SURELY HOME
Surely Home
For there the heart can rest
By Jenna Biter
Photographs by John Gessner
“It’s a very, very livable house,” says Ginger Monroe.
She’s standing in the kitchen, the heart of her family’s Pinehurst home. The Southern cottage, wooden clad and painted dove white, measures more than 4,000 square feet but less than five. There’s a guest house out back, and the property sits on a dash less than an acre. It’s the perfect size for the Monroe family of five, seven if you include black Labs Scottie and Bonnie.
“Twin Sycamores” is a real charmer — a home, not just a house — and that’s what drew Ginger to it. An interior designer by trade, she aims for a space that feels like the last stanza of American poet Henry van Dyke’s “A Home Song”:
But every house where Love abides,
And Friendship is a guest,
Is surely home, and home-sweet-home:
For there the heart can rest.
Ginger and Edward Monroe didn’t design the house on Fields Road. From what they’ve pieced together, a European couple built the house in 2009 and clearly had a knack for bringing the Old World to a new build. There are wider-than-wide old knotty pine floorboards, and what looks like a vintage newel post on the staircase and pediment above the stove. With honest-to-goodness historical (or at the very least historically convincing) details, the house hides its youth among the 20th-century cottages that define the Pinehurst Historic District.
“I’m always drawn to houses that just make you feel welcome when you walk in,” Ginger says, “that have the appeal of being old even if they’re not — and loved.”
The Monroes settled into the home in 2019, just in time for the COVID pandemic to lock the family away with plenty of time to make the place their own. The couple laid sod and restained the front porch. Edward defeated diabolical invasive wisteria with “roots that looked like big sweet potatoes.” Ginger points at the wisteria’s replacement. “This garden, this is my husband’s.” It’s a prim little thing off the side of the house, just outside the dining room window. A perky pink rosebush stands out against sunshine ligustrum. “He loves to garden,” Ginger says. It’s a creative outlet, a break from his dental practice in Southern Pines.
Twin Sycamores, named for the couple’s twin boys and two trees out front, features an open first floor good for family time as well as their annual Good Old-Fashioned Cocktail Party. Edward mixes old-fashioneds, and Ginger makes Brunswick stew. Guests flow in and out of the living room, dining space and kitchen, but there are still nooks to cozy into. A table and chairs converse on the covered back porch, and a pair of leather armchairs, mini fridge and TV relax in the “green room,” a moody space called by its Pinehurst-perfect color. “My favorite thing to do for a house is color,” Ginger says. “I’m drawn to the artist’s eye.”
Local works hang on the walls. There’s a painting of rabbits by artist and family friend Bee Sieburg, a gift when Hunter and Charlie were born. There’s a painting of lambs by Ginger’s mom, Cindy Groce, and an artwork by Ginger herself.
“This is my favorite, though,” she says, pointing to a painting above the mantel. “This is from a photo that I took at Biltmore.” Ginger’s friend Lanie Mann painted the scene showing Janie, the Monroes’ daughter, walking hand-in-hand with her younger brothers. “I love it because I remember being right there taking that picture.”
Past the fireplace is the master en suite. When the Monroes moved in, they enclosed the screened-in porch to make the new room, upsizing the main house’s original footprint. The teenagers have the run of the upstairs, each with their own bedroom. “Janie kind of lucked out in this whole situation,” Ginger says, walking into the middle of her 18-year-old daughter’s yawning room, “because this was the master.” Of course, Hunter and Charlie wondered who would move into Janie’s room when she leaves for UNC in the fall. Ginger dodged that one. “It will still be Janie’s room.”
The boys’ bedrooms show “how different they are,” Ginger says. Hunter has a windowsill of plants. There’s a Christmas cactus, aloe and even a crocheted plant on his side table. Like father, like son. Ginger crosses the hall to Charlie’s room. “Night and day,” she smiles. Charlie likes golf and hunting. There’s a hand-on-his-holster cowboy floor lamp that belonged to his dad. Ginger uncovered it in her in-laws’ basement and had it restored.
Back downstairs, Charlie likes the green room. Opposite the entry hall is Hunter’s favorite room, the music room, where he plays piano. Janie spends time in the living room or doing her homework on the back porch.
“I love the kitchen,” Ginger says. “That’s where we gather, and I love it when the kids’ friends come over. It makes me so happy to open our doors and invite people in.”
