The Way We Were

Century-old apartment house gets a new lease on life

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

Soft green, rose and plaid upholstery. A what-not shelf filled with elephant miniatures. Floral duvet, matching bedside table skirt and drapes. Dark woods and polished silver. A baby grand in the parlor. Bedrooms sized like bedrooms, not basketball courts. Antiques with family connections.

Genteel, pretty, Southern.

So goes Thistle Cottage, built on the edge of Pinehurst village by the Tufts family in 1916 as four apartments with separate entrances and separate furnaces to accommodate senior resort staff. Legendary Carolina Hotel doorman Sam Lacks and headwaiter George Ashe lived there. Subsequently, Annie Oakley and her husband, Henry Butler, occupied a first-floor apartment while she entertained guests during the winter season.

The apartment idea caught on. In 1918 the Pinehurst Outlook reported “the number of applications has surpassed expectations.” The building was renovated and minimally landscaped in 1922. Apartments got not only fresh paint but “modern” furniture, justifying $750 rent from October to May. Henry Page Sr. lived there in 1932, Roy Kelly from 1938 to 1962. In the 1980s Page and Hayley Dettor reconfigured the house as a longitudinal 3,200-square-foot two-story single-family dwelling with an unusual (for the Sandhills) full finished basement.

Yet something was missing.

No longer. In Jane and Jim Lewis’ 20-year tenure, scruffy grounds have become magnolia bowers with a carpet of English ivy.

“We didn’t want any newfangled vegetation,” Jane says.

Now three mini-porches and a secret garden exude a rocking-chair charm never out of style. Just inside the front door a 1990 version of a glamour kitchen suits the classic American cuisine Jim prefers when they eat in, which is most of the time.

“Meatloaf,” he nods. “I don’t go for fancy seasonings.”

Instead, Jim (from a South Carolina tobacco town) and Jane (family roots deep in antebellum Virginia) relish surrounding themselves with history.

“You can tell a lot about a man by looking at his books,” Jim believes. An entire wall of bookshelves in the TV room reveals his love of baseball and American history, while Jane falls into the gardening/interior design category, having worked with the fabric company Brunschwig & Fils Inc., whose installations at the White House and Palace of Versailles join the dining room, living room and bedrooms of Thistle Cottage — its name, bestowed by the Tuftses, emblematic of Scotland.

“I’m sentimental,” Jane says. “I like to mix in old family books . . . look inside them and see which great-great (relative) it was given to.”

How Jane and Jim Lewis found Thistle Cottage begs the beginning  “. . . once upon a time.”

They both have fond memories of Southern living. Jim moved around a lot — 14 times since his marriage alone. Jane, from a Navy family, lived mostly in Charlotte, with her grandmother and “old maid aunts who didn’t have any other place to go.” He graduated from Davidson, she from Queens College. As a communications executive at Southern Bell, then Lucent Technologies, Jim was sent to Savannah and Richmond, which they loved, finally Denver. As Jim neared retirement, he requested relocation to Charlotte, now a big, busy city — less than ideal for retirement, they discovered. Pinehurst was a frequent golf destination. “I tried to persuade Jane that this was the place (to live),” Jim says. They struck a deal. “We’ll practice living here for a year and if Jane doesn’t like it, we’ll go back to the empty-nester in Charlotte.” To this end, Jim looked around and found Thistle. “I liked it the minute I walked in . . . the open space (kitchen, breakfast room, family-TV room). I called Jane to come down and take a look.”

They bought Thistle in 1997 as a weekend retreat. “We subscribed to the newspaper, pretended we lived here,” Jim recalls. By 1999 the transition was complete. They sold the empty nest and took up permanent residence in a house with plenty of history for Jim to explore, plenty of land for Jane to garden and plenty of room for their sons and, later, grandchildren, to spread out.

At first glance, except for the grounds, Thistle looked “finished” to Jim. He admired the thriftiness of a previous owner, who took down paneled doors and laid them horizontally as wainscoting. Still, they found plenty to do. Removing a wall between smallish dining and living rooms made both appear larger. They created an upstairs spa bathroom and dressing room with washer-dryer, installed crown moldings, replaced crumbling exterior wooden shutters with hard-to-find replicas, lighted and brightened everything.

“I like happy colors,” Jane declares. No contemporary grays and neutrals. From three previous houses she brought forward the same stunning crimson wallpaper in the dining and living rooms. The kitchen and family rooms are a pale yellow. Oriental rugs feature primary rather than shaded colors. The master bedroom is done in red toile and the living room, a masterful mix of Brunschwig & Fils fabrics in bold hues — mostly florals, one geometric. Jim’s study is painted a forest green, to match his favorite sweater.

Jane’s antiques — tables, rush-bottomed chairs, sideboards, case pieces — are crowned by a grandfather clock crafted in the early 1800s by John Weidemeyer of Fredericksburg, Va. This “case” clock, long in Jane’s family, has a false front where coin silver spoons were hidden from Union Gen. Philip Sheridan, who charged down the Shenandoah Valley in 1864. Jane owns several of the spoons. Her collection of China export porcelain plates in the butterfly pattern hang on dining room walls.

She is especially fond of etchings by Hungarian artist Luigi Kasimir, picturing European churches, which she found bargain-priced in a second-hand shop. They set a classic tone in the foyer and upstairs hallway. Portraits of Gen. Robert E. Lee and Gen. Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson hang over a bedroom mantel, stripped to its original pine.

A painting of the Pine Crest Inn by local artist Jessie Mackay underlines Jim’s opinion that this landmark, although not luxurious, is as steeped in tradition as Pinehurst No. 2. “Everybody who’s anybody in the game of golf has been there.”

But the conversation starter in Jane and Jim’s Thistle has to be a bar nook built by a previous owner, with shelves displaying 280 mini liquor bottles, no duplications, the kind available on planes and trains in the good old days. They belonged to an aunt who began collecting them in the 1930s. Many, although unopened, are empty, the contents evaporated through the seal. Jim put up the narrow shelf and cataloged the bottles. Dusting them is a delicate chore, performed by Jane.

Historian Jim enjoys the Annie Oakley connection. Photos, memorabilia, even a gun of the era (“It came with the house”) form a small shrine in the family room. He’s ready with lore and dates, books and posters — proud of living where she did even if the walls are now crimson.

Jim and Jane Lewis have succeeded in providing Thistle Cottage an atmosphere both elegant and comfy, respectful of an era in the South — the ’50s and ’60s — which has yet to gain status with millennials busy simplifying and modernizing. An era when elders still recounted the history of their possessions.

“I love the lived-in feeling,” Jim says.

“Oh yes, we’ve been happy here,” Jane adds.

The upscaling of Thistle Cottage, particularly the landscaping, helped this outlying street where modest houses are being rejuvenated or replaced for a new generation of residents. “Now we have mothers with jogging strollers come by,” Jane notices. “It’s a real pleasure.”  PS

Story of a House December 2018

Same Time, Last Year

A Tudor manor steeped in Yule for a special occasion

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

Never again will Le Berceau be as lavishly adorned for Christmas as in 2017: dozens of poinsettias, two fresh Carolina-grown trees, nutcracker guardsman, heirloom ornaments and the piece de resistance, a wreath of white orchids cascading from the dining room chandelier. Thus embellished, Lucille and Jim Buck’s home bearing the French name for cradle — arguably Pinehurst’s most elegant residence — provided the setting for an event Neil Simon could have scripted for Broadway: 10 couples, married to each other for at least 50 years, celebrate with a dinner party near the host’s anniversary date.

Jim and Lucille were married on Dec. 26, 1960, surrounded by poinsettias. Logical, then, they should go lavish, albeit with a Scottish theme arising from Lucille’s heritage not discovered until moving to North Carolina. She wore her Clan Morrison tartan sash to the black tie dinner. Thistles, the Scottish national flower, appeared in floral arrangements. A bagpiper played during cocktails. Unicorns, the official Scottish beastie, decorated the dining table. The menu, served on Spode Christmas china, debunked the notion that UK food is mostly forgettable: smoked Scottish salmon, roasted quail with Scotch eggs, tenderloin of beef with whiskey sauce, neeps (a root vegetable) and rumbledethumps (cabbage and mashed potatoes), frisée with Scotch vinaigrette and, for dessert, a wedding cake topped with bride and groom, he in kilt, she with an arm reaching around to lift it.

Single malt flowed like beer at Oktoberfest

As Lucille put it: “This was a big deal.”

Guest and “club” member Mary Gozzi elaborated: “OMG awesome, spectacular, so festive I was speechless. I’ve never seen so many orchids in one place. Lucille is a party giver who’s got it down to the jelly beans!”

But a dress is only a dress until draped on a stunning model. Even bare-naked Le Berceau seems Christmas-y, with multiple nooks, seating and dining areas, sun porches, mantels, paned windows, staircases, a tiny telephone cubby begging decoration. The tone is classic with red dominating since, Lucille says, “For Jim it’s either red or ugly.” The elevator bears a touch of Yule, as does the carousel horse prancing on the landing.  Jim’s office, arranged around a desk belonging to movie star Loretta Young, doesn’t escape the red wave. Here resides memorabilia from his career as an attorney, senior vice-president of the New York Stock Exchange and author of its definitive history. Lucille has her “pouting” room hung with accolades from a career in education at fine New York schools.

“I had an absolutely unqualified dream that I would live in a house like this,” Jim decided, as a boy growing up in Ohio.

In 2000, while living in a soigné Manhattan apartment with a house in the Hamptons, they contemplated retirement. But where? Let’s drive over to Pinehurst, they decided, while visiting a daughter who lived in Charlotte.

Lucille fell in love. “I felt at home,” among the longleaf pines, azaleas and gardenias that grew in East Texas, her childhood home. The Tudor-style manse with swimming pool and a servants’ wing suited for guests satisfied Jim’s goal. Imagine that, within sight of the Carolina Hotel.

This central location mattered to its first occupant. James Tufts lured Bostonian Dr. Myron Marr to Pinehurst, as resort physician. The house, designed by a Boston architect and built in 1921, probably sweetened the deal for the Marr family, who remained there until the 1950s. The Bucks are only the fourth owners.

Their imprint on the house, however, is indelible, starting with the walls, wallpapered throughout. Not just commonplace florals and geometrics. In the kitchen, giant Delft-blue platters against a red background reflect the blue Viking range. Fashion drawings for a granddaughter’s bedroom, English teacups for Lucille’s dressing room, birds in the laundry room, a rubber ducky bathroom, toile and Asian motifs in the master and other bedrooms. In the salon, especially for Jim, a solid red textured paper provides a backdrop for sofas covered in a red, cream and green Brunschwig et Fils fabric chosen by Jackie Kennedy’s White House interior designer for Brooke Astor’s library.

“I’ve had my eye on that fabric for years,” Lucille says, but only now found a suitable setting.

The Bucks’ Christmas ornaments and decorations form a family scrapbook of places and events. Into the hand of a tall nutcracker (a window decoration purchased from a store going out of business) Lucille would tuck tickets to the ballet at Lincoln Center for their daughters, who eventually danced in the Christmas production. A grandson later danced the part of Fritz, garnering a glowing review in The New York Times, which Lucille proudly reads aloud.

Then, the prank concerning green balls on the tree — Lucille’s choice — which the Bucks’ son said didn’t show up well enough. Through a complicated long-distance adventure that included snitching a giant green ball from the trunk of his parents’ car and hanging it from the top of the house on the Fourth of July, Lucille was proven wrong. Now, Moravian stars, pine cones and cardinals represent their relocation to North Carolina.

“In every house we’ve lived in, I always wanted a bigger Christmas tree — to touch the ceiling,” Jim says. Lucille decorates the tall living room tree and a smaller one in the bedroom, needing help only with attaching the angel on top. She commemorates Jim’s Swedish background with a Santa Lucia doll wearing a crown of candles — but marinated herring isn’t for Christmas dinner.

Christmas holds one poignant memory for Lucille:
“My mother and father took me into the woods to cut a tree . . . it was a great outing. One time we even chose a holly (bush).” Lucille’s father died when she was 12. “The year after that our minister went with us, so I wouldn’t miss it.”

Their decorations remain in place until Feast of the Epiphany, Jan. 6.

But last year, overriding all memorabilia and decor, was that wreath of anniversary orchids — a veritable canopy over the dining room table — designed and implemented by Carol Dowd of Botanicals. “We started planning in July,” Dowd says, inspired by a hanging orchid arrangement Lucille remembered from a dinner party in New York. Surprisingly, the two dozen white orchids, FedExed from Miami, proved long-lasting with only water tubes. The wreath hung for more than two weeks. More important, rather than obstructing guests’ sightline, the wreath, suspended over a low centerpiece, created a bower effect.

What a Christmas. What memories. “My Scottish heritage found me,” Lucille says. Sharing it with close friends was a blessing. “We’re the same generation. We’ve lived this long and have been successful, career-wise and in marriage. The party was a big job but I didn’t mind. In fact, it invigorated me.” PS

House of Sweet Surprises

House of Sweet Surprises

Designer Mark Parson’s imaginative reworking of a humble bungalow creates something for everyone

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

If the shoemaker’s children shouldn’t go barefoot, neither must an architectural designer’s family suffer an ordinary house. What Mark and Kathie Parson have done to a humble 1940s bungalow on the outskirts of the village of Pinehurst is the glass slipper on Cinderella’s sooty foot, the genie in the mayonnaise jar. Not only has Mark designed a compound housing three generations, he has paid homage to the St. Andrews Links in Scotland by reproducing narrow, curving canals through which flow gurgling water, set on putting-green grass, in a rear courtyard.

He also designed and installed the landscaping, including details like leaving a narrow band of soil between a brick walkway and low wall, allowing ficus vines to root and creep.

“Houses don’t have DNA,” he reasons. “We had to give it character.” Knocking the bungalow down would have been easier. “But then you wouldn’t have a good story.”

Mark Parson is full of surprising stories, starting with self-training. Then, his unlikely success, evidenced by hardscape and softscape designs for Sandals Caribbean resorts, Miami Beach mansions and a prize-winning Harley-Davidson dealership. Locally, besides residential projects, he transformed an unsightly garage on Broad Street into The Sly Fox gastropub.

To Kathie go accolades for the floorplan and décor, her taste honed as a designer/manager at Bloomingdale’s in Miami, where they met. Kathie is from Minnesota, Mark from (he wrinkles his nose) Ohio. She grew up in an apartment; he in “a shoebox.” His upward mobility could have been written by Twain, or O. Henry. In part: “My father was a union guy at Chrysler. I framed houses, worked in a sheet metal shop, welded, worked as an orthodontist’s assistant —all that hands on stuff.” But, despite dream jobs like being flown back and forth to Sandals Royal Bahamian Resort in Nassau, he and Kathie, new parents after many years of marriage, opted out of the glam lane and chose North Carolina — first Shelby, then Asheboro. While participating in a Richard Petty charity ride, Mark discovered Pinehurst. “I had heard of (Frederick Law) Olmsted. The real draw was sandy soil and people from everywhere.” People who appreciated and could afford imaginative renovations/new construction.

Kathie looked at the village of Pinehurst, drove over to Southern Pines and decided this was where she wanted to be a stay-home mom.

In 2003, they bought two houses on Everette Road, one for them, one for Kathie’s mother. The plan: Put both on the market and remodel the one that didn’t sell.

Remodel is hardly the word. Mark, as architect and general contractor, took the 1,100-square-foot house down to the studs and dirt floor. The phoenix that arose, double in size, had a new wing, a living room delineated by columns, a kitchen with corner banquette eating area but, strangely, no dining room.

“We eat everywhere,” Kathie says. Walkabout fajita parties inside and out are more likely than sit-down dinners. One Thanksgiving they served on the front patio, which has a fireplace, and beside it, a salad garden. Out back, beyond the reflecting pool, is another dining area with grill and wood-fired pizza oven.

The reasoning goes deeper. In the dining room space stands a grand piano played by 18-year-old Wyatt, a serious musician who started on a keyboard and progressed to this magnificent instrument. Beyond it, windows and doors overlook the grassy courtyard. Entering the front door, a person’s eye is drawn forward by the piano and beyond, to the garden, which was Mark’s intention. A hallway to the right — previously two bedrooms and bath — has been reconfigured as a master suite with dressing room and Kathie’s office. In the bedroom, wide-board knotty pine floors used elsewhere yield to velvety-thick moss green carpet, the whole resembling a fine hotel.

“People gravitate to the kitchen,” Mark continues. With this in mind, he designed a beauty and elled a wing around it with two more bedrooms, a bath and moderately sized den.

The moss green coloration that permeates each room has followed them from house to house. Kathie finds it soothing. She drew complementary forest tones from a printed fabric brought from Florida and used to upholster the breakfast room valance. Even the granite kitchen island has a green-gray tinge. Elsewhere, old leather couches, rather formal tables and chests, and heavy sateen drapes convey elegance. Kathie and Mark both prefer mahogany and other dark woods for their richness and antiquity which, Mark says, echoes Pinehurst. In contrast, rather than elaborate crown moldings and door frames, Mark chose simple flat stock painted a darker green, while several chairs upholstered in bold stripes speak contemporary Scandinavian. Art is mainly florals or landscapes, which blend with upholstery and rug patterns.

Although family heirlooms aren’t part of the scene, Kathie and Mark planned a kitchen alcove to accommodate a massive sideboard Mark’s mother painted. Above it, a blackboard framed in curlicue gold announces the dinner menu: wood-fired pizza.

Every designer has a signature that follows him or her from project to project. Mark is a ceiling guy. “I want people to look up. Why do you think churches have steeples?” Angles and vaults have become his trademark — in the family room, paneled in cedar, they suggest a dome. The living room gabled ceiling is accomplished with cottage-y painted tongue-and-groove boards. Mark indulged himself with the curving canals bisecting the courtyard, strewn with bocce balls, also a tiny waterfall on the front walkway, because he likes the sound. He tucked two butler’s pantries into the layout and, as the family cook, fine-tuned the kitchen.

The sweetest surprise stands beyond the back gallery: a free-standing storybook Nantucket cottage with flowers spilling from window boxes. Mark built it for his beautiful 82-year-old mother, Ila Parson.

“She raised me,” he says, reverently. “I can see her when I’m standing at the kitchen sink and she’s sitting in her living room. We wave every night before I go to bed.”

Family dynamics influenced the project. Ila Parson lives independently with a 17-year-old teacup poodle. She drives her own car, prepares most of her meals and walks miles every day. “We’re careful not to get in each other’s way,” Ila says. Kathie adds, “Mark had to think how to incorporate his mother’s lifestyle with ours, our son and his friends.”

Ila’s most frequent visitor is grandson Wyatt; proximity has fostered a close relationship.

Ila prepared for the move by getting rid of almost everything in her Village Acres house, then choosing simple new furnishings in refreshing blue, white and gray. The 740-square-foot cottage has one bedroom with, typically, a vaulted ceiling; a bathroom, kitchen with breakfast bar, sitting room and screened porch. Tucked behind the main house, this tiny domain is quiet and practically invisible from the street.

Barefoot? Hardly. A smart shoemaker’s children wear his best styles for all to see, to covet. Mark Parson’s home and grounds showcase his design capabilities for customers. Otherwise, Kathie says, “This house is everything we didn’t have.”

Remember, Mark’s goal was to create a story for a house that — unlike others in historic Pinehurst — had none.

Obviously, he succeeded.   PS

Cottage Comforts

Respectful renovation with a story to tell

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

What happens when a real-life Mad Men ad man jumps the rat wheel, takes up home restoration, moves to Nantucket, reconnects with an architect friend at his daughter’s wedding — and marries her?

The obvious answer: They move to Southern Pines, buy a moldering cottage built in 1910, rip it apart and put it back together (she designs, he hammers) to resemble a period residence with tiny rooms, dark woods, deep green/barn-red/aubergine walls swallowed up by paintings, prints, memorabilia and collections. Modernity is limited to recessed lighting, radiant heat in the sunroom floor, Wi-Fi and AC. However, being practical, Scott and Francy Samuel rearranged space and added a sunken living room which, given its beams, wood-burning fireplace and antique furnishings (recliners notwithstanding) melts into the theme.

In contrast, a rear deck overlooks an acre of putting green grass bordered by 30-foot crape myrtles. Beyond that, a 20-by-40-foot pool. The contrast between recreated old and glamorous new . . . shocking, thrilling.

If ever a cottage required a docent — a catalog, at least — it is Cosmo, named for cosmopolitans, the Samuels’ favorite cocktail.

Francy, Scott and two Cavalier King Charles spaniels settle into chairs in the living room addition to relate their journey.

In the 1960s Scott pursued a career with top-drawer Madison Avenue ad agencies: expense accounts, martini lunches, other trappings of the trade as portrayed on Mad Men. He lived in a 20-room Tudor in Bronxville, a fashionable Manhattan suburb, and produced commercials for Mercedes, Nationwide and Maxwell House. Francy, who studied architecture after raising a family, designed high-end housing and residential projects for battered women, other special needs clients, in Boston. For each, the fast lane got too fast: “You get so embroiled in meetings, city permits,” Francy says. “I was relieved to come down here.” Scott: “Things started to change (in the ad world). Computers took over. Clients were merging. You could hear young footsteps closing in. The fun was gone.”

Scott discovered Southern Pines in the late 1990s, when he came down to help a friend convert a Knollwood mansion into a B&B. During a subsequent New England winter, Scott asked himself, “What am I doing here?” Francy had never been to North Carolina. “I expected to see lots of Taras.” Scott brought her down in June; they stayed at the renovated B&B. Late spring flowers bloomed everywhere. “People were so friendly,” she remembers. Taras were scarce, thank goodness.

They bought the cottage on Vermont Avenue in September 2001. After 9/11 small-town life seemed even more attractive. New construction wasn’t an option. Too many old houses in need of rescue, they decided.

Except this one was, Scott recalls, overrun with critters and falling apart; when a train roared by plaster fell off the walls. Architect Francy recognized good bones. “The house sat well on the property,” Scott noticed. Their hands-on reclamation took about a year.

Cottages built early in the 20th century between the tracks and the hotels housed support staff and merchants who served the affluent resort community. Little is known of Cosmo’s history except during World War II the owner’s wife made the second floor into an apartment with small kitchen, which Francy left intact, as part of her office. Surprisingly, the house had a basement — where Scott builds the Waldorf-Astoria of birdhouses — and a narrow garage, which they moved into the backyard, as a studio.

If the heart of a home really is the kitchen then the Samuels’ is well-placed in the middle, along an artery leading from front door to back wall. What a homey, cooked-in kitchen this is, since Scott and Francy share meal preparation. Light comes through transom windows placed ceiling-height. Scott constructed the beadboard cabinets painted a soft, archaic green. Washer and dryer are built into a divider separating the green slate counter from the pathway. Nearby, more beadboard conceals a fold-away ironing board common to homes of the era. Although smallish by contemporary standards, this carefully planned kitchen accommodates tandem cooking. When the meal is ready, Scott and Francy sit down at the dining room table, “like grown-ups,” Francy says, or eat on trays in the living/family room under the watchful portrait of an 18th century granny in bonnet peering down from the mantel. “Aunt Bertie” has become both friend and icon for their project, which had Francy coming down from Boston on weekends to draw plans for Scott to execute during the week.

The master bedroom tucked in a corner of the main floor barely holds a poster bed and antique case pieces. Francy converted a small second bedroom into dressing/closet space. The adjoining bathroom breaks from cottage classic with a wide-board floor splatter-painted by Scott, à la Jackson Pollock, against a black background.

At Cosmo, one word demands a thousand pictures — that word being collections.

Examples: A dining room wall covered with 24 framed prints by a 19th century British aristocrat/caricaturist known as Spy. His exaggerated figures of notables, valued by collectors, were published in Vanity Fair.

Old checkerboards hang in the basement stairwell.

Ships galore — paintings, drawings, postcards and models, including a table-top sized schooner made by a prison inmate; these remind Scott of sailing his own, off Nantucket, as does a framed map of the island, dated 1824.

Carved figurines include multi-national Santas and gyrating African forms, some brought back by Francy’s daughter, an anthropologist.

A huge assortment of rusty antique food tins crowd a kitchen shelf.

Family photos; between them, Francy and Scott have five daughters and four grandchildren.

Carpets, some shipped back after attending a wedding in Turkey, followed by a sailboat cruise through the Mediterranean and Aegean. One was woven in Russia, a century ago.

The crown jewel of collections would be Scott’s Victorian mercury glass, displayed in a corner cupboard. This technique practiced in Bohemia, Germany, England and Boston in the 1800s requires blowing double-walled goblets and other objects, then filling the space with a liquid silvering solution and sealing with a metal disk. Silvered and mercury glass became the first art glass forms meant for display, not table use.

Typical of second-time-around couples, Francy and Scott brought to their new home furnishings they couldn’t live without. Every piece has a story. A light fixture has propellers that spin like a fan. The rough-hewn coffee table was a kitchen table, in Nantucket, before legs were shortened. Many formal antiques descend from Francy’s Ohio lineage, where her father — according to the stately portrait in the dining room — was a bank chairman. Fold-down desks, electrified cranberry glass oil lamps, sea chests, display cabinets, a bentwood high chair and a few curiosities, like a post they found buried under the front porch, inscribed H.A. & E.E. Jackman, perhaps long-ago residents.

Despite gutting the house and rearranging space, the effect — excluding the glamorous grounds — seems as much preservation as renovation, with a nod to Williamsburg. Coincidentally, “They were my clients,” Scott says.

To protect the integrity of their own home, the Samuels carried out a “grand plan” to purchase and renovate the cottages flanking Cosmo, creating a pocket neighborhood which received a Spruce Up award from Southern Pines in 2014.

Now, the design-build team of Francy and Scott Samuel has “sort of retired.” Looking back, Scott’s only regret is not making the move sooner. “It didn’t feel strange or different,” he muses, with surprise. After 16 years the trains don’t bother any more. They enjoy walking to the library, farmers market, Sunrise Theater and restaurants. Scott continues, “Every time I pull out of the driveway I feel I never want to leave this house. I want to stay here forever.”

Spoken like a true ad man.  PS

Story Of A House

Our House, Our Town

Finding serendipity on Massachusetts Avenue

By Deborah Salomon 
Photographs by John Gessner

When the Roaring ’20s crashed in 1929, so did construction of luxurious winter residences in Southern Pines. One exception was a Dutch Colonial- style home designed by Alfred Yeomans in 1930 on prime Massachusetts Avenue acreage. Yeomans, a landscape designer and James Boyd’s cousin, had built the Highland Inn a few blocks away with Aymar Embury II. The new home on Massachusetts was owned by two daughters of Julia Anna “Annie” DePeyster of Ridgefield, Connecticut — Estelle Hosmer and Mary Justine Martin.

The DePeysters, mother and daughters,  were typical of urban high society flocking to Southern Pines and Pinehurst for the mild winters. The family tree included two Colonial mayors of New York City. Another descendant, Frederick DePeyster, was a loyalist who fought on the side of the British in the Revolutionary War, was exiled to Canada, returned as a wealthy merchant, and rejoined New York’s social and economic elite. Annie DePeyster’s husband, Johnston Livingston de Peyster (a variant of DePeyster)  enlisted in the Union Army at 18 and was credited with raising the first Union flag over the Capitol Building in Richmond, Virginia, after the city fell in 1865. He passed away in 1903. Why the sisters sold the fully furnished house in 1936  to the Catholic Diocese of Raleigh for half price remains a mystery, though Annie passed away a year later at the age of 90. William Hafey, the first Catholic bishop of Raleigh, kept his elderly father there; and Elizabeth Sutherland, a founding member of the Southern Pines Garden Club was a subsequent owner.

How very proud Yeomans, Embury (who built himself a cottage nearby) and the DePeysters would be of their accomplishment, now curated by Mary and Mike Saulnier. The flower, vegetable and herb gardens flourish, laid out and tended by novices who learned as they dug, moving and preserving decades-old plants. The house itself gains personality from irregularities and novelties — off-center dormer placement, angled walls, an exposed brick chimney rising two stories, a back stairway leading to the maid’s room (now a guest suite), a pair of interior windows, massive original bathroom fixtures and black-and-white tiled floors, a call bell system for the servants, and an under-the-stairway closet where hangs a clever fire extinguisher. Iron radiators, some covered with perforated screens, have been left in place as icons of the pre-forced air heating/AC era.

By way of introduction, in the foyer hang Yeomans’ architectural drawings, an homage to history beautifully framed by the Saulniers.

“I found them in the basement,” Mary says.  That find inspired her to compile a scrapbook containing newspaper clippings about the house and its wealthy occupants, as well as other schematics.  Because for Mary and retired Army Col. Mike Saulnier, this home represents another type of find.

“We were looking for a hometown,” Mike says.

Mary spent part of her childhood in Alaskan whaling villages, where her father taught in a one-room schoolhouse, later relocating his wife and eight children to Pennsylvania. Mike, from a military family, moved around.  They met at Shippensburg University.  Beginning in 1999, the military and NATO posted Mike, Mary and their children to The Netherlands, Belgium and Korea, sometimes for several years, with plenty of time to absorb the culture and acquire household goods.

The homesteading desire appeared in 2009, when they were stationed at Fort Bragg.

“We were sitting at the beach, trying to figure out where to live, since we didn’t have any connections,” Mary recalls. While browsing online she found a Weymouth listing that sounded attractive. They drove over and instantly fell in love with the area and, subsequently, the Dutch Colonial, which had been renovated and needed only painting (Mary and Mike did the interior themselves), window treatments, landscaping and minor adjustments.

“It felt right. We never looked anywhere else,” Mary says. Neither golf nor horses influenced their decision.

They moved in 2011 and began making the house their own. An unusual rectangular pool, for example. This came about when Mike discovered nothing would grow on that patch, also that a pool would cost less than a flagstone terrace. But nothing motel-style. He laid out the shape with ropes and hoses. “We wanted it to look like a water feature that had always been here.” The result, a safe 5-foot depth with a grayish pebble lining that makes the pool fade into the surroundings. An ozone purification system replaces chlorine. Add a few lilies and he’d have a pond.

Crumbling bricks on garden walls were made on premises by Yeomans, and a Dutch wooden gate replicates the one hung by the architect.

The main floor has a circular plan; turn right inside the front door, go through the dining room, kitchen and family room, windowless office and into the living room, which opens onto a screened porch. The only addition, by a previous owner, was the family room, which begs the question: Why are the walls angled in several directions?

Mary explains that the room was built not to disturb an ancient tree, perhaps a sugar maple like the huge one with dense canopy that shades and cools a portion of the yard.

That tree, a grassy lawn and boxwoods bring New England to the piney Sandhills.

If only nations could live as harmoniously as the furnishings the Saulniers collected in Europe and Korea. An Asian aura prevails, serenely, without resorting to red lacquer. A set of calligraphy brushes on a runner printed with the Korean alphabet adorn the foyer table, hinting at what lies within. Folding screens serve as headboards. Bells line shelves. A step-down bedroom chest, Mary explains, is finished and operational on both sides making it suitable as a room divider. But for every Korean artifact there is a table, a dresser, a desk or bookshelf — some carved antiques, others plain and functional —  acquired at auctions in Belgium and Holland.

“I am naturally attracted to rustic and classic in muted tones,” Mary says. Her palette flows from moss greens and woodsy browns to oatmeal, linen beige, deep maroon and putty. Dusty turquoise appears briefly in the living room alongside an 18th century Flemish tapestry, with a few brightly colored Vietnamese bed coverings upstairs. Mary chose other fabrics with contemporary motifs. She and Mike upholstered bedroom headboards themselves using only plywood, padding, damask and a staple gun. In fact, “Everything we did is the first time we did it,” Mary says.  Original oak and pine floorboards host carpets Mike brought back from Afghanistan. Beams cross the living room ceiling but this is not a house weighed down with crown moldings. Instead, objects like a colorful child’s kimono hung from a curtain rod practically jump off the slightly textured plastered walls.

In the DePeyster’s era a small galley kitchen was sufficient for the hired cook. Now, when houses sink or swim in the kitchen, the Saulniers’ bypasses glitz and gadgets for warmth and European country charm while providing every amenity. An L-shaped layout, beadboard cabinetry (except for a few original carpenter-mades), thick natural wood and Provençal blue ceramic countertops, a French Quimper tile backsplash, a small vegetable sink in addition to the oversize farmer model, make it a comfortable and convenient place to prepare meals. In a corner stands an antique baker’s rack holding Mary’s pride: a collection of polished copper pots and skillets without which a French chef wouldn’t attempt even a scrambled egg.

More than 3,000 square feet on 1 1/2 acres seems generous for two people and a cat. Yet no room (except for the family room adjoining the kitchen) is oversize. Mary thought ahead. “The kids are gone but we want them and the grandchildren (two, already) to come home and stay in the house for holidays and make noise.” Besides, she continues, the way the house is configured, when one area gets noisy other spaces, indoors and out, offer alternatives for quiet conversation.

Back to finding a hometown. As with the house, Mary and Mike Saulnier lucked out. “This area has a real blend of cultures and people and viewpoints,” Mary says. “You go to an art exhibit and every person you meet is from somewhere else — but it’s still a small town.” A small town graced with historic homes, preserved and furnished with fascinating memorabilia of lives well-lived, including theirs.  PS

Diamonds Are Forever

Living on the lake fulfills a fantasy

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

Houses often represent milestones: a new baby, job promotion, retirement.

Once in a while, there’s a Cinderella factor, which better describes the desire and means to transform a ho-hum ranch into a lakefront cottage showplace filled with art and sunshine. Wielding the wand was Jayne Rhodes, who already had Prince Charming in husband Ed.

The story unfolds like this:

Jayne grew up gracefully Southern, in Lexington, North Carolina, home also to Artis Hardee, who developed Whispering Pines in the 1960s. Her friends, the Mashburns, had a summer cottage on Thagard Lake, where she spent idyllic vacations: “I loved the water, the sailboats . . . ” Sun sparkling off the wind-rippled surface reminded her of diamonds. “I carried that memory throughout my life,” she says. It’s a life that eventually brought Ed and Jayne to Moore County, where they raised a family in a Weymouth residence built in 1895, then at National Golf Club.

Jayne suspects Ed was suffering from golfing guilt when he surprised her with “I’ll do anything you want,” to which she replied, “Let’s drive out to Whispering Pines, see if a house is for sale.”

They spied one, with a lock box. Ed, being a Realtor, had a key.

“We walked in and that was it,” says Jayne, recalling a day 20 years ago. “I looked beyond the house and saw the view.”

The house, built in 1968 by a Navy admiral from California, had high ceilings and hardwood floors but not much zip after standing empty for years. “When we came back the amount of work made Ed sick. It was just old, but we’re good at remodeling,” Jayne rationalized. “Don’t worry, baby. It’ll be fine.”

Jayne’s vision of “fine” would challenge the most determined fairy godmother.

With the view as her lodestar and an eye for design, Jayne marshaled forces.

First, a layout adjustment. The small kitchen looked out onto a carport, which made it dark. That space became the formal dining room, while the elongated living room-dining area became all living room divided into two sections by furnishings and area rugs. At the end, a sun porch the depth of the house became the bright, sunny kitchen with many windows, vanilla cabinetry, cocoa granite countertops and — just imagine — a framed mirror over the range cooktop. “I can stand at the stove cooking, and see that painting (Jayne points to the end of the living room) reflected in the mirror.” Another novelty: The center island is L-shaped, with the sink positioned so Jayne can see beyond the breakfast room to her precious lake, while washing dishes.

That breakfast room represents a separate chapter. Ten years ago a squirrel found its way into the kitchen. While repairing the damage, Jayne and Ed decided to add this space, entirely surrounded by windows, as well as a deck, all facing that mesmerizing view.

Jayne isn’t sure why the main floor has only one bedroom, the master suite, with a ceiling vault that brings in even more light. Perhaps the admiral and his wife preferred privacy.

The staircase to the above-ground basement is open, making it as much a part of the foyer as one leading up would be. On this level, the family living room with raised fireplace and antique mantel, looks out onto gardens, a hammock, fire pit and dock through paned French doors which replaced Holiday Inn sliding glass. Two bedrooms and a bath accommodate the Rhodes’ three daughters and their families during frequent visits.

Miles of moldings, painted paneling, beadboard, columns and louvered windows lift this ordinary ranch to a higher architectural level. Its contents fuel another narrative.

“Sandhills Community College changed my life,” Jayne says. She always wanted to paint, realized an aptitude and finally enrolled at SCC, studying with Denise Baker. “In class I got the idea of a framing business.” As a result, Framer’s Cottage opened in 2001. The downtown Southern Pines gallery sold furnishings and décor accessories, as well as offering designer framing. Here, Jayne became acquainted with local artists while fine-tuning her passion for art. Her collection, including some of her own charcoals, dominates the house, from a picture rail near the living room ceiling, to a photo-quality painting of spring blossoms hanging over an antique ice box. “Ed gave me that on a date,” she smiles. “He said if you marry me, I’ll buy it for you.”

The ice box, a church altar piece/foyer table, her mother’s corner cupboard, a dry sink and a few more family antiques complement Jayne’s penchant for dark woods, leather upholstery (impervious to grandchildren) and outdoor hues — pale, mossy green, beiges and browns brightened with ivory and white present in every room.  Primary colors are limited to the paintings, several reminiscent (along with terra cotta tile flooring) of Spain, where Jayne attended university, perfecting the language and absorbing the flair.

She adores the look of distressed painted pieces, which repeat throughout the house, even on ceramic and pottery lamps which, Jayne proudly confirms, are made in America.

Most unusual are wall treatments accomplished by “printing” a pattern directly onto the paint. In the dining room Jayne used a comb to achieve the modular block effect. Downstairs, she replicated a feathery design with . . . a feather duster.

Overall, Jayne describes her décor as transitional, a mix of traditional and contemporary falling just south of eclectic.

Like every fairy tale, this one has a scary part.

The Rhodes bought their lake house in October 1997. With renovations almost complete, moving was set for Dec. 9. The day before, Jayne went to buy more paint. Her car was hit at a stop light, causing serious injuries requiring surgery. Friends and her Sunday School classmates pitched in. By the time she came home from the hospital, almost everything was in place. “Our world had changed in a moment but the diamonds on the water helped me convalesce,” Jayne recalls. Then, when she could walk, she enrolled at Sandhills.

Ed experienced a scare, too. While carrying a refrigerator down the stairs on his back, he heard an ominous crack. Miraculously, he wasn’t injured. Later, a penny was found at the scene of the near mishap. Jayne called it Ed’s “lucky penny,” framed and hung it near the scene of the misadventure beside a lucky paper penny she brought from Spain.

Window boxes, creeping ivy, flower beds and bright green grass sloping toward the lake complete the transformation from ranch to cottage. The final details address the exterior: an antique front door and painted shingles covering plank siding. Jayne added rose trellises to that carport, which remains an homage to the decade when Whispering Pines was born.

So, in the end, Jayne’s fairy tale came true: a house on the lake of sparkling diamonds conjuring long-ago summers spent with a BFF. A house where grandkids can eat drippy popsicles on the sofa. A house with fine paintings and traditional furnishings from Drexel but no Sub-Zero, in a neighborhood newly invigorated by young families.

Most important, a husband whose doubts were put to rest by the finished product. “As long as Jayne’s happy . . . ”  PS

East Meets West Down South

The house of a thousand stories chronicles a career abroad

By Deborah Salomon  •  Photographs by John Gessner

They met in a used furniture store in Columbia, South Carolina. Catherine was looking for a dresser. John was seeking distraction. He was from splashy Miami, “When it was young and empty.” She was from Albemarle — a doctor’s beautiful daughter raised in a gracious Southern home with wraparound porch, shaded by magnolias. Their life, a magic carpet ride through far-away kingdoms, plays out in a brick house on Massachusetts Avenue, attributed to society architect Aymar Embury II and Louis Lachine, an engineer associated with the Highland Pines Inn who, in the 1920s, built 10 spec houses near the  resort hotel.

Now, this one runneth over not with Southern heirlooms but Asiana, Africana and a Marco Polo-worthy trove. John and Catherine Earp display more than a painting here and a table there. As a Ford Motor Company executive in the 1990s John was posted worldwide, primarily in Asia. “What we have collected is more about memories than things,” he says. Still, shipping their massive collection from posting to posting and finally to retirement in Southern Pines boggles the mind.

But with Ford footing the bill, why not?

John was in the Army when he met Catherine. After discharge, he started with Ford in Cincinnati, Ohio, then Kansas City, Missouri, soon moving into the glamorous motor sports division. After two years, company hierarchy tapped him to open a new market, as director for Ford Motor Company in Korea.

“Is there a cookbook for that?” John asked.

No, but you’ll figure it out, the suits replied.

Catherine’s reaction: “Korea . . . where’s that? But I was excited, not apprehensive at all.”

Neither had a passport.

Off they went, first to a fabulous hotel for two months, then to an equally fabulous house overlooking a river, where they lived for two years.

The house needed furniture. Ford provided a $15,000 allowance. Catherine and John were already auction hounds. Oreos were an underground prize but in Korea they found “markets” similar to famous Les Puces (Fleas) in Paris. “The Koreans wanted everything new and modern; they weren’t interested in their grandmothers’ stuff,” Catherine discovered. This younger generation unloaded gems of the simple, practical Korean style — notably a stunning high-rise armoire in the living room, heavy chests meant for blankets and sleeping mats elsewhere. Some pieces, like the living room sofa with a teak frame, were made-to-order with distinctively Korean lines.

Then came Japan and Thailand, more markets, more décor finds.

Western eyes blur Asian styles. The black lacquer cabinet in the dining room is actually a Chinese wedding chest, functioning like an American hope chest where brides stored linen gifts. Catherine points out her many elephant motifs emblematic of Thailand, beginning with 10 carved specimens parading across the living room mantel. Fronting a stretch of small-paned windows, vaguely British along with the coffered ceilings, stands a row of alabaster Buddhas from a Burmese monastery. Exporting them required untangling red tape with government ministries. “It’s a sign of respect to Buddha,” John says. “Having them here is a rare thing.”

But because they lived in several Buddhist countries, “We also have a reverence for him,” Catherine adds.

Bells, bells everywhere — from cow bells to temple bells to elephant bells — some massive, made from iron, stand in the foyer, while others, more delicate, are displayed in a glass-fronted curio case. Catherine has positioned her collection of Japanese dolls throughout the house. These armless, legless painted wooden kokeshi (some with bobble heads) look like precious bowling pins, too tall and heavy for cuddling. But the most fanciful objet d’art is a miniature “spirit house” resting on a fern stand in the dining room. Like birdhouses, these carved structures with spirals and wings erupting from walls and roof are placed outside the home, to welcome beneficial spirits.  “Our real house in Thailand looked just like that,” Catherine says.

Their real house in Southern Pines has a circular floorplan; a tour begun in the large foyer tracks through the living room, dining room, kitchen, two dens/offices and back to the foyer without retracing a step. The original room designation remains a mystery. Catherine believes the two offices off the foyer might have been bedrooms with a bathroom, perhaps used as overflow accommodations by the Highland Inn. Outside, a terraced garden, fountain, pond and trellis covered with Confederate jasmine speak more North Carolina than South Korea.

The second floor, with lower ceilings and fewer moldings, suggests the house was planned for entertaining, with architectural details concentrated downstairs. Here, Catherine appreciates having enough wall space to display their art collection, including several waterscapes, some painted on lacquer, from Korea, where commercial fishing flourishes.

The kitchen had been enlarged and renovated by a previous owner who added a vaulted ceiling paneled in pickled wood — more Western than Eastern. However, musky olive green walls, a black enamel farm sink and sculpturesque gas cooktop mounted on the island impart an Asian flavor — except for statuettes of saints, brought from Central America, looking down from atop a cabinet.

Beyond the kitchen is a practical feature rarely seen in either classic or contemporary residences. A door opens into a hallway to the laundry, garage and stairs to the former maid’s quarters, now a private guest suite with heart pine floors, dormers, built-in drawers and claw-foot bathtub, all accessible without entering the house itself.

If Catherine loved Asia, South Africa left her positively ecstatic, perhaps because they lived on a predator-free game preserve where gentle kudus ate out of her hand, over a backyard fence. “The animals! You see these wonderful animals everywhere!” she says. Art and artifacts throughout the house, including zebra wallpaper in an upstairs bathroom, memorialize this experience.

“Africa changes you,” imprinting not just your house, but your soul, John says. Catherine felt closer to the earth from having lived there. “It’s just magical — both the animals and the people.”

John and Catherine enjoyed a lifestyle reminiscent of British colonials learning folkways from servants and drivers — not all positive. “Africa made me look at poverty differently,” Catherine says. “Our housekeeper taught us never to waste food, not a scrap.”

“Yet the people fought through poverty. They didn’t act poor. They were industrious,” John observes.

In 2013 the Earps (yes, he’s related to Wyatt, distantly) chose Southern Pines — and this house — for their retirement because Catherine’s sister lives down the street. Reason enough, without the existential link. For a decade or more the sturdy brick Weymouth residence was known as the H.H. Pethick house. Henry Pethick served as U.S. vice-consul in Saigon, in 1919. He then became a Standard Oil executive in China, returning only when Japan began bombing Canton, according to a Sept. 1937 edition of The Pilot. Mrs. Pethick had come back a year earlier, undoubtedly with household souvenirs. When the Pethicks sold the house in May 1945, a front page story described it as “one of the most attractive and elaborate residences in Southern Pines.”

No mention, however, of serene ghosts floating about in fine silk garments, waiting patiently for their ship, piloted by the Earps, to sail home.   PS

Long Live Loblolly

The halls are alive, with the sound of . . . a new generation

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

Ah, the good old days, the Roaring ’20s, when Southern Pines throbbed with urban intelligentsia wintering in cottages and mansions — the most prestigious built by New York architect Aymar Embury II — while they partied with author James Boyd’s coterie. Picture life in the Gatsby era as described by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a Boyd house guest. Perhaps he strolled over to Loblolly. Embury had taken on this second project for James’ aunt, Helen Boyd Dull, in 1918. Auntie Helen, founder of the Southern Pines Civic Club, christened it Loblolly, honoring the indigenous pines which she had lobbied her father to save from the booming turpentine industry.

Nearly a hundred years after Helen Dull’s death in 1924, ghostly echoes of Jazz Age soirees, heated discussions and philosophical musings compete with the barking of five dogs and the laughter of three small children kicking a soccer ball or playing fort in the bamboo grove.

Loblolly, purchased by Erin and Mitch Lancaster in 2011, is once again alive and lively, like a fashionably dressed dowager whirling across the ballroom floor in the arms of John Travolta.

Possible, since Loblolly actually has a ballroom — or so it was called.

“We call it the Big Room,” Erin says. Indeed, at 7,000 square feet total, big is Loblolly’s operative word. The house, including two guest suites with kitchens, sleeps 14  comfortably. The Lancasters have hosted a wedding on the terrace, with reception complete with dance floor in the Big Room.

The stock market crash and ensuing Great Depression silenced the ’20s roar, but Loblolly stands witness to the history that shaped Weymouth Heights.

When James Boyd lured his Princeton classmate, already a “society architect,” to Southern Pines no architectural style prevailed in the nascent enclave.  While Embury developed the Boyd homestead as Classical Revival, he shook, not stirred, Loblolly. Instead of a rectangular footprint the house stretches longitudinally as far as the eye can see.  Sources provided by the Moore County Historical Association describe it as “recognizable but difficult to define, not quite English Norman cottage, or French, not Art Nouveau — with stuccoed clay tile, checkerboard brick, bell-cast and hipped and gabled slate roofs with tile ridges.” Which boils down to a divine mishmash that established prototypes influencing subsequent homes in growing Weymouth Heights.

After Mrs. Dull’s death, Loblolly was sold to the Vale family, who retained ownership until the 1970s. A fire in 1926 caused the Vales to hire Embury to rebuild and add the ballroom wing.

The tennis court is gone, the swimming pool filled in, the acreage divided.  Inside Loblolly seemed dark and imposing by today’s standards, with its hewn beams, teak and walnut floors and miles of built-in bookcases — hardly a tempting project for a young family.

“I didn’t even want to move (to Southern Pines),” Erin Lancaster says. She is from Richmond, Virginia, Mitch from historic Windsor, North Carolina. They met in Raleigh. His parents lived at Woodlake. The young couple, then with a baby and toddler, were looking to relocate — a possibility, since Mitch operates his businesses from home.

“We were visiting friends and loved the idea of walking downtown,” he says. For fun, they looked online. Loblolly popped up. That was on a Sunday. They viewed the property on Tuesday, made an offer on Friday, which was accepted the following Sunday.

“Not much had been done — it needed a few upgrades,” Erin remembers, charitably. “It had that ’80s look, with faux marble.” The Lancasters knew what might be involved from remodeling their Raleigh home. Full speed ahead — systems and big jobs first.

But making a historic property livable and practical goes beyond fresh paint and new carpet. “We wanted it to be comfortable, not stuffy,” Mitch says. In other words, Erin adds, no no-touch zones.

Here, architectural features dictate interior décor: Paned metal casement windows decorate walls like paintings. Sculpted moldings in the dining room channel French chateaux.  Plaster walls hand-rubbed into an undulating pattern throughout were likely the work of craftsmen imported from New York by the builder.  Built-ins dominate public rooms.

For participants in the Southern Pines Garden Club Home & Garden Tour on April 14, a walk through the Lancaster-era Loblolly will be a magical mystery tour, beginning with a dark, wide, slightly monastic foyer whose only decoration is Erin’s favorite Biblical verse, from Isaiah, stitched on fabric in the shape of a cross, framed, and hung on the wall — her talisman. To the left, through a paneled round-topped door is the formal living room with beamed ceiling and an entire wall of bookcases, also of dark woods, which convey a library effect.  The Lancasters call this the Christmas Room, perfect for their big tree.

“We wanted traditional (furnishings) to match the house,” Erin says. What they brought from their previous home fit beautifully. High-backed upholstered chairs, a circular upholstered coffee table/ottoman, her desk and side pieces — even a bread trough under a window shelf — are oversized to match the living room’s dimensions. Yet, she reports, the kids have enough space to run laps around the sofa.

Erin’s interior designer, Susan Brown of Raleigh, chose light solids and patterns (some classic Schumacher) for upholstery and drapes to relieve the dark paneling and floors, which are original, gorgeous and sparsely covered by Orientals.

“Susan worked with me on our house in Raleigh,” Erin says. “She knows me so well.”

Nowhere is the scale of Loblolly’s original footprint more evident than in the dining room, which accommodates 12-foot table, a full-sized sofa under the window, an exquisite French china cabinet filled with Minton bunnies (Erin’s trademark) and other pieces without crowding.

Here, Susan and Erin created a wild juxtaposition that works: The tabletop is made from wide, roughly textured planks while the Papa Bear-proportioned chairs have ornate French Provincial frames upholstered in a floral fabric. Under the table, a sisal all-weather rug, in neutral sand because, Erin points out, “The kids run through here on the way to the kitchen.”

The kitchen, of course, required gutting. A small bedroom and pantry behind it were removed to open up space for a family sitting/dining area. The kitchen itself displays an unusual arrangement of two parallel islands, with sink on one and range, ovens, refrigerator against the walls. Carrara marble tops the massive bureau-style walnut cabinetry. A ceramic tile backsplash adds another texture. “Mitch has the good brains about how a kitchen functions,” Erin says, understandable since he’s the family chef.

When it comes to colors, Erin and Mitch part ways. She adores the pale aqua predominant in the dining room and on some fabrics. He likes red. Erin and Susan Brown have softened his bright primary into a rosy rust, which lives peaceably with Erin’s choice throughout the house, but especially in the family dining area.

The Big Room, sunken a half-dozen steps below the main floor, elicits disbelief. Approximately 40-by-25 feet with a high ceiling of the same undulating plaster, built in bookshelves lining two walls, paneling elsewhere, a wood-burning fireplace and two TVs, the space is arranged as the baby grand piano area, the conversation area and the bar added by the Lancasters, where a small kitchen with dated metal cabinets once stood. Beside the bar, a grouping of two pale yellow leather chairs, made in New Zealand, seem lifted from a modern art museum. “We were at a gallery in Las Vegas, looking for paintings,” Erin explains. “Mitch saw the chairs and sat down on one. He said, ‘Oh, these are comfortable.’” Others have noted that Elvis might share his opinion.

Pack ’em up, ship ’em east.

Loblolly has no grand staircase. The elevator has been removed. The second floor remains a maze of wings and narrow hallways, dormer niches with light streaming onto a heirloom slipper chair or table. But the bedrooms (eight, total, including the garage apartment) are enormous, with window seats and sitting areas. Son Milum’s room has two four-poster beds from Mitch’s childhood, while daughter Beverly uses Erin’s small  chests of drawers and plays with her mother’s stuffed bunny collection. The kids have a designated Lego room. One small bedroom has become Erin’s closet/dressing room. At the end of the hallway the master suite with soaring ceiling and windows on three sides looks out over terraces, gardens and two-plus fenced acres bordered by ancient trees — another world, another story

Loblolly represents not only an extinct lifestyle, but materials and workmanship impossible to duplicate. The trick is dressing old bones in new clothes. “We’ve been chipping away at it for seven years,” Erin says. “We’re about halfway done.” During that time, the Lancasters had a third child, adopted several rescue dogs, enticed Erin’s sister and her family to a house down the road. Mitch entered city politics. And a renewed Loblolly is once again the scene of dinner parties, meetings, play dates and social events.

“It’s a God thing that we ended up down here,” Erin concludes. “OK, here’s your path, God told us. So if this is where we’re supposed to be, let the house pass inspection.”

Loblolly is one of six homes featured on the 70th Annual Southern Pines Home & Garden Tour, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, April 14. Also included, an exhibit at Campbell House recounting how club members shaped the landscape of the community through their projects and initiatives. Proceeds from the tour support local beautification and horticultural scholarships. Tickets: $20 in advance, $25 day of tour (at sites). Advance tickets are available at The Country Bookshop in Southern Pines and Pinehurst Woman’s Exchange, or through the club website: www.southernpinesgardenclub.com.

Portrait of the Artist’s Home

A place where nothing matches but everything belongs

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

There’s something about Jessie Mackay’s house . . .

Outside, distressed bricks melt into the wooded 2-acre lot rather than jumping out onto the road that winds through Country Club of North Carolina.

Its contents — fewer heirlooms than souvenirs of a life well-traveled — begin their story in the soaring front hall, where hats hang on a coat tree:

“I wore the pith helmet when we rode horseback across Malawi into Zambia,” Jessie begins. Beneath the hats stand boots; Wellingtons speak of her life on a farm in the Cotswolds. On a campaign chest are arranged antique watch faces and a pipe picked up in France, a carved box from Hong Kong and cavalry spurs used by an ancestor. In the corner, a weathered Old Glory leans beside a Union Jack, affirming her dual citizenship. Although fascinating, these artifacts pale beside the paintings — everywhere: her own, those of friends, family members and fellow artists. Some, like a vibrant purple abstract by an Ecuadorian painter positioned on the upstairs gallery wall, attracted her purely for its color.

Jessie grew up in Westport, Connecticut, bordering Manhattan art and culture. She recalls attending a Van Gogh exhibit at the Guggenheim every day, “until (the staff) didn’t want to charge me admission.” Her British parents were casual painters. Jessie might have felt an inclination but, instead, followed a career in consultant management, which included measuring behaviors and results to enhance the workplace environment.

Well, Gauguin sailed with the merchant marines and Cézanne studied law.

Jessie dabbled a bit in high school. “After getting married I wanted something on the walls.” Her first inspiration came watching laborers in a British steel mill, admiring their physicality. The result, hanging in the living room, recalls grim early 20th century factory scenes immortalized by American artist Thomas Hart Benton.

Otherwise, Jessie identifies with Fauvism (think Matisse, its practitioner), defined, in part, as color existing as an independent element — intense blobs of it, rather than within finely drawn lines. “I felt painting was an outlet, a meditative thing,” she says. Not until early middle age did she make art her career. Her first show in Atlanta sold out. Her debut at Campbell House Galleries in Southern Pines moved 13 paintings, more than double the average.

Life, marriages, careers, activism took Jessie to various houses in many countries. In 2008 she was alone in Pinehurst, looking to downsize. Her first impression of the CCNC saltbox built in 1982: “Brick, ugly roof, sad, a mess inside.” Yet its bones and cross-hall two-story layout reminded her of New England while her design skills promised improvement. She and builder Buddy Tunstall made plans. First, the exterior. The painter had never done peeling brick, so they tried the obvious: spray with white paint, follow immediately with a pressure washing. Jessie recalls how the workmen laughed.

But it worked. So did the bright yellow door, the circular drive and informal landscaping. Back acreage, fenced for Jessie’s Jack Russell terriers, appears delightfully wild in the weak winter sun.

Inside, carpet was replaced by hardwood. Bathrooms needed remodeling — one in charming green toile wallpaper with graceful bureau-turned-washstand — but the three upstairs bedrooms remained intact.

Not so the main floor. Jessie decided to tear out several small rooms spanning the rear, including a dated kitchen, install an extra support beam and repurpose the space as her studio (with bay window), a long galley kitchen and small den with wood-burning fireplace. This was accomplished without dividers. The kitchen is beyond startling, since a guest walking through might not realize its purpose. On one side, an oven, a single-width refrigerator and cooktop niche are embedded in a brick wall. A polished harvest table used as both work island and seating is positioned down the middle with cabinets, drawers, sink, another bay window crowded with plants on the opposite side.

In the spring, a dogwood tree blooms just outside the bay.

“It reminds me of Europe — a lot of stuff, a lot going on,” Jessie explains. The brick provides a textured background for paintings, including the portrait of a friend dominating the south-facing studio with two easels, paints, brushes, stool and a portable typewriter. Locating her workspace adjoining the kitchen made sense. “I didn’t want to allocate a bedroom for a studio.”

Her office and laundry room line the hallway leading to the garage with doors not visible from the front.

Jesse misses her dogs, cats, horses and other creatures from what she called The Farm of Content Animals, since none of the ducks, chickens, geese, lambs or cows entered the food chain. Bovine portraits hang over the den fireplace, flanked by English corner chairs with leather seats and open sides to accommodate the sabers worn by officers.

Jessie courts a lived-in look. “Everything (these days) seems so contrived — a blanket draped just so over the couch,” she says, and points to a woolly throw in disarray on her own. “The dogs made that pile,” before falling asleep on it.

Jessie found the small living room both appealing and functional — especially after constructing bookcases across an entire wall. Half shutters on low-set windows continue the New England effect, although furnishings speak faraway tongues. The unusual high-backed sofa in Jessie’s favorite khaki is from a fine North Carolina manufacturer, but her leather-seated folding campaign chair (for easy transportation) experienced far-away battles. Facing it a plaid armchair with ottoman channels the ’60s. Each artifact on the mantel tells a story, each painting reveals a connection. Conversation never lags here.

“I wanted my dining room table to be wide enough,” Jessie says, to accommodate her stepsons and grandchildren. She chose one from Ireland, of yew wood, surrounded by Windsor chairs. Paintings lean against the wall, for decoration or perhaps awaiting a buyer.

Rugs throughout are, predictably, well-worn Orientals in subdued hues except for the den, where sheep gambol across a pastel background, to offset a shabby-chic white sofa.

Jessie admits to using the house as a supplemental gallery. “The problem for artists is that people don’t have wallspace any more,” she says. Her walls, painted gradations of white and framed by crown moldings, are covered but not saturated. Arrangements change as paintings sell. Emotional attachments don’t hinder business as with some artists: “There’s no sense of loss. Paintings are like children; when they’re 18, it’s time to go.”

Sometimes she follows them. Each year, Jessie returns to Tanzania, where she and friend Tally Bandy have established empowerment programs where women earn enough by raising pigs and goats to educate their children. To this endeavor they have added solar kits made in North Carolina, which enable the women to establish charging stations for lights and mobile phones. A few paintings reflect the African project.

So much life, in a moderate living space. “When I have a party we’re like puppies in a box,” the artist smiles. An elegant box, yet comfortable, inviting, with several areas to sit and chat, walls hung with oils and acrylics of varying shapes, moods, styles and expressions — even double entendre as with zebras crossing a busy thoroughfare.

Indeed, there’s something about Jessie Mackay’s house . . .

That something is Jessie Mackay.  PS

Treasures of Home

A proud Southern couple furnishes their house with family history

By Deborah Salomon   •   Photographs by John Gessner

Family means everything to Mary Balfour Dunlap and her husband, Murray Dunlap. Mary Balfour grew up alongside grandparents, aunts and uncles. “My cousin is like a sister. Family is who we are.” These roots run deep in Mississippi, where Mary Balfour’s father, a cotton farmer, became an Episcopal priest. The Balfour in her given name honors a great aunt. Portraits hanging from her walls represent ancestors. Murray — a lauded writer, poet and artist — is from Alabama, where Mary Balfour later lived and worked. His background also included old, beautiful Southern things. Nowhere do their heritages blend better than in a simple yet charming brick bungalow where furniture, paintings, carpets, silver and china hum the same tune.

“We didn’t buy one single piece of furniture. My dad and mom and Murray’s dad were collectors,” Mary Balfour says. Coincidentally, their parents were downsizing. Just imagine, if these tables and chairs, sofas and bureaus could speak of the people, places and events they have witnessed.

No need. Mary Balfour  (“I’m the talker, Murray’s the introvert”) serves as docent.

“Murray flew me to Mobile for our first date,” she begins. They had never met, only talked and corresponded. Once there, she recognized a kindred spirit. “I saw his house . . . I was drawn to his art.” The tall blonde with wide smile was attending seminary in Austin, Texas, fulfilling a vocation that came after working as a fundraiser in Washington, D.C., and Birmingham. Murray, who holds an Master of Arts in creative writing from the University of California at Davis, had survived a catastrophic car crash in 2008 that left him in a coma for three months, then wheelchair-bound with traumatic brain injury and memory loss. His progress, although slow and arduous, has been dramatic. Murray mows the lawn, tends the garden as well as creating abstract/modern art — and publishing a book. He has been selected as writer-in-residence for November at Weymouth Center for the Arts & Humanities.

They married in 2015. Murray works from home. Therefore, where to settle was Mary Balfour’s decision.

“If we can’t be near family, we want to be near good friends,” she says.

A position as associate rector opened up at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Southern Pines. Close friends from Birmingham, Elizabeth and John Oettinger, lived here. Mary Balfour accepted, then tasked Elizabeth with finding a rental house, preferably in Southern Pines, where the church was located. The friends had similar tastes. Choices, however, were limited.  “I looked for a place where I would consider living,” Elizabeth says. She investigated a post on Instagram, forwarded photos to Mary Balfour and Murray, who took it on faith.

“I saw the picture of the mantelpiece and could imagine Daddy’s portrait over it,” Mary Balfour says. “I knew I could keep my china and silver, which we use every day, in the (built-in) corner cupboard.”  The clincher was a sunny side porch enclosed as a den, where Murray could write — also, an outbuilding which now houses his painting studio.

In October 2016, they moved into their first shared home.

This brick quasi-ranch built in the early 1950s on an oversized treed lot escapes the stereotype via paned bay windows and a small, uncovered front porch with white railing and two enormous Boston ferns flanking the blue door. Off to the right, a cottage furnished in less-formal antiques serves as guest quarters.

Once inside the house, a predictable floor plan is eclipsed by pieces from comfortable, much larger Mississippi Delta homes, circa early 20th century. The living room armoire was made by slaves: “Not a screw in it except for hinges,” Mary Balfour points out. The walnut “secretary” (drop-leaf desk) belonged to Aunt Balfour.

The living room settee (definitely not a couch or sofa) framed in carved wood is upholstered in pale avocado, the colors drawn from Persian carpets worn threadbare and mended by Mary Balfour’s mother. Artwork, including several Dali drawings, are framed and grouped artistically. “Murray has the eye,” his wife learned.  His black and white landscape photos make up part of the gallery. Mary Balfour calls two side chairs reminiscent of a medieval castle her “bishop’s chairs” since a Costa Rican bishop stayed at Owen’s Place, the guest house named after their beloved dog, recently deceased. A pair of Cavalier King Charles spaniel china figurines have been retrofitted as lamps and placed on the sideboard underneath a portrait of Murray’s namesake ancestor.

Two other portraits dominate the living-dining space: Mary Balfour’s grandmother in a Red Cross uniform, the other of her grandfather, also in uniform, both painted in Italy during the 1940s — a coincidence, since they did not meet and marry until after the war.

Another, of a great-grandmother, illustrates the romantic Gilded Age genre.

Delight is in the details. A collection of snuffboxes sits on a silver tray on the coffee table, exactly as it did in Mississippi. Crosses made from steel drums were acquired on a mission to Haiti. And tags with notes written by a grandmother hang from exquisitely wrought silver serving pieces which Mary Balfour keeps polished.

Along a narrow hallway lined with family crests, two of the three bedrooms contain tall, heavy four-posters, one requiring a stepstool, which, even in modestly sized rooms look comfortable, since other pieces are small and simple. The master bedroom furniture recreates Mary Balfour’s parents’ room exactly, including the prie dieu, but not an Indiana Jones hat perched on a post, recalling Murray’s fishing trip to Montana. Mary Balfour especially favors a guest room wall where hang three generations of wedding photos, including her own, and names engraved on a Tiffany wedding cup.

But not all is as expected. Instead of traditional Southern rose, spring green and tepid blue, Mary Balfour chose a pale khaki for the parlor walls and festive cranberry and olive  for upholstery. Florals, another Southern décor staple, are scarce except on a wing chair and heavy, dark, crewel-stitched dining room curtains, from Mexico.

The kitchen, of course, had been redone — not overdone — with black countertops, a bar-island,  butler’s cupboard, stainless appliances. The original carpenter-made wooden cabinets remain, painted white. “This is our most comfortable room,” Murray says. Here, Mary Balfour accessorized with a breezy contemporary touch, including a glass bubble lighting fixture, bright rooster posters from New Orleans and McCarty art pottery — the Mississippi equivalent of Seagrove.

“We live in the den,” adjacent to the kitchen, Mary Balfour confesses. This is Murray’s domain and repository for chairs, bookshelves, a wooden storage box made by his grandfather and a dry sink, most from his childhood homes, as well as his books and a progression of art work; Man with a Beard, painted before the auto accident, is Mary Balfour’s favorite. “I didn’t know him then. His painting has changed. This gives me a glimpse into who he was.”

What was — along with artifacts conveying a bygone lifestyle — remains central to the lives of this handsome, interesting couple. Their home accommodates an Ugly Christmas Sweater church party as easily as a literary gathering or supper for a few friends. Conversation never lags as Mary Balfour enthralls newcomers with background on their furnishings. She has already begun thinking about the future, how best to preserve and distribute family treasures along with their histories to cousins, nieces and nephews. For now, they are used, enjoyed and safe. Because, as Mary Balfour says, “We are the keepers.”  PS