Section B
Wednesday, July 20, 1983
Qtye barren Eccorii
Owner Discusses Home's future
Cherry Hill Preservation
Aim Of New Foundation
By KAY HORNER
Staff Writer
If you stand with Edgar Thome on the lawn of his
ancestral home, Cherry Hill, and gaze intently at
the front door, you can almost see George Alston's
widow lift the hoons of her skirt and sashay out to
greet you.
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munity of Inez has been in Thome's family since it
was built in 1858. It has been Thome's permanent
home since 1978.
He actually purchased the house in 1965 and
began spending summers there about 10 years ago.
A retired art history teacher who has served on
the faculties of the University of North Carolina, the
University of Virginia, and the University of Cali
fornia at Riverside, Thome and his sister, Mrs.
Elizabeth Johnson, who lives with him, were raised
in the community of Airlie outside of Littleton.
But Thome glosses quickly over inquiries about
his own background to get to the important part of
the interview — Cherry Hill, a house that at one
time was the focal point of a tobacco and cotton
plantation of several thousand acres sloping down
to the fork of Shocco Creek and Fishing Creek.
"They wanted to live high on the ridge among the
oaks with the farm on the lowland," Thome noted.
The "they" Thome referred to are Southerners of
the mid-nineteenth century in general, and the
Alston family in Warren County in particular.
The widow of George W. Alston, an uncle of
Thome's whom he describes as several times re
moved, had the house built in 1858, about nine years
after her husband's death. Alston had planned con
struction of the house, and Thome suspects that his
widow's delay might have been to gain the counsel
of her three sons, who were minors at the time of
their father's death.
Alston's son, George, Jr., inherited the house af
ter the death of his two brothers. At his death in
1916, no settlement was made of the estate. After his
wife's death in 1948, the house was passed down to
their eight children.
In 1960, Thome, who had inherited two shares of
the estate, began to purchase the undivided in
terest of the children, his uncles and aunts.
"I bought the first thinking I'd never get
another," Thome said recently in an interview at
his home.
But he prevailed and in 1965, when his uncle, Ed
Faulk Alston, who lived in the house, died, Thome
was able to buy the remaining shares.
The house was in good repair when Thome
acquired it, and he gives credit for that to the aunts
and uncles who maintained it — Jennie C. Alston,
Carrie Alston, Ed Faulk Alston, Sol Alston, and
their niece, Marina Williams.
"It was maintained through difficult times,"
Thorne said. "But it's not in too bad repair consider
ing it has never had a formal restoration."
Thorne hesitates to say he is restoring the house,
fearing that the word "restoration" implies an over
night effort that produces a slick showpiece rather
than a home.
"We want to retain the character of the home as
always lived in," Thome said. "We don't want it to
look like a magazine illustration with a perfection
ist, machine-turned look."
But the evidence of a little painting and sanding is
apparent here and there.
Thome is doing much of ♦he wo»-k himself, in
cluding repair and painting« he p]a., . walls.
One room was ?'"en a facelift with the help of a
professional plasterer, but Thome is now trying a
technique where he simply covers the cracks in the
plaster and then the whole wall with joint compound
and dees the painting himself.
A brickmason has been called in to work on the
foundation, and Thome pointed out that bricks
could be removed from one comer of the house
without jacking it up and without the subsequent
sagging that a 20th-century homeowner might ex
pect.
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mer afternoon visit to Cherry Hill might have begun
over a hundred years ago, with lemonade in the sit
ting room.
The doors and windows were opened wide, in
viting a gentle breeze to circulate through the
house.
"The big windows were made for entertaining,"
Thorne explained. "People then had a zest for en
tertaining, and it was usually done in the summer.
The windows provided the light and the circulation
of air."
Four large doors, which appear to be windows, on
the front of the house are a stylish precurser to the
modern, sliding-glass door. They slide into pockets
in the wall, providing ventilation through the
louvered shutters, which can be opened to provide
access to the porch.
Much of the original furniture is still in the house,
and it seems almost unbelievable that the draperies
in the parlor never fell prey to that custom the true
historian finds so deplorable — redecorating.
Made from raw silk, most likely from Paris or
Brussels, the draperies have survived the years in
tact with significant wear only on the areas exposed
to the sun.
The house has its concessions to the practical. The
main hall circular staircase is broad to allow for the
ladies' hoop skirts, but the staircase at the rear of
the house is narrow accommodating only young
boys and servants.
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three other utility buildings. When it was moved in
side, two petitions, since removed, provided pantry
space for the family's staples including barrels of
flour, lard, and other cooking necessities.
Some items in the house are from Old Cherry Hill,
which stood about 300 yards behind the present
home. Among these are four crystal decanters, all
with stoppers, a fact Thome singles out as unusual.
"I guess we owe that to post-war temper
ance," Thome quipped, referring to the era when
tee-totalling was more fashionable than toddies.
"The stoppers would probably have been broken
had they been used."
The original Cherry Hill was the home of Lt. Col.
William Alston and his wife, Martha Hardee. He
was a delegate from Bute County to the Provincial
Congress at Halifax on April 4,1776 that framed the
Halifax Resolves.
As Thome tells it, Alston bequeathed "the plan
tation whereon I now live" to his wife for her
natural life and hence to his son, Medicus, who pre
deceased his mother. The homeplace was then
divided into five lots and left to her children.
In 1824, two lots were sold out of the family to
Richard Hines who later sold them to Charles
Urquhart and others.
Thome's family again came into possession of the
property in 1838 when George W. Alston, nephew of
Lt. Col. Alston, purchased the two tracts which the
deed referred to as "The Cherry Hill Place."
The house came into disrepair with the years,
and Thome guesses that the desire for a larger
home for entertaining led to the abandoning of that
house and the construction of the present one. As a
child, Thome remembers only one wing left stand
ing, used for hay storage.
liie present house has been attributed by some to
Jacob W. Holt, a builder in the Italianate style who
was responsible for the construction of quite a few
Warren County homes during the boom period of
the 1850s to 1870s.
But Thorne begs to differ on the basis of a record
of payment of $4,000 to John Waddell, who at one
time worked with Holt.
The census of 1850 shows Waddell as a member of
the Holt firm, but the census of 1860 describes Wad
dell as working independently in the county.
Thorne surmises that Waddell had become an in
dependent builder by 1857 when, according to
family tradition, the house was begun.
Thome's aunts remembered hearing their father
talk about Waddell. In fact, one recalled hearing
her father say that Waddell gave him his first
pocketknife.
The fact that they never heard their father men
tion Holt seems evidence enough for the family that
Holt was not the builder of the house.
But the style of the house and the tudor motif are
admittedly Holt's influence on the architecture of
the county.
The future of this 19th-century Italianate home in
the Warren County community of Inez is bright with
the prospects of cultural and educational events,
In addition to his interior restoration work,
Thorne also hopes to restore some of the outside
area to its original state.
Although there are no photographs of the two
gazebos that once graced the front lawn, Thorne has
verbal descriptions and rebuilding them is one
aspect of his master plan.
He also wants to see the sidewalk, now only wide
enough for the passage of one person, returned to its
original width, equal to that of the front steps.
Thorne describes his aunts and uncles as "ex
tremely hospitable" people and he recalls seeing
the walk bustling with guests making their way to
the house.
"Cherry Hill was the family center, especially on
Christmas and special occasions," he said.
Of course, anyone who might begin to wax
nostalgic about the good old days and how pastoral
Cherry Hill must have been will get a reminder that
the lawn, for one thing, probably looks better now.
"Remember, the grass was kept cut by cattle and
horses grazing, and no doubt there were many more
weeds then," Thorne explained.
Cherry Hill lost 26 trees in 1954 when Hurricane
Hazel came through, and a root fungus has caused
the loss of one of the old, stately boxwoods that add
such charm to the house. Thorne fears he may even
tually lose all the boxwoods that border the house.
A concern that the house be maintained in the
thanks to the efforts of Edgar Thorne, whose an
cestors built the home.
(Staff Photo by Kay Horner t
future led to the recent establishment of the Cherry
Hill Historical Foundation.
"The rapid decline and loss of old homes made
me want to preserve this one," Thome commented.
"Private ownership of rural homes is difficult. So
often the houses are abandoned and given over to
vandals."
Thome hopes Cherry Hill will always serve a
function and be a cultural and educational center
for however large an area it can radiate to.
Although the house and 14 of its 450 acres has been
deeded to the foundation, Thome and his sister will
continue to live there as long as they want and to
maintain the house.
The primary purpose of the foundation is to work
toward a maintenance fund for the future.
Serving on the Board of Trustees of the foundation
are George Blackburn and Mrs.~6eorge Harvin of
Henderson, Mrs. Mason Hawfield of Littleton,
Thome and Mrs. Johnson.
The first of the foundation's activities will be an
exhibition of quilts and a quilt workshop in October.
Concerts, lectures, and other events will be an
nounced later. A Christmas tour is also on the agen
da.
Because of Thome's efforts, it appears that
Cherry Hill, unlike so many of its contemporaries,
has prospects of gracing Warren County for many
more years.