AGE HAS ITS PRIVELEGES
Age Has its Privileges
A surprise around every corner
By Deborah Salomon
Photographs by John Gessner
Looks can be deceiving: The white cottage set back from a street bordering Pinehurst village appears well-maintained but of modest size, featuring two bay windows but few exterior bells and whistles. Open the front door, though, and wow. To the left, parlor No. 1, with startling pewter-brownish walls, stark white woodwork and a sofa strewn with pillows in an abstract yellow print. To the right, parlor No. 2, morphed into an overflow bedroom. At 2,350 square feet, small this cottage is not.
Knotty pine original and reclaimed floorboards, randomly laid, brilliantly polished, add character and continuity throughout. Admire the carved mantels, heavy paneled doors and the 9-foot ceilings. There’s even a basement and an unfinished attic.
Built in 1896 by the Tufts family — simultaneously with the Carolina Hotel and Holly Inn — and enlarged tenderly through the years, it was one of a dozen homes intended for purchase or as long-term rentals. At various times it has been christened Eureka and Juniper.
Let’s just call it a cottage with benefits, a dwelling that has aged like a fine cabernet.
Its current owners fit the mold of New Age Pinehurst retirees — youngish, athletic, well-traveled, sociable, adventurous, rushing home from pickleball to meet friends in the village for supper, maybe a concert.
Matt and Pat Ryan — he an attorney, she a nurse advocate — have at various stages lived in a five-story 1864 row house in Baltimore’s Old Town and in a New Jersey Tudor, with a winter getaway in Key West on the side.
With their two sons grown and retirement looming, they sought a primary residence somewhere reasonably warm and certainly fun, preferably a turnkey property needing only cosmetic work. Matt was traveling south on Amtrak in the early 2020s. He had played golf in Pinehurst but wasn’t familiar with its environs, or its possibilities. The train was delayed, so he looked around.
“I called Pat, said we should look here and asked her to fly down,” he says. They contacted a Realtor. When nothing in Southern Pines clicked they moved on to Pinehurst.
“Then this house pops up,’’ Pat recalls. “I fell in love with the location, with the magnolias. When I walked in I could feel the energy, the vibes.”
They purchased the cottage in May 2021. There was only one problem: It required a total update. Walls were moved, rooms repurposed. This wasn’t Pat’s first rodeo. Confidence and a good contractor make a difference. The project took about a year.
The new floor plan hops, skips and jumps in a delightful fashion, with areas connected by tiny corridors. Somehow they left intact three sunny alcoves for chatting with guests over coffee or something more exotic. One alcove, beside the stark black and white kitchen, is wallpapered in a deep maroon, densely patterned paper coordinating with an L-shaped upholstered settee, vaguely Eastern European, which hugs the wall. That stark black and white kitchen is softened by an exposed weathered brick chimney that adds contrast to the enormous Wolff gas range.
Nearby, a breezy pastel sunroom has a daybed for overflow. On the patio, in addition to the grill, stands a Carolina Cooker: a self-heating iron cauldron filled with boiling liquid where, Pat says, guests toss in crab legs, lobster, corn — all manner of edibles — then whack them open with heavy utensils when they’re done. Less dramatic entrees are served at a polished dining room table with matching chairs and china cabinet reminiscent of Sunday dinner circa-1950s.
Furnishings and art are derived from the couple’s previous residences. The word “eclectic” is insufficient to describe a décor where nothing quite matches but everything works together. “My purpose was to preserve and re-gentrify,” Pat says. To that, add a surprise around every corner.
Pat may be finished for now, but she’s already daydreaming about a staircase to the attic to accommodate younger family members. And there’s still plenty to do in the gardens.
But first let’s walk over to that new bistro in the village . . .
