October Books

By Kimberly Daniels Taws

Sirius: The Little Dog Who Almost Changed History, by Jonathan Crown (Oct. 4)

Sirius, a very smart fox terrier, takes a circuitous route from Germany to America and back to Germany during the 1930s and ’40s. Having been a movie star in Hollywood, then taken in by Hitler, he realizes he misses his family and escapes to await his reunion with them. A delightful story of a dog that “almost changed history” and learned that home is where your heart is.

El Paso: A Novel, by Winston Groom (Oct. 4)

The author of Forrest Gump returns with his first piece of fiction in 20 years. El Paso expands the classic Western into epic historical fiction. An aging American tycoon and his son race to the desert to find their ranch destroyed and his grandchildren abducted by Pancho Villa. Yankee money and political clout mean nothing against the harsh climate of Mexico. The father and son nearly lose all hope until a twist of fate connects them with a matador in search of his wife, also abducted by Villa. This book is sure to be the hit of the fall.

Bolshoi Confidential: Secrets of the Russian Ballet from the Rule of the Tsars to Today, by Simon Morrison (October/November)

Music historian Simon Morrison presents an enthralling and definitive history of the Bolshoi Ballet, where visionary performances onstage compete with political machinations backstage. A fun and sophisticated read.

Rogue Heroes: The History of the SAS, Britain’s Secret Special Forces Unit that Sabotaged the Nazis and Changed the Nature of War, by Ben Macintyre (Oct. 4)

The author of A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal returns with this story of the group that forever changed the rules of war, using unconventional tactics to sabotage the German war machine. Most interesting is the mastermind behind the Special Air Service, David Sterling.

Speaking American: How Y’all, Youse, and You Guys Talk: A Visual Guide, by Josh Katz (Oct. 25)

Fantastic graphs show patterns of speech in the United States, including linguistic discrepancies like “lightning bug” or “firefly” and varying terms for BBQ and lawn care. It’s a beautiful package, sure to be an entertaining gift for friends and family members across the country.

Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects, by Richard Kurin (Oct. 25)

This is a well-priced hardcover full of pictures revealing who we are by what we leave behind.

The Tunnels: Escapes Under the Berlin Wall and the Historic Films the JFK White House Tried to Kill, by Greg Mitchell (Oct.18)

In the summer of 1962 West Berliners risked everything to dig tunnels under the wall and provide dangerous escape routes for East Berliners. Eager to report on the story, CBS and NBC both sponsored a tunnel in exchange for the ability to film the escapees. In the end, JFK and Secretary of State Dean Rusk stopped the documentaries. This book is a riveting look at the people creating and surrounding this moment in time.

Cooking For Jeffrey: A Barefoot Contessa Cookbook, by Ina Garten (Oct. 25)

The Barefoot Contessa returns with a unique cookbook reinforcing her no fuss, no problem cooking that has served as a guidebook for home cooks of all ages. This book is a culinary love letter to her husband of more than 40 years and tells the story of their courtship and life together. It’s full of new recipes for the home cook to prepare for any loved one.

We Show What We Have Learned, by Clare Beams (Oct.25)

This collection of short stories is the latest book from Lookout Press, a small press tied to the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s Creative Writing Department. The stories are tinged with other-worldliness as ingénues at a boarding school bind themselves to their headmaster’s vision of perfection; a 19th-century landscape architect embarks on his first major project, but finds the terrain of class and power difficult; a bride glimpses her husband’s past when she wears his World War II parachute as a gown; and a teacher comes undone in front of her astonished fifth-graders. This collection of short stories is an accomplished delight and sure to appeal to the literary reader.

The General vs. The President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War, by H.W. Brands (Oct. 11)

Brands, twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the contest of wills between these two historic figures, unfolding against the turbulent backdrop of the Korean War and terrors conjured at home by Joseph McCarthy. From the drama of Stalin’s blockade of West Berlin to the daring landing of MacArthur’s forces at Inchon to the shocking entrance of China into the war, The General and the President vividly evokes the making of a new American era.”

The Mothers, by Brit Bennett (Oct. 11)

This literary coming-of-age novel begins with a secret in the teenage years and asks the question if we ever truly escape the decisions of our younger selves, the communities that parented us, and the choices that shape our lives forever.

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

By Angie Tally

One More Dino on the Floor, by Kelly Starling Lyons. Budding paleontologists will enjoy hip-hopping, foot-stomping, hand-clapping, finger-snapping and counting one to 10 as the dinosaurs get their groove on in this delightful counting book. With bright colorful illustrations and fun rhythmic text, young readers will be tapping their feet to the Jurassic beat. Dinosaur lovers age 3-8 and their families are invited to meet the author, Kelly Starling Lyons, and celebrate National Fossil Day with an afternoon of dinosaur and fossil fun Tuesday, Oct. 11, at 4 p.m., at The Country Bookshop.

Gertie’s Leap to Greatness, by Kate Beasley. It is the first day of fifth grade and Gertie Reese Foy is 100 percent excited! She has two best friends (Genius Jean and sweet kind Junior), she has an amazing summer story to tell, and best of all, she has a plan for greatness that she is sure will bring her long-lost mother back into her world. But when all the things she holds dear are threatened by new girl Mary Sue Spivey, beautiful daughter of a Hollywood movie producer, Gertie must decide what is really important. With the pluck of Ramona Quimby, the cleverness of Mo LeBeau and the stick-to-it-ness of a Penderwick sister, Gertie will charm her way into the hearts of readers. (Age 8-12.)

Projekt 1065. Award-winning, critically acclaimed, North Carolina Battle of the Books author Alan Gratz, author of the powerful WWII historical fiction novel Prisoner B-3087, returns with another gripping World War II story, this time about Michael O’Shaunessey, the son of the Irish ambassador to Nazi Germany who served as a spy in the Hitler Youth. Despising everything the Hitler Youth stood for, from book burning to horrific games, O’Shaunessey was charged with delivering insider information to his parents and the British Secret Service, but when tasked to find out more about Projekt 1065, a secret Nazi mission, O’Shaunessey must prove his loyalty to the Hitler Youth even if it risks the lives of those he loves. Gratz will be at The Country Bookshop Friday, Oct. 7, at 4 p.m., to discuss Projekt 1065 as well as The League of Seven, Gratz’s Steampunk fantasy adventure series, which is on the North Carolina Elementary Battle of the Books list for 2016-17.  PS

Sound and Fury

How the Carolina Theatres of Pinehurst and Southern Pines navigated the leap from silent films to talkies in 1928

By Bill Case

he man in charge of virtually everything in Pinehurst perused the June 1928 edition of Motion Picture News, bypassing the provocative feature on the recent European vacation of Hollywood’s most glamorous couple, Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford. Instead, 32-year-old Richard Tufts concentrated his attention on the trade paper’s lengthy editorial dealing with the rapid emergence of the talking movie — a technological advancement in the film industry likely to alter the business model for movie studio and theater owners alike. One of the many hats Tufts wore in his ubiquitous management of Pinehurst was that of president of Pinehurst Theatre Company, operator of the town’s 5-year-old movie house, The Carolina Theatre, at 90 Cherokee Road.

So, on June 21, 1928, Tufts posted a letter to PTC’s general manager, Charles Picquet, expressing the view that, “Pinehurst should be one of the first to have talking movies.” Ever close with a buck, Richard focused on how the costs of retrofitting the theater to exhibit “talkies” could be minimized. With Picquet’s connections as president of the Carolina Theatre Owners Association and vice-president of the National Theatre Owners Association, Tufts thought he might avoid the estimated $11,000 cost of synchronizing for sound. To him it was product placement Roaring 20s style. “With your influence and with the recognized standing of the
Pinehurst Theatre, it might be possible for us to persuade some of the companies to locate a machine here, pretty much at their expense, in order to obtain publicity for the talking movies,” Richard suggested. Presumably his clientele, the upper crust of the East, once having experienced talking pictures in Pinehurst, would induce theater owners back home to convert to the new technology.

Picquet was the man Richard Tufts tasked with the job of keeping his resort guests and the well-heeled members of the town’s “cottage colony” entertained. Along with his wife, Juanita, Picquet had once been a member of a light opera troupe touring the U.S. and Canada. Whether it was managing the Sandhill Fair, organizing local choral groups, luring performers like humorist Will Rogers for theatrical engagements, or exhibiting feature films, Charlie was in the middle of things. He was a hands-on manager, typically greeting movie patrons wearing a tuxedo with a carnation in his lapel, then scurrying to the projection booth, changing into a blue denim jumper and running the projector. When the last frame flickered out, Picquet would be back at the theater entrance in his tux as the audience filed out.

Picquet wasted no time replying to Tuft’s suggestion, advising him events were moving at a dizzying pace. He said Paramount Pictures had already announced that “75 percent of their new product will be synchronized (talking pictures) and Metro will do the same.” Theaters in Greensboro and Raleigh were showing talkies, as were two movie houses in Charlotte. Picquet believed movie houses everywhere would inevitably have to buy in or close. Manufacturers couldn’t keep up with the demand for sound synchronization equipment, making Richard’s hope of obtaining it gratis seem as fanciful as the movies themselves. Picquet warned that addressing the issue could not be sidestepped: “We cannot escape it no matter how much we would like to.”

Since PTC was its own company, Richard Tufts and Charlie Picquet could not act unilaterally. The support of a majority of the 21 shareholders was required for such an extraordinary expenditure. Those shareholders included some glittering names in the Pinehurst galaxy: Henry C. Fownes (steel magnate and founder of Pittsburgh’s Oakmont Country Club); George T. Dunlap (founding partner of Grossett & Dunlap publishers); Leonard Tufts (Richard’s father and owner of the controlling interest in Pinehurst, Inc.); and Donald Ross (Pinehurst’s unparalleled golf course architect).

In light of Picquet’s sense of urgency, Tufts authored a message on July 16, 1928, to PTC’s shareholders asking for an immediate vote on whether to obtain sound equipment. “It is apparent to the officers of your company that the moving picture industry is about to undergo one of those revolutionary changes which new inventions frequently bring to an industry,” he wrote. Richard made the case that if the requisite synchronization equipment wasn’t put in, “. . . we shall probably lose business during the coming winter as many of our patrons will be accustomed to attending the ‘talking movies’ already installed in practically all the larger cities. We cannot afford to have this happen because we depend wholly on our winter patronage to make money.”

Since smaller theaters around Pinehurst seemed unlikely to make the move for the upcoming season, Richard was confident he’d quickly recoup the investment in box office receipts and wanted PTC to immediately initiate acquisition of the equipment. He framed the proposition this way: “If the ‘talking movies’ are with us to stay, it seems almost axiomatic that the sooner we are on the bandwagon the better off we shall be.”

Like any innovation, talking movies had its detractors. There were respected voices in the motion picture business that believed they were little more than a passing fad. Some trade journals expressed concern that the exorbitant costs of producing a sound movie made them impractical. There were fears the rehearsals necessary for actors to master dialogue would compound production costs. Not all silent stars possessed the voice and thespian skill to make a seamless transition to talkies. Other industry flacks believed the public wouldn’t accept the disappearance of silent movies’ orchestral accompaniment. And, the musicians’ union promised a battle royale to protect its members whose jobs would disappear if the talkies actually caught on. There was enough negativity bandied about to give pause to theater owners concerned about laying down serious cash for an extravagant new sound system.

With Richard Tufts on board, however, shareholder approval seemed a mere formality. He controlled enough stock by himself that he needed very little support from the non-family shareholders to get approval for his plan. The formality proved to be anything but. With an eye toward his own bottom line, J. T. Newton, holder of nine shares, was out. He was “opposed to any such expenditure that would reduce dividends.” George Dunlap ambivalently stated that while it might be necessary to “hook up” with the talking movies, his personal preference “would be the other way.” But it was H.C. Fownes’ opposition that caused Richard to waver on the proposal himself. Fownes argued the concept was only in its formative stages and questioned whether PTC was “in the proper financial condition at present to make the investment.”

Fownes’ reply to Richard had somehow caused a flip in the PTC president’s viewpoint. On July 31, Tufts wrote to Picquet, “The more I think about it, the more I think Mr. Fownes is right.” The purchase of synchronization equipment was suddenly in doubt. What caused Richard to make such a quick about-face? The answer may lie in a parallel theater-related brouhaha.

That dispute involved another movie theater operating at 143 N.E. Broad St. in Southern Pines also named the “Carolina Theatre.” PTC did not own the Carolina Theatre of Southern Pines, but Picquet and Tufts, personally, did. Though the two Carolina Theatres were not under common ownership (one owned by the PTC shareholders, the other by the Picquet/Tufts partnership), Richard considered it beneficial for them to be managed as one, giving Picquet leverage in obtaining films from distributors on terms that a single screen operator could not achieve. The two theaters could coordinate their movie showings and share the costs of a single film rental.

Earlier in 1928, Tufts and Picquet asked PTC shareholders to consider financially participating in the construction of a new theater in Southern Pines to replace the existing one, which Richard described as “a dump.” Fownes, however, rejected PTC’s participation in the construction venture outright. Richard fumed at this unanticipated roadblock and fired off an indignant missive to Fownes declaring that “it would be impossible for Mr. Picquet and me to adjust . . . if the stockholders have lost confidence in the way we have conducted the theater. It would be so much better for us to get out.”

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The dust-up was resolved only after the landlord of the Southern Pines Carolina Theatre agreed to make overdue improvements. Richard usually avoided run-ins with the elite members of Pinehurst’s “cottage colony.” His atypical outburst probably caused some uneasiness in his relationship with H.C. who was arguably the most prominent cottager of all, serving on the country club’s board of governors and Pinehurst Inc.’s citizen advisory board. Fownes had personally supported a local bond issue and, after the crash of 1929, would help bail out Pinehurst, Inc. by contributing $30,000 to retire its delinquent bank note.

When the issue of PTC’s transition to talking movies arose, Tufts would naturally have been reluctant to engage in another fractious dispute with Fownes. So, when H.C. reported on Aug. 6 that a friend in the film industry had confirmed “it would be a mistake to make an investment to the degree you (Richard) estimated an outfit would cost,” Tufts did not push back. Pinehurst’s Carolina Theatre would remain a silent movie house for the duration of the resort’s 1928-29 season.

Picquet, however, was not inclined to take no for an answer. When he got wind of Fownes’ letter, he composed a diplomatic rebuttal. He informed Richard that he was “glad to see the note from Fownes also as I am anxious to hear all sides of the sound question.”  However, the manager pointed out, “talkies are packing them in even during the most torrid weather while ‘silents’ are suffering and closing . . . Fox has stopped silents. Within a month Paramount and Metro will do the same . . .Within two months all newsreels will be talkies.”

Facing what he was sure would be dismal winter admissions in Pinehurst, Charlie urged reconsideration of the decision in an Aug. 10 message: “I am going on record . . . to predict that we would more than pay for the installation within the next two years in increased attendance and higher admissions . . .The theaters that will clean up . . . are the theaters who get in on it now while there are comparatively few installations.” Picquet also mentioned that, “Contrary to Mr. Fownes’ report, Pittsburgh’s sound theater is doing a turn-away business and the silent ones are doing almost nothing.”

Perturbed at his general manager’s drumbeating, Tufts suggested Picquet was not fully in tune with public taste. On Aug. 27 he wrote he was “very much impressed at the lack of interest shown (in talkies). Most . . . do not like them and prefer the organ music.” He intimated people in the trade were getting ahead of their own customers.

The correspondence between Tufts and Picquet took on a frostier tone. On Sept. 5, Charlie rubbed it in that the Greensboro sound theater was perpetually “SRO” and that in three months, the resulting profits would pay for the equipment. Three days later, Richard noted the impresario’s ongoing “propaganda on talking movies.” No still meant no.

Picquet took a September vacation to New York, where he enjoyed racing days at Belmont Park but also found time to hobnob with fellow movie people. Not above negotiating in the press, when he returned Charlie informed The Pilot that he had concluded, “after tramping Broadway from end to end . . . the ‘talkies’ are here to stay.” With Tufts still opposed, Picquet tried another tack on Oct. 23. He offered “to ‘hock’ my stock with the bank in order to provide funds for the installation.” So sure was he that Richard and H.C. would find his offer acceptable that Charlie began arranging for purchase of the equipment.

Even that gambit misfired. Fownes still objected. He feared PTC would wind up on the hook morally, if not contractually, if the investment didn’t pan out. On Dec. 17, Picquet informed them he had already personally bought the necessary equipment, but that if “Mr. Fownes is unwilling to allow me to put it in, I would suggest that it be installed in Southern Pines.” Charlie also sounded the alarm that the competing theater in Aberdeen was “rarin’ to install one and will get it, if I do not.”

The frustrated Picquet could not resist taking a potshot at H.C. “Of course, Mr. Fownes does not know it, but the silent pictures from now on are going to be ‘sorry’ affairs . . . No less than 15 silent pictures which were booked for November and December, have been withdrawn to make ‘talkies’ . . . This means that the silent pictures will be junk.”

Finally, Tufts relented, allowing Picquet to install sound synchronization equipment in Southern Pines’ Carolina Theatre. Nelson Hyde’s editorial in The Pilot hailed the coming of the talkies: “This week Charlie Picquet expects to present the first talking picture show ever brought to middle North Carolina.” Hyde cited the “courage of the Carolina Theatre’s management” in bringing about the talkies’ arrival.

On March 7, 1929, Southern Pines’ Carolina Theatre debuted its first talkie, The Iron Mask, starring Douglas Fairbanks in his inaugural speaking role. The Pilot remarked that “Mr. Picquet worked feverishly for two days to assemble his new de Forest Phonofilm projector for the Fairbanks production, and the presentation was voted a great success by those present.”

The Pinehurst Carolina Theatre continued to show silent movies as an alternative to the talking variety exhibited by the sister theater in Southern Pines. In April, a Lupe Velez movie was exhibited in silent form at Pinehurst while the sound adaptation was on view in Southern Pines. The Pilot encouraged moviegoers to check out both versions and reach their own conclusions. The verdict, in the Sandhills and everywhere else, came swiftly: the market for silent pictures had vanished altogether. The Pilot observed in November that, “the Pinehurst house has been playing to handfuls while Southern Pines has been turning people away. No longer will the public go to see silent films while they can witness musical comedies and cry with the tragedians . . . (T)his season was only four weeks along when it became evident to Mr. Picquet and others interested in the Pinehurst theater that times have changed and the old dog is dead.”

Once they observed in the fall of 1929 that silent movies in Pinehurst were playing to a nearly empty theater, Tufts and Fownes swallowed their pride and changed course rapidly. In November, they authorized Picquet to acquire a de Forest projector for Pinehurst and get it installed promptly. As astute businessmen, they may have missed the launch, but they weren’t going to miss the boat. Normal delivery would have taken months. But Picquet managed to expedite matters. The Carolina Theatre Owners Association scheduled its annual meeting in Pinehurst for Dec. 9-10, 1929. Lee de Forest, the inventor of the radio tube and the de Forest projector, was slated to speak at the convention. Charlie reasoned that if talking pictures’ grand opening at PTC could be scheduled to coincide with the gathering, he could prevail upon his fellow theater owners to attend. He pitched to the manufacturer that the conventioneers would make for a target-rich audience for de Forest to showcase their projector in action. His pitch worked; delivery was expedited and the equipment installed at the theater in record time. PTC’s first sound movie was presented on Dec. 9 to a packed house. The Love Parade, a musical comedy starring Maurice Chevalier, was well-received by a crowd seeking respite from the jolt of the stock market collapse. Lee de Forest himself came by to offer remarks to the enthralled audience about the revolutionary synchronization system.

Thereafter, neither theater looked back, enjoying good runs for the next 25 years. As consumer tastes changed mid-century, it became increasingly difficult to economically operate a seasonal movie theater. Pinehurst’s Carolina Theatre showed its last film on April 25, 1954. A local theatrical company performed plays for a time, but in 1962, the Pinehurst theater went permanently dark. Subsequent renovation led by new owners Marty and Susan McKenzie transformed the building  into market space by 1981.

Despite advancing health problems and fierce competition from the Sunrise Theatre, Charlie Picquet doggedly kept the Southern Pines Carolina Theatre going. Longtime Southern Pines resident Norris Hodgkins ushered for Charlie at the Carolina Theatre in the late 1930s. Hodgkins remembers that his boss observed formalities not often practiced in other theaters. “Mr. Picquet had us ushers wearing spiffy bellboy uniforms with pillbox hats. If a customer misbehaved, Mr. Picquet tossed him out,” says Norris. “There was no concession stand at The Carolina. No popcorn, no soda. Mr. Picquet believed that food inside the theater detracted from the tone.”

Always nattily attired, Picquet faithfully followed his nightly ritual of personally greeting his theatergoers, then bidding them goodbye after the final credits rolled, a practice he continued until the day he died of a heart attack at age 81 in May 1957. The last movie Charlie showed was a classic: Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Strangers on a Train. All of Southern Pines’ merchants closed their businesses for an hour to mourn the man who opened the town’s first theater in 1913 — originally named the Princess Theatre — and ran it for 44 years. After Charlie Picquet left its stage, the theater never reopened.

Katharine Boyd paid homage to Picquet in The Pilot, writing that he was “. . . the George M. Cohan type, the trouper through and through: the good friend, the good American.” She noted that Picquet started a competition for musically gifted high school students, the Picquet Cup, and that it “will endure and grow in significance, keeping the name of its donor always before us, up there in the lights where the star’s name goes.”

Today, the Kiwanis Club of the Sandhills continues to hold the Picquet Music Festival each April. Vocal and instrumental students from local high schools compete at the festival for college scholarships. A pioneer and innovator, Charlie’s name remains on the marquee.  PS

Pinehurst resident Bill Case is PineStraw’s history man. He can be reached at Bill.Case@thompsonhine.com.

Peace in the Pines

Euro-minimalism meets Southern practicality

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner & Laura Gingerich

Desired by many, attained by few: a peaceful living space.

Trish and Gates Harris succeeded. Their contemporary lakeside home in Whispering Pines integrates Euro-minimalism with function and practicality.

“Ahhh . . . ” the house breathes, from living room with window wall and narrow deck to open kitchen with soapstone countertops, skylight, Italian gas range and espresso machine.

Nothing huge, nothing obtrusive. No clutter, zero tchotchkes.  Bookshelves, a few paintings and family photos against white and neutrals.

“I’ve always wanted to live beside peaceful water . . . and soothe my soul,” Trish says, echoing the psalmist.

This totality represents a startling reversal. For more than 20 years, Gates, an attorney, and Trish, a psychology professor at Sandhills Community College, occupied a rambling home in Weymouth — a 30-minute commute to Gates’ law office in Red Springs. Here, they raised two sons, Max and Will, while collecting mountains of stuff.

When the boys left for college, Trish and Gates made that noise familiar to empty-nesters: downsize. An understatement, in their case.

“We purged!” Trish exclaims. “Moving is a good time to let go.” Furniture that wouldn’t conform was left in the house. Other items they donated or parked by the “free tree,” which Gates characterizes as giving back to the Earth more than throwing away.

“We used to have 30 (cereal) bowls; now we have four,” says son Will, 21, pulling an unusual white one from the cupboard.

Here, the process mirrors the people.

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Gates grew up “poor as church mice” in a tenant farmhouse in Robeson County with one bathroom accommodating six occupants. As a young attorney he worked for A.B. Hardee, developer of Whispering Pines. “I would drive there on business — Whispering Pines looked like the shining city on the hill.”

Raising a family in traditional Weymouth sharpened his appetite not only for cleaner lines, but for less maintenance. In the past, “Gates dug the hole for every plant in the yard — it was never a ballgame on the weekends,” Trish recalls. “Now that’s switched off.”

Gates even purged his power tools since, after the renovation, little needed fixing. “This is freedom for us.”

Trish describes her childhood home in Michigan as a “little post-war cracker box.” Five children, one bathroom. “Growing up, I always wanted to live in a house with a lovely fireplace.” Now she has two, one with raised hearth, both into long walls of painted brick. Nature frames her lifestyle; Trish recently completed hiking the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine, over four summers. “I like the peacefulness of water, I like the birds. I’m looking for a kingfish.” Early mornings, she has coffee on the deck, walks, sometimes kayaks across Spring Valley Lake.

This purge/relocation didn’t happen overnight.  The Harrises looked for two years in several lakeside communities. Gates, a Frank Lloyd Wright admirer, wanted something mid-century modern suitable for an interior renovation without enlarging the footprint.

“I knew Gates loved the linear nature of a modern home, one that we could afford to fix up,” Trish says. He identifies Whispering Pines as a hotbed of architects who promoted this style. The elongated brick house they settled on, built as a vacation retreat for Kodak executives in 1973, channeled FLW outside with what Gates calls an Austin Powers interior.

“You know, shag carpet and foil wallpaper,” he cringes.

But it had a sunken living room, aboveground finished basement, screened porch and potential galore. Trish, Gates, their sons and contractor Steve Sims designed the renovation by gut. “(My mother) picked the house,” says Max. After that, “Nothing was decided without agreement,” adds Will, who helped with demolition and carpentry.

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Up came the carpet, but unlike homes built in the ’50s, this one revealed no hardwood underneath — a plus for Gates, who designed wood strip flooring resembling a boat deck. Down came the wall (with typical ’70s pass-through) separating kitchen from dining area; in went the black-and-white Ikea kitchen with soapstone island, significant because the material reminds Gates of college chemistry lab.  Here, illuminated by a skylight, they cook in tandem, “. . . sometimes bumping into each other as we sashay around,” Gates says.

The screened corner porch, where Trish curls up with a blanket and a book on winter afternoons, is a study in forest browns and greens, with iron chairs once belonging to Gates’ mother peeling white paint. Bedrooms follow the shades-of-grey palette. The enlarged master bathroom has an unusual shower with no curtains or glass enclosure. Neither are windows covered, allowing maximum natural light.

Gates paid particular attention to plumbing and lighting fixtures, all with clean, modern sculpturesque lines.

Downstairs, the walkout basement has become a private apartment for the boys, with separate entrance, bedrooms, bathroom, easy-clean slate floor, living area with fireplace looking out toward the dock. Their kitchenette sports a hunk of nostalgia: the well-worn butcher block from Gates’ grandfather’s store in Robeson County.

“I remember chopping neck bones,” Gates grins, miming the action.

The Harrises have traveled the world, living in rather than visiting Europe, India and Asia. At chez Harris, furnishings defy period or style, simply fading into the international aura. Some, like a pair of swivel armchairs, survived the purge, reupholstered. But over them looms a new floor lamp that cuts a parabola through the air. The Swedish sectional sofa stands alone. Pillows from India provide a spot of color along with Oriental runners and a landscape by Pinehurst artist Jessie Mackay. Gates’ reading chair is positioned by the window for view and best light. They both value books, therefore built a wall of bookshelves in the dining area, which also contains chairs that were left in the house, now painted black, and an unusual slat table meant for patio use.  Over the door between dining area and screened porch hangs another family trophy:

“My mother fished once in her life, in Florida,” Gates explains. “She caught a snapper.”

Fine with Trish: “I’m a go-along girl.” She selected furnishings but “Gates drives choices like color and space.” He is an expert on whites, matching nuance to the room.

Then why is the oversized front door with deep panels red?

“Vermilion, actually,” Gates says. Gates and Max spent several weeks in Japan, living on tatami mats, visiting gardens and studying Buddhism and Shintoism. They noticed this color, vermilion, an ancient pigment made from inorganic chemicals applied to lacquerware. The heavy door begged its brilliance. “People say it makes the house look like a Chinese restaurant,” Gates says.

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The total effect seems more an architect’s showplace than a pre-retirement home expressing evolved tastes. However, The Lake House, as the Harris family calls it, expresses multiple personalities rooted in common precepts, a near-nirvana few families achieve. They acknowledge the transition:

“It was weird, coming from a house we’d lived in for 22 years,” Max says.  “Everything here seems fresh and new. It turned out better than I thought.”

“I see my sons’ hands all over it,” Trish adds. “The house balances us out.”

Or, according to Max: “Nothing but good news here.”  PS

Almanac

The Feast of Trumpets

Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown on October 2. Also called the Feast of the Trumpets, this two-day Jewish New Year celebration includes the ritualistic sounding of the ancient shofar (ram’s horn) and foods to evoke shana tovah u’metukaha good and sweet year. Since now is the time of the apple harvest, what sweeter way to celebrate than with a Red or Golden delicious, fresh from the tree? By dipping said fruit in honey, of course. Consider this tasty Jewish custom when your neighbor presents you with a basketful of local apples, but don’t let it stop you from experimenting with cobblers and crisps, cinnamon-laced ciders, and in the spirit of Halloween, perhaps even shrunken apple heads. Granny Smiths work well for this — best if cored and peeled.

Using the tip of a pen, make indentions to guide your carvings. Cut hollows for the mouth and eyes, and carve away the apple flesh around the nose. Exaggerate the features. Your second apple will be better than the first, et cetera, but failed carvings spell homemade pie, so you might flub a few just for fun. Next, soak the carved apple heads in a mixture of lemon juice (1 cup) and salt (1 tablespoon) for a few minutes to help keep the fruit from molding. Pat dry. Now all that’s left to do is wait. A food dehydrator is the fastest and easiest way to dry out — aka shrink — your apple head, but a warm, well-ventilated area should also work. Since the drying process can take over a week, you’ll want to entertain yourself with other projects. In the spirit of carnival season, how about apple juggling?

Speaking of carving, did you know that the first jack-o’-lanterns weren’t made out of pumpkins? Named for the Irish folktale of Stingy Jack — a man who twice fooled the devil yet unknowingly doomed his soul to roam the Earth until the end of time — the tradition of carving grotesque faces into turnips and potatoes to scare off evil spirits is centuries-old. According to legend, Jack’s ghost carries a hollowed turnip aglow with an ember from the fires of Hell. Bet you can guess what happened when Irish immigrants came across their first pumpkin patch.

“Autumn is the hardest season. The leaves are all falling, and they’re falling like they’re falling in love with the ground.”

― Andrea Gibson, poet

National Runner-up

Marigolds are the birth flower of October. Known as the ‘herb of the sun’, these vibrant yellow, red and orange flowers were carried as love charms in the Middle Ages. Although Victorian flower language experts believe them to be symbols of grief, many associate marigolds with optimism. Burpee president David Burpee must have been among them. In the late 1960s, the seed salesman launched a spirited campaign for marigolds to be named the national flower. We chose the rose.

Herbs to Plant this Month:

Dill — Aids with digestion and insomnia.

Oregano — Used to treat skin conditions.

Sage — Increases recall ability.

Fennel — Improves kidneys, spleen, liver and lungs.

The Best Planting Time

Tulip and daffodil bulbs will color your spring garden brilliant if you plant them before the ground freezes. Allow yourself to dream. Imagine your home nestled in a grove of golden flowers, fringed blooms spilling out of planters, window boxes, busted rain boots. The more bulbs you plant the better — and plant them at random. Save pumpkin seeds to plant in spring.  PS