Arts & Crafts at Home
Working Together in Harmony
By Anne Stewart O’Donnell
Photography by Martin Fox. Styling by Sallye Fox

“Seclusion, scenic charm, loveliness of the sunset, songs of the birds—these may be enjoyed in the wooded knolls.” So ran a 1930 auction notice for a North Carolina farmstead, which the seller planned to split into suburban lots. “Plenty of ground for flowers, gardens and fruit,” the ad goes on. “Sites...that invite unusual treatment in designing charming houses, lawns and gardens.”

On the eve of the Depression, however, a lot of optimistic plans went awry. The property remained an undivided tract with outbuildings and a 1916 farmhouse, two miles from the county seat. And so it was when the current owner and her husband purchased it as empty nesters in 1981. For two decades, the woods, fields, and Colonial-style farmhouse proved a perfect place for friends to visit and grandchildren to roam. But when her husband passed away in 2001, the homeowner was faced with a decision: stay in the house they had shared, or move to someplace smaller.

“I loved the property, and I loved the history,” she says. “I knew if I sold it a developer would cut down the trees and put up plastic houses.” So she opted to stay and make a few renovations, such as a bathroom addition to turn the den into a first-floor master suite.

Enter Charles Furman McLarty, a Charlotte-based architect. “I came up for a look and found a very pleasant, family, country house,” he said. White with black shutters, it appeared at first glance to be a standard Colonial Revival home. Then he noticed wide eaves and shaped rafter-tails—not a “Colonial” feature. “The woodwork inside was also very square and simple—nothing Colonial about it.” He and his assistant Andy Shackleford agreed, “This house started out Arts and Crafts.”

By that time, the homeowner’s ideas had expanded to include major refurbishment, a new kitchen, and extending one wing to allow for a new den and dining nook. She liked McLarty’s suggestion that they “honor that Arts and Crafts DNA” with the updates. “I’ve lived in an antebellum plantation house, a Spanish stucco house, a Tudor, and a split level,” she told him, “but never in an Arts and Crafts house, and I’ve always liked the style. Let’s do it!”

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