A test of time

Designed to stand the test of time

Surrounded by undulating hayfields, Jeremy and Sadie Wootten’s Georgian Colonial house looks as if it might have been standing there for years. Only the young trees along the drive and still small hydrangea give away its young age. That will change ... well, with time.

Story and photos By David Moore

They didn’t buy the 70-acre tract of undulating farmland specifically for a future homesite. But when Jeremy and Sadie Wootten decided to build, they knew the property would graciously accommodate their large-scale plans.

The house they built is a white, double-winged, two-story Georgian Colonial. With its marked symmetry and proportions, its classical but restrained ornamentation, it encompasses 6,000 square feet of living space, 9,500 if you count the garages and unfinished basement.

A 1,500-foot tar, chip and pea gravel drive turns off Cullman County 1422, curves down then up around a wooded dip in the field before stretching out to end in a large circular turnaround in front of the Woottens’ stately house.

“We wanted a house that looked like it had been here 100 years, something with a feel of history and charm,” Sadie says. “We like the classic details in the architecture, and the décor for that matter. It’s something that could stand the test of time.”

“We thought,” Jeremy adds, “that it would be fun to build. And Sadie had some particular things she wanted.”

One particular is the dining room wallpaper. Sadie actually created the design, which Jeremy had hand-painted on green silk through his company’s office in Hangzhou, China.

For other particulars that add character and charm, they turned to Southern Accents to acquire antique fireplaces and custom, solid wood doors, paneling and trim.

Given the project’s scope, from groundbreaking to occupancy in November 2018, the Woottens themselves were required to withstand a 22-month test of time.

It was 2015 when they bought the property. Jeremy and Sadie, pregnant with Teddy, their first child, were living in Birmingham. Once, while visiting his parents Jerry and Kathy Wootten, they went to church with them at Flint Creek Baptist Church, founded in 1836 by Jeremy’s great-greatgreat grandfather James Drake. On the way, Jeremy noticed a for sale sign in a pasture. Later, driving through the property, he discovered a second for sale sign on adjacent property; the two totaled 70 acres. They bought them first because they were a good deal, offered privacy, yet were only seven minutes from Jack, 4, sits on Dad’s knee while Teddy, who will be 6 in October, sits beside downtown. And Mom. The family attends Cullman First Baptist Church. After graduating maybe, they thought, from Harvard in 2005, Gerald “Jeremy” Edward Wootten III returned to one day … his family’s business, HomTex Inc. He’s been president and CFO since 2013. Teddy was born October 2015. Son HomTex has manufacturing and distribution facilities in Cullman (where it’s Jack was born June headquartered), Vinemont, Tennessee and North and South Carolina; offices 2017. By that time and showrooms in New York, Las Vegas and Atlanta; and sourcing offices the die was cast for in China and India. Jeremy serves on the boards of St. Bernard Preparatory building on the land. School, ZeroRPM, LLC and the Business Council of Alabama. Besides full-time The Woottens mothering, Sadie enjoys tennis, travel, fashion and decorating and is president hired Cullman architect Frank of the Second Century League, second VP of the Cullman Women’s League, a Fagg to do the member of Cullman Regional Foundation Guild and worked in 2018-19 with engineering. United Way of Cullman County. She’s also a member of the Junior League of As president and Birmingham and the National Society of The Colonial Dames of America. CFO of HomTex, the family business in Cullman, Jeremy works with 400,000 square feet of manufacturing space in town and another 600,000 square feet elsewhere, so he felt confident taking on the role of general contractor. He brought aboard HomTex’s building manager, John

American Pickers featured Garlan Gudger of Southern Accents salvaging the trim and fireplace in the Woottens’ living room from an old mansion in Birmingham. Some of the floors are oak, such as those in the living room, above. The floor, in the windowed hallway connecting the east wing with the house proper, is of Pennsylvania blue slate. Tim Rutherford laid all of the floors. Trim work throughout was done by the late John Schwaiger.

The keeping room, with play space off to the side, flows from the open kitchen area above. “Sadie chose all of the wallpaper and colors,” Jeremy says. “Every inch of that is Sadie.” Decorating is a passionate side hobby which she’d love to pursue one day as a second career. The silk wallpaper she designed for the dining room, right, was hung by James Means, as was the rest of the wallpaper throughout. The house includes four bedrooms and three and a half baths. Sadie is proud of the half bath, second right, located off the foyer, center page.

Spradlin, as project supervisor.

They started with prefab poured walls in the basement. David Wallace did “a great job” framing the house with 2x6s and putting up yellow-primed Hardie board.

Jeremy says they didn’t want an asphalt drive, so they opted for tar, chip and pea gravel. But the rolling hills required 200 dump trucks of fill dirt, which later settled and created potholes.

“It’s been more maintenance than anticipated,” he says.

Their house’s design grew from historic roots, largely as a matter of Sadie hailing from Spartanburg, South Carolina.

“I always loved older homes and knew I wanted to incorporate that into a home we built someday,” she says. Daughter of Sarah and Sam Galloway, her father was also president of the South Carolina Historical Society.

Majoring in business and minoring in art, she graduated from Birmingham Southern in 2006.

Jeremy began working summers at HomTex when he was 12. He graduated from St. Bernard in 2001, senior class president and valedictorian.

“I did pretty good there,” he says.

Jeremy’s study, top, is located off the windowed, connector hallway. (A guest room is at the end of the hallway.) The en suite master bedroom and the boys’ bedrooms, above, are on the second floor of the house.

Good enough to have his eye on Princeton and Washington and Lee, but after getting offers from Yale and Harvard, he decided on the latter.

Jeremy graduated from Harvard in 2005 with a concentration in government studies. He would have gone on to business school, but instead, with a recession on, he continued his education at HomTex.

Prior to that, he had come home from Harvard for Christmas break in 2004. A friend from St. Bernard, Natalie Henderson, set him up with a date with Sadie, one of her sorority sisters at Birmingham Southern. That was just before Facebook’s popularity exploded.

“It was the last true blind date,” Sadie jokes.

“With Facebook, she could have seen all the details on me beforehand,” Jeremy laughs. “I wouldn’t have gotten the date.”

Soon after returning to Cullman to work at HomTex, Jeremy moved to Birmingham and commuted. After Sadie graduated, she worked nine years in advertising at two firms in Birmingham, Intermark Group and O2ideas.

They married in 2010 and moved to

Mountain Brook. Sadie continued to work until Teddy was born in 2015. Shortly after Jack’s birth, the couple moved to Cullman and lived 15 months with Jerry and Kathy while their new house was under construction.

“My parents adored having two grandsons there,” Jeremy says.

Sadie required some acclimation when they finally moved to the new house in late 2018.

“She had sidewalks in Spartanburg,” Jeremy laugh. “She had sidewalks in Birmingham and then Mountain Brook. Moving to 70 acres out in Cullman County was quite the adjustment.”

“Now that we are here, we’ve grown to love – and re-love – a small hometown,” Sadie says. “We laugh and say we live on a farm.”

“We only grow children and hay, though,” Jeremy says. “And I don’t cut the hay. Somebody cuts it.”

They also love entertaining there.

“We built the house in the way we thought it would entertain well, flow well,” Sadie says. “We love having dinner parties and the kids’ birthday parties.”

After two and a half years, their new house and its ample rolling grounds have definitely become home, the Woottens say.

“In some ways, it’s turned out more than we had hoped for,” Jeremy says. “But you always see things … you still want to do more.”

For instance, put up a fence alongside the road, a gate at the drive. Sadie would like a formal garden, maybe for roses. A pool would be nice for the kids. And the basement … they’d like to finish it out with maybe a workout room, media room, game room kitchenette and another bedroom.

Returning the land to actually farming is not, however, on the Woottens’ foreseeable to-do list.

“We are just enjoying having hayfields right now,” Jeremy says.

“But I can’t imagine not having this much land for the boys to play on,” Sadie adds. “During Covid, it was great. They love being outside.”

“It’s all been exciting,” says Jeremy. “But it was definitely a lot more work than we thought.”

Which is probably to be expected in order for a house to stand the test of time.

Jeremy refers to the stocked, 2.4-acre pound behind the house as Lake Sadie. An old A-frame house – reached by a fun ride in a 4 wheeler Mule – is located by the shore. French doors open off the back of the main house, adding flexibility for entertaining. Easter family gatherings have already become a tradition, and the weekend before Thanksgiving they invite a dozen or so couples over for “Friendsgiving.”