutral tones in the baths, each of which was gutted and redone. “Gray-and-white lends itself to so many options; for example, if I want to bring in something gold,” she says pointing to an understated design in one of the bath linens. In the old master bedroom, two closets were converted into one, providing storage space for Patrick’s guitars. His eyes light up again when he recollects the chance to jam with English rockers Uriah Heep, a Valentine’s present that Susan somehow finagled. Otherwise the bedrooms await visits from their daughters and son-in-law. This summer, one will have another occupant, muralist Carolyn Roblyer from St. Croix, who will paint a public mural in High Point. The location has yet to be determined, but “It will be something to do with trains, because Patrick loves trains,” Susan says, “and the reason High Point was named ‘High Point,’” she adds, referencing the city’s position as the highest point on the North Carolina Railroad between Goldsboro and Charlotte. Otherwise, the Harmans will enjoy their home as a “quiet retreat.” They entertain “some,” says Susan, most notably when the renovation was completed in the summer of 2014. She approached a distant relative of the Rochelles. “I want to throw a party for the house,” she explained. “Because that means 50 years of people in this house. Friends came over. Family members. Year after year, after year. And all of a sudden a new family moves Summer 2018
in. And they’re going to drive by it every day or every week, and just wonder, ‘Gosh I wonder what they did?’” Among the guests were Rose Marie Boone and her sister Ashley Culler. “How lovely and gracious of Patrick and Susan to have us over,” Boone enthuses. “They invited not only our family but our extended family. Maybe 30 people. They let us walk through and spend as much time as we wanted in each room,” she says. Boone marveled at the renovations, particularly innovative changes such as the conversion of the elevator to powder room. “Susan would say, ‘I hope you like what we did.’ And I told her, ‘I promise you, my mother is so happy someone who loves this house is in this house. And my dad is thrilled he doesn’t have to pay for it! There are good vibes, I assure you.’” The good vibes will continue with Roblyer’s visit later this summer, and impending nuptials for one of the Harmans’s daughters. Susan would love to see a wedding on the long, flagstone terrace in front of the house. Should she get her wish, no doubt the spirits of Jack and Gloria Rochelle, Virginia and Gray Stemples, and perhaps A.E. Taplin himself, will hover about bestowing their blessings on the happy couple and enjoying the party. It isn’t such a farfetched notion. After all, this is a place where magic happens. h Nancy Oakley is the senior editor of Seasons and its flagship O.Henry. SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 61
Roaring Gap Club, 4th Hole
A Tale of Two Clubs Spiritual cousins from the Golden Age of American Golf, Winston-Salem’s Old Town and the Roaring Gap Club share more than sporting DNA By Lee Pace rom the third hole of R.J. and Katharine Reynolds’ six-hole golf course just to the northwest of the town of Winston-Salem in 1913, a golfer could see an ancient knob of quartzite reaching nearly 2,500 feet above sea level 19 miles away. So sweet was the view of Pilot Mountain before the trees grew up around what would become Reynolda House that Mrs. Reynolds named the hole “Pilot View.” And from the 17th green at Roaring Gap Club, when it opened in 1926, was a totally different view of the very same Pilot Mountain. Only this vantage point was from 28 miles to the west and from above — the course was perched at 3,500 feet, prompting club marketing officials to craft a line for a newspaper ad reading, “So high, so free, so spacious . . . . with air like wine . . . . dry invigorating, healthgiving. Roaring Gap is ‘Above All.’” That triangulation is interesting to consider today in the stories of Old Town Club, built on the western portion of the Reynolds family’s thousand-acre estate that gave birth to that long-since abandoned and rudimentary golf course, and Roaring Gap Club, situated an hour’s drive into the hills and offering flatlanders from the Triad and points beyond a perfect summertime escape
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Roaring Gap • Named for the speed with which the winds whipped through the mountains in Alleghany County. • Connected to one of North Carolina’s oldest industrial concerns, Chatham Manufacturing of Elkin, and to Pinehurst Inc., as the founding Tufts family was a partner in its creation. • Seen as a summertime destination for the same avid golfers who flocked to the Sandhills in the winter. • Designed, the course at least, by the Scottish architect Donald Ross and built with minimal earth-moving equipment, thus some holes are defended not with hazards but with rolling terrain alone. • Complemented at first by the Graystone Inn, patterned after George Washington’s Mount Vernon.
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Old Town Club, 18th Hole
And Old Town • Named for the 1759 Moravian village of Bethania founded 5 miles up Reynolda Road. • Connected to Augusta National as Old Town founder Charles Babcock was a Wall Street partner of Augusta co-founder Clifford Roberts. • Designed, again the course, by Perry Maxwell, earlier an associate to Alister MacKenzie before MacKenzie’s death in 1934.
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LAMBRECHT
• Joined at the hip with Wake Forest University as the campus sits to the north of the club and Deacon golfers from Lanny Wadkins to Webb Simpson plied their trade on the golf course. • Enchanced by amiable eccentricities like a double-green on eight and 17 and criss-crossing tee shots on nine and 18. Both clubs have vintage and esteemed Winston-Salem names of Reynolds, Hanes and Gray among their early directors and officers, and both have Hugh Chatham and his son Thurmond, the Elkin textile magnates, among early guiding forces. And both are five years into significant course restorations that ran the gamut from updating the agronomics to rebuilding greens and bunkers, plus adding a snippet of length here and there, and mostly burnishing the antique glow that make each a treasure to visit and play. The restoration counselors in each case were old souls from the architecture business — Bill Coore at Old Town and Kris Spence at Roaring Gap. “Old Town is very special to me,” says Coore, who played the course frequently in the 1960s as a student at Wake Forest and wannabe starter
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on the Deacon golf team. “The best golf courses I’ve seen were created by Mother Nature and are totally random. Nothing about nature looks planned or structured. That’s certainly what Old Town was in 1939 and I believe what it is today.” “Roaring Gap is absolutely my favorite place to go and play golf,” says Spence, the Greensboro-based architect and restoration specialist who began his relationship with the club in the early 2000s. “It’s so laid-back and comfortable and relaxed. You go in one screen door and out the other and you’re on the 18th green. The ambiance is one of a kind. I’ve had a long-time love affair with that place.” Dunlop White III, a Wake Forest graduate and Winston-Salem attorney, is a member at both clubs and was in a leadership role and at each during their respective makeovers — the Old Town project running from 2012–13 and Roaring Gap under the dozer from 2011–13. White is steeped in golf-course history and architecture, having served as president of the Donald Ross Society and currently working on the USGA’s Museum & Library Committee and Architecture Archive Committee. “Tradition and history are some of your greatest marketing tools,” White says. “A Perry Maxwell or a Donald Ross design is an attraction, but an authentic Perry Maxwell or Donald Ross design is one of the greatest marketing tools a club can have. Membership numbers and rankings on both courses have popped notably the last five years. “But the thing that made both restorations get approval was not the architectural themes,” White says. “There are too many opinions involved.” However, there’s one thing that everybody agrees upon: “That’s the agronomics stuff. Everybody wants great turf grass.” SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 63
MAP BY BY KEITH CUTTEN
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PHOTOGRAPH BY LARRY LAMBRECHT
Roaring Gap Club, 6th Hole
Golf was still in its infancy in the United States in the late 1890s when the idea of cobbling a summer vacation colony near the hamlet of Laurel Branch, some 30 miles northwest of Elkin, occurred to Hugh Gwyn Chatham. He was riding horseback through the mountains on a buying trip for the wool used by Chatham Manufacturing Company when he stopped in his tracks. “He was so struck with its splendor that he wanted everybody he knew in the world to come up there and see for themselves,” Dewitt, his daughter who had married into the Hanes family of Winston-Salem, once recalled. Chatham opened the Roaring Gap Hotel in 1894, and among his early guests were the Reynoldses from Winston-Salem. R.J. had the first plumbing on the mountain installed in his suite, drawing onlookers from miles around to inspect this contraption known as a bathtub. One traveler in a letter home was effusive in his excitement: “Nature here presents a panorama, extremely beautiful, grand and extensive, that may rank upon her masterpieces.” Fire razed the hotel in 1913, but Chatham was undaunted. When World
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War I ended in 1918 and the American economy first stabilized and then began expanding in 1920s, Chatham organized and launched Roaring Gap Inc. But his expertise was in textiles. He needed someone who understood the resort and golf businesses. “Mr. Tufts had made a fantastic thing out of the sandhills of Pinehurst and we needed somebody to come and build a new hotel and run the place,” DeWitt Hanes reflected. Tufts agreed to run the resort and he brought Ross, the Scotsman who by then had designed four courses at Pinehurst as well as the one at Mid Pines in Southern Pines, into the project at Roaring Gap. The golf course and a 65-room hotel opened for the 1926 summer season, and guests enjoyed golf, archery, horseback riding, piano recitals and a bountiful table. They were also in no hurry to get out of bed in the morning, flummoxing the native mountain folk who were up before the roosters. “The genius of Pinehurst resort management, regarded highly by an army SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 65
of sportsmen for several decades, discovered last year a summer field for its endeavors,” a 1927 Pinehurst Outlook story noted. “To habitués of North Carolina’s famous golf center, the growing need of a community that would carry on the Pinehurst tradition during suspension of activities here was fully recognized.” In those days it was an arduous trek — 150 miles of two-lane roads from Pinehurst west to Candor, north to Asheboro and Winston-Salem, then up U.S. Hwy. 21 into Alleghany County, the last five miles replete with steep grades and sharp turns. In the early 1930s, considerable private funds were spent planting rose bushes along the road, ergo the appellation “Road of Roses,” and an early ad for Roaring Gap described the 16-mile passage from Elkin as a “picturesque four-hour drive.” “My grandfather, my grandmother and their six children all loved going to Roaring Gap once their house was built in the 1920s,” says James A. Gray III, a Roaring Gap member into the third generation and native of Winston-Salem. “They would get on a train in Winston-Salem and go west to Elkin, where they spent the night. Then it was up the mountain by horse and buggy — taking a full day. Of course there were cars then, but no decent road up the mountain.” The Tufts family scaled back all of it operations during the Depression in the early 1930s and in 1933 ceased its management role at Roaring Gap. But under the steady guidance of Thurman Chatham and his family, the club matured into modern times. Bailey Glenn, who grew up in Winston-Salem and played golf as a boy at Forsyth and Old Town before going to Duke, was hired as the head golf pro at Roaring Gap in 1957 and stayed there until he retired in 1993. Son Bill Glenn has been running it since. The quaint clubhouse, built in 1939, remains intact. It’s relaxed and unpretentious and fits like a pair of comfortable slippers. There’s a modest grill where they make outstanding cheeseburgers and where Bailey Glenn used to feed
tomato sandwiches to the caddies, maintenance staff and golfers, as well, “With peeled tomatoes, that was a detail he insisted on,” says Bill. “I know this place has some creaks and has holes here and there, and as you travel around there are certainly better structures out there,” Bill continues. “But it seems like people who really ‘get’ this place appreciate it for what it is. They’ll say, ‘Golly, I wish I had something this simple back home.’” Chuck Duckett, a member from Greensboro, concurs. “I can take any group I want to Roaring Gap and they’ll love it,” he says. “And I can go out my back door with two beers and my dog and play a few holes and no one cares. And my dog can get a drink at the clubhouse because they’ve got a water dish outside for dogs.” Spence had previously refurbished Ross courses at Greensboro Country Club, the Omni Grove Park Inn in Asheville and Mimosa Hills in Morganton when he first started visiting Roaring Gap and spit-balling restoration concepts with White and club officials nearly a decade earlier. The quality of the turf had deteriorated enough that the club approved a significant project to be done over two winters from 2011–13. By using Ross’s original 1925 blueprints and digging up the greens and finding clues to the original dimensions, Spence replaced what had become round and “pancaked-shaped” greens with modern versions of the originals. He rebuilt bunkers that had lost their shapes or been buried and found several hundred more yards, stretching the course to nearly 6,500 from the black tees. The irrigation was totally rebuilt and great pains were taken to ensure the preservation of the original grass blends —roughly 70 percent poa annua, 20 bent and 10 mutations. “Too often in these restorations a course looks brand-new, and we didn’t want the course to look brand-new,” White says. “It was a restoration, and we wanted it to look old. And part of doing that was preserving the grass blends.”
Roaring Gap Club, 17th Hole
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY LARRY LAMBRECHT
Old Town Club, 12th Hole
While Roaring Gap is a late-spring-to-mid-October, second-home sort of club, Old Town is an urban club close to most members’ primary residences and was the second club to evolve in Winston-Salem in the early 20th century. Forsyth Country Club was launched in 1913 with William Neal Reynolds and P. Huber Hanes among its founders, and its 18-hole course was completed on land west of downtown in 1924 when Ross took an original nine holes built by A.W. Tillinghast and expanded and rerouted it. The club’s fortunes mirrored those of most in-town golf and country clubs conceived during that era (i.e. Biltmore Forest in Asheville in 1922 and Hope Valley in Durham in 1926) — it bolted from the gates as more people took up golf and looked for leisure pursuits during healthy economic times. But they all endured hiccups as the Depression unfolded in 1929. That year Mary Reynolds, daughter of R.J. and Katharine, married Charles Babcock, a New York investment banker, and in 1936 she inherited her father’s estate worth some $30 million. Forsyth was struggling during the height of the Depression, and the Babcocks and a group known as the “Young Turks” sensed the club’s imminent demise. They set out to create a new club on Reynolds land located just to the east of Reynolda House, and Old Town Club opened in 1939. (Ironically, Forsyth board member Dick Reynolds, one of R.J.’s four children, took affront to the new initiative and during the 1940s stepped up with a $170,000 donation to that club, bolstering its bottom line and giving it a springboard to survive and later thrive in the post World War II boom times.) Summer 2018
The Gray family with brothers Bowman and James serving in leadership roles at Reynolds Tobacco and in a host of Winston-Salem philanthropic endeavors in the mid-1900s, were members at Old Town as well as Roaring Gap. Jim III, today a business consultant in Durham, has fond boyhood memories of “growing up” at the club. “I learned to swim at the old round pool with a diving board that looked 50 feet tall when you are gazing up as an 8-year-old,” Gray says. “For lunch, I’ll never forget the wonderful hot dogs with relish in a white-paper ‘canoe’ topped off with a dessert of lime sherbet. We did it all — swim, golf, tennis. From weddings to deb parties . . . the time in 1965 a bunch of us hired the Tams for a party — it was lots of fun.” And then came Sundays, he reflects fondly: “Every Sunday after church at Home Moravian, our family had a big lunch at Old Town. The cinnamon buns were special. And who can forget the ageless and kind doorman, Frank? I wish I knew his last name like he knew mine! Back then that was just the way it was.” The distinctive look of the golf course at Old Town revolved around Perry Maxwell’s heavily contoured greens fraught with rolls, bubbles and nooks and his irregular shaped bunkers that took on a weathered look. The land pitched and rolled and the fairways were wide, and in one spot five fairways essentially meld into one another with only the waters of Silas Creek separating two of them. “The way Mr. Maxwell laid the golf course on the ground is fascinating,” says Coore, who began a lengthy and fruitful golf design business with Ben SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 67
Crenshaw in the mid-1980s. “It’s extraordinarily interesting. This is a hilly piece of ground. It’s not an easy site on which the lay a golf course. I’ve always told young architects and shapers, ‘If you want to study how to route a golf course on a hilly site and a small site, go to Old Town.’” As 2010 approached, the club was faced with needing to replace the 15-yearold greens that architect Bob Cupp had rebuilt in 1995. Logan Jackson — who was four years behind Coore at Wake Forest, was a multiple club champion at Old Town and, at the time, the club’s golf chairman — knew of Coore’s affection for Old Town and arranged for Coore to visit Winston-Salem while in North Carolina during his 2010–11 restoration of Pinehurst No. 2. They toured the course and had dinner with club president Joe Young. “Bill talked so much about how he loved Old Town,” Jackson says. “He spoke of things I’d never dreamed of, pointed out how this was done or that was done, how he’d taken little features to other courses he’d built. It was quite profound hearing an artist like Bill talk in such glowing terms about your golf course. “Joe and I agreed after that meeting, we had to make this happen.” The course was closed in late 2012 and reopened nine months later. The bunkers were lowered to their original profiles and rebuilt with native riverbed. Coore and his design associates labored for hours creating marquee bunkers such as the one on the right of the first fairway and to the rear of the 12th green. In some bunkers they left what Coore calls “scads” of turf, and design associate Dave Axland chiseled out two bunkers behind the 14th green that look, Coore says, like “alligator eyes.” “The bunkers on the old, classic courses left you the impression they had been formed over the years in some natural process from the wind, from erosion, from
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different grasses coming up,” Coore says. “They were, indeed, hazards and they weren’t maintained very much. They were very formidable looking and dramatic. “That’s what we tried to re-introduce at Old Town.” More than a thousand trees that were not there 70 years before were removed and the fairway lines expanded to allow the bounces and rolls of Maxwell’s strategy come into play; Old Town has 80 acres of manicured fairway versus 50 to 55 on many courses. Prevalent today are vistas of the broom sedge so native to the region bending with the wind; absent is the silly idea of having zoysia grass rimming the traps and keeping balls from rolling into them. Old Town has sprung to No. 23 in among “Classic Courses” in the nation in Golfweek’s rankings and No. 59 in the country in GOLF magazine. Roaring Gap is recognized among the top 100 “Classic Courses” by Golfweek as well. And both were among the three dozen courses nationwide that designer and author Tom Doak highlighted as “Gourmet’s Choice” in his update Confidential Guide book — those defined as courses which “stir the soul,” “offer something out of the ordinary,” and where you would “most want to take a good friend to play.” That’s 171 years combined between Old Town and Roaring Gap, two clubs with overlapping family trees, color palettes ranging from sepia and beige to green, mottled grasses and wispy edges. There are few flat lies among the 36 holes. Would that you simply step into your plus-fours and starched shirt, grip your persimmon-headed driver and give it a rip. h Lee Pace has been writing about golf from his home in Chapel Hill for three decades and is the author of a dozen books on the evolution of golf in the Carolinas.
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PHOTOGRAPHS BY BY ERIK KIEL
Old Town Club
MAP BY BY KEITH CUTTEN
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Water Babies Photographs by Lynn Donovan
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he French Impressionist giant Claude Monet spent the final 30 years of his life attempting to capture the perfection of water lilies in his summer garden at Giverny. He found them to be one of nature’s most exquisite creations, which explains why he devoted more than 250 paintings to the subject of water lilies. As a result, Monet’s water lily paintings rank among the most recognized and influential paintings of the 20th century. As our gifted nature photographer Lynn Donovan illustrates, however, you don’t have to venture as far as France to find the perfection of a summer water lily garden in bloom. Her own backyard pond suffices nicely. Even the frogs and dragonflies seem to concur, n’est-ce pas?
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LIFE&HOME
THE ARCHITECT’S SON
One Man’s Trash and Another Man’s Treasure Preservation, civic duty and the original Guilford County Courthouse By Peter Freeman Photographs by Amy Freeman
hy do you have that ugly thing in your front yard?” It was the sort of ridicule Phil and Gloria Kennett had become accustomed to, along with, “I’ll gladly pay for a bulldozer, Phil.” The year was 1987. The couple had just purchased a distinctive piece of property near the headwaters of the Deep River in Southwest Guilford County, an ideal spot in the country where they would build their dream house, just far away enough from the hurly-burly of town. There was just one “problem,” according to the previous owner, Mr. Hubie Stafford: an old, run-down structure perched prominently atop the hill on the fielded property surrounded by a variety of hardwoods. Though it may have held some historic significance, in Mr. Stafford’s view, the outbuilding was an eyesore that the Kennetts might just as soon forget. At first, Phil entertained notions of moving the derelict construction. But after listening to Mr. Stafford go on and on about how it had been hauled up the hill by a mule — Phil’s curiosity was piqued. Adding to his interest was an understated
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historic marker suggesting that the creaky old building may have been the original county courthouse. Using the observation skills of a State College engineer, he concluded that the building had lost a portion of its lower structure, quite possibly in the move up the hill. In time, Phil and Gloria decided to relocate the outbuilding to where he reasoned its original resting place might have been. A block foundation was added. And turning a deaf ear to the scorn of family and friends, the Kennetts, on at least two occasions, paid to have the old structure wrapped in tarpaper and roofed with galvanized metal. Although they had a pretty good hunch about its provenance and significance, Phil and Gloria solicited the expertise of others, including High Point and Guilford County Preservation groups. Preservation architects were hired to document the structure. Experts began to show various levels of interest in the building that served as a home and a travelers’ rest at an important area crossroad. The research revealed 18th-century construction techniques reminiscent of the European-inspired SEASONS • STYLE & DESIGN 75
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LIFE&HOME methods used in nearby Old Salem. Since then local historian and writer Charles Rodenbough has untangled the story of the original Guilford County Courthouse. He has gone to great lengths to recreate the history, the chronicles and the characters associated with the building and its surroundings, weaving the story into the fabric and history of central North Carolina. In a feature, titled, “The Mystery of Martinville,” published in the March 2016 issue of Seasons flagship publication, O.Henry magazine, Rodenbough references the significance of the structure that had been the Robert Lindsay House. Before taxes could be raised sufficient to the construction of the courthouse, the county court meetings were held in the house of Robert Lindsay on Deep River. When the Revolutionary War began, the courthouse was still under construction, so court continued to be held in the Lindsay house. Rodenbough has since led the charge toward an eventual restoration effort. I wait with great anticipation for the arrival of his far-reaching chronicle of the edifice, the people and the significance to our history. Interest in the courthouse is at an all-time high owing to the dedication and hard work of many people. But it took the patience, perseverance, timing and luck — all hallmarks of good preservation detective work — especially on the part of Phil and Gloria, to keep a vital piece of North Carolina’s past alive. I am reminded of the words of John Belle, another important steward for preservation and the founding partner of the Beyer Blinder Belle. Belle’s and his New York City architecture firm specialize in restoring and preserving historic landmarks, including the Grand Central Station Terminal, the main building on Ellis Island and the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the New York Botanical Garden. “Preservation is one of the highest forms of good citizenship,” Belle once said — a distinction the Kennetts have earned in full measure. h Peter Freeman is a practicing architect with an interest in preservation.
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LIFE&HOME
THE LANGUAGE OF HOME
Let’s Eat Out Or better yet, al fresco By Noah Salt ne dreamy summer many years ago, during a three-week sojourn across Italy and Greece, my wife, young son and I managed to eat every evening meal, and half of our lunches, al fresco — in other words, out of doors and in the spectacular open air of the Old World. Of course, it was August and dry season in that part of the Mediterranean, which meant the lunches were sunlit and the dinners cool and starry. A sunset dinner of wild boar and leeks in a fragrant olive orchard in Umbria stands tall in my gustatory memory of those languid days, while fish, fresh from the Ligurian Sea, grilled to golden perfection and served on a terrace in Camogli during its annual sardine festival still sets my bride’s heart aflutter. For his part, our son, now 28, recalls a simple Greek taverna on the water in tiny Parga. He played soccer with the local boys as Mom and Dad savored sea bass and grilled vegetables washed down by an Olympic-quality local red, cooled by a breeze straight off the Ionian Sea. There were similar open-air meals rendered perfect by views of the Corinthian Sea in Delphi, the buzz of a family reunion at a Chianti hilltop café, and a cozy seaside hotel in Crete where we imagined Queen Dido rising from the sea. “After such unforgettable food-with-a-view, I’ll never be able to eat indoors again,” my wife summed up as we reluctantly made our way home.
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In English, the word al fresco simply means “an activity, especially a meal that takes place in the open air.” Its origin is, not surprisingly, Italian, and was in common use throughout Europe as early as the mid-18th century, particularly popular in the Regency courts of England and France. The original Italian meaning of the word was “in the cool” or simply “in the fresh,” often used in the context of classical frescos, paintings on walls and ceilings when the plaster is still wet, a style of Early Renaissance art typified by Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper. Closer to home, you can see stunning frescoes by artist Ben Long IV at the tiny Holy Trinity Church in Glendale Springs, and its sister parish, St. Mary’s Church in West Jefferson, a lovely place to have a picnic on the grounds. A word to the wise if you use the word “al fresco” in Italy today, however. The common modern usage of the expression generally refers to someone being sent to jail. Despite its peculiar etymology and lovely quirk of the Romance language, Carolina summertime and the original concept of al fresco make ideal home companions for almost any activity one can dream up beneath the sun and stars. Around our house, because of those glorious hours eating our way across the ancient world, eating al fresco is simply taken for granted, something one does in the cool of the evening. h
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LIFE&HOME
HOMEWORDS
The Return The pull of home is just a morsel away By Jillian Weiss
could no longer remember what it was like to live in North Carolina. As I flew back to Greensboro after nine years of living in London, there was only one certainty: The next morning I’d be eating two perfectly toasted Eggos in my grandparents’ bright kitchen. I’d smear butter on the waffles and stare up at the framed photograph of my mother that hung between the pantry doors. She’d be standing in a long denim dress, her pregnant belly large and oddly pointed, waiting for my arrival. After that breakfast, who knew? My American childhood years had become so distant that North Carolina meant only large malls, parking lots and fast-food chains. I was returning because I’d chosen to attend Elon University, but I still had a month before classes began. I stayed with my grandparents in one of their spare rooms and we watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy every evening. During the barrage of commercials, I took trips to the kitchen to grab a handful of grapes or a giant chocolate-chip cookie and ate these snacks with quiet pleasure. I often didn’t want to leave the comfort of their house. The sounds of strong Southern accents or country music could make me cry. The shopping malls were so large that I felt I would drown. There was too much wasted space between buildings, too many cars and too many cereal options at the grocery store. I did not want to understand or invest in Greensboro; I only wanted to survive. My grandmother took me to the movie theater during my second week. When the movie ended and the lights turned on, female figures poured down the aisles in a current of sweatshirts, shorts, and high Southern voices. I felt the waves of their slow, twangy, syllable-searching accents stretch out like a tide pulling me in. I was frightened and vowed to never allow myself to disappear into the American masses. I would keep my English inflections for as long as possible. I wanted anyone to only see me or hear me and know that I was different, that I belonged in London.
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A week later I approached the checkout at K&W Cafeteria, my tray stacked with buttery vegetables, lasagna and Jell-O, and heard myself say “Thay-anks” to the woman who told me to enjoy my food. My eyes widened after I’d said the word because the word itself had widened in my throat, lengthening out the “a” into two syllables. I slowly walked over to an empty table, set down my tray and brought wobbling cubes of strawberry Jell-O toward my undeserving, double-crossing mouth. It took me years to understand that I was not so different. After all, my mother’s body had filled with me while she lived in North Carolina. And my grandparents had taken a picture of her pregnant and hung it in the kitchen where I would one day eat dozens and dozens of Eggos. I was born in North Carolina and lived here until I was 9. I loved sweet potatoes and casseroles, hush puppies and barbeque. Most summer evenings, I stayed out late in my large, front yard playing kick the can with my father and neighborhood friends and never felt like I was drowning. We’d stop running when the fireflies appeared and we’d catch the magic bugs in our small hands and then carefully open our fingers like clams to reveal a pearl. A few months ago, nearly a decade since the beginning of my new American life, my grandparents moved out of their house in Greensboro, the house my mother had been born and raised in. Each room of the house had its own personality. The tiled sunroom was spacious and light. The room’s glass-topped table was where I’d played hours of games and from where I’d watched the electronic train go around and around the Christmas tree. The living room, however, was cozy and dim like London. The curved carpeted staircase was wide and soft and the upstairs bathroom was calming and floral. The kitchen, of course, was the heart — the place I’d returned to over and over to open the cookie jar and be renewed. h Jillian Weiss is a writer from Winston-Salem. She attended Elon University, received her MFA from UNCW, and feels at home on every NC mile of I-40. Summer 2018
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